Stilwell Road: More problems than prospects for now

DIBRUGARH, Dec 1: Generally ?Vinegar? Joe Stilwell must be grinding his teeth wherever he is. For the urgency with which his forces built the road later named after him is today caught in the quagmire of international politics and policy differences. At the end of the two-day deliberations on the problems and prospects of re-opening the Stilwell Road here on Saturday the matter continues to be as complex as it was two days ago whether to expedite the process of re-opening the road at all and if yes how to go about it. A local tea planter, Manoj Jalan, who is involved in the matter, today said that international policy differences are bound to delay the re-opening of the road, as several issues like insurgency, drug trade etc. have to be sorted out at the government level. He visualized a far accelerated economic growth of the Northeastern region with the opening up of the international borders to a free exchange of culture and commence. This view has been shared by all who participated in the deliberations since Friday morning. However, it is yet to be clear as to how the government level official dialogues progress towards making the south and southeast Asian region a free trade zone. While most of the deliberators almost built castles in the air ? this way led by a motley group of varsity professors and college lecturers ? and gave vent to their day dreams about driving down to exotic locations like Kunming and Myitkyina by speeding on the proposed Stilwell expressway, the reality that this may still take several more years to fructify seems to have temporarily eluded this group. The reality is also that though Myanmar appears to be publicly reluctant to open up the Stilwell Road in a hurry, a lot of action is taking place in the Kachin province of that country. The road is being prepared to allow vehicular traffic, and there is reliable information that the first of the Myanmarese army trucks may be rolling down to Pangasau from Myitkying sometime in December this year. There is also information that the regime at Yangon is planning several offices and a regular market at Pangsau. This is definitely good development, as this can also be construed as the first step towards really developing the road and may be one day, open up the road too. The day may be a little away before the Stilwell Road is finally-re-opened, but there are enough optimist about the prospects. This itself was the single most important achievement of the deliberations. Meanwhile, opposition Nagaland People?s Front (NPF) in a statement on Saturday accused the Jamir government of creating ?turmoil? in the state by ?mishandling? the delimitation issue. ?Prima facie evidence have proved doubt that the Congress government in Nagaland is responsible for the mess it had created in the state for its selfishness,? alleged NPF spokesman and former power minister K Therie. NPF, which abstained from the recent all-party meeting called by Chief Minister S C Jamir to deliberate upon the issue, said although the Delimitaton Act was notified on June 4 and the Speaker appointed the associate members, the government had kept the people as well as other political parties in the dark about the draft proposals till the newspapers reported about the exercise. The issue had led to the surfacing of sharp difference of opinion among the electorate in the state, which is characterised by a complex demographic structure. Various tribal organisations and student bodies resorted to agitational courses in Mon, Tuensang and Mokochung districts where the electorate would lose two constituencies each as per the draft proposals. On the other hand, Naga Council, Dimapur and other NGOs observed bandh on Thursday protecting the Jamir cabinet?s stand on the delimitation proposal that Dimapur district be left out from the proposed exercise.