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Assam : Ethnic turmoil in North Cachar Hills

	March 07, 2005

Assam’s volatile North Cachar Hills slipped back into the cauldron of ethnic turmoil last week after a spate of kidnappings by militants belonging to the Hmar and Kuki tribes. A senior police official in Haflong, the headquarters of the district, confirmed the incidents. He said the militant Hmar People’s Conference (Democratic) abducted two Kuki villagers in a retaliatory act. The headman of Taijul village, Kamlun Thanson, and a Kuki villager were taken hostage after the abduction of three Hmar villagers by Kuki militants a few days earlier.

The three Hmar youths were abducted from Tuolpui, under Mahur police station, by the militant Kuki National Front (MC). All seven hostages remain untracked. Haflong police said the topography of the district was hampering search.

North Cachar Hills Superintendent of Police Trajendra Pratap Singh said round-the-clock search operations were nevertheless under way to trace the villagers. “It is a militancy-related matter. Security has been beefed up and all possible measures have been taken to prevent any ethnic conflagration,” he said.

Nearly 200 people had died in the ethnic riots of 2003, following abduction of Hmar and Dimasa tribals in the district. The apex organisations of the Kukis and Hmars, the Kuki Inpi of Assam and the Hmar Inpui, have unsuccessfully held two rounds of talks to end the crisis. Kuki Inpi (Assam) president V. Sangson, however, declined to comment on the developments.



Hmar for Church mediation

Meanwhile, the apex organisation of the Hmar tribe has pleaded with the Church to play a role in ending the hostage drama that has pushed Assam’s North Cachar Hills to the brink of another ethnic conflagration.

Hmar Inpui general secretary Joute Hmachhaun said his organisation had been unsuccessfully trying to negotiate the release of three tribesmen who were kidnapped by the militant Kuki National Front (MC) recently. A delegation of Hmar leaders met representatives of the Church in Haflong to discuss the crisis.



Talks with Militants : UPDS, NDFB threats

The United Peoples’ Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) has threatened to resume violence if the ceasefire talks with the Centre and the Assam government fail to yield results soon.

UPDS chairman Longsodar Senar told reporters at Dongkamokam in Karbi Anglong district on March 2 that the Centre and the State Government had adopted delaying tactics and were not interested in meeting their genuine demands.

The UPDS had entered into a ceasefire agreement on August 1, 2002, and since then, three rounds of discussion had been held. “The government has not taken our peace move seriously and is trying to deviate us from our goal of a full-fledged state,” said Senar.

Another militant outfit, National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), a powerful tribal separatist group, has threatened to call off the ceasefire, saying New Delhi had failed to respond to its peace overtures.

The outlawed militant outfit fighting for an independent homeland for the Bodo tribe in Assam, had offered a unilateral ceasefire for six months in October last year aimed at ending nearly two decades of violent insurgency in the region.

“We declared a ceasefire to initiate talks with the Indian government, but our declaration has not been honoured and respected,” NDFB chairperson D.R. Nabla said in a statement.

“The NDFB is prepared to either talk to the government to resolve the conflict democratically and peacefully or to continue our armed struggle till we achieve our goal, which is freedom.”

The NDFB offered the truce after a series of bloody attacks in the first week of October last that killed at least 25 people.

Soon after the violent attacks in October last, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said his government would announce a ceasefire if the NDFB and the other rebel group in the state, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), reciprocated the offer.

The NDFB had sent a formal letter to the State Government announcing a truce for six months in response to Gogoi’s offer.

“We want to give peace a chance and we will stick to the ceasefire declaration. Not a single bullet has been fired at the Indian security forces by us,” the NDFB statement said.

The Chief Minister said he had asked the troops to ‘go slow’ on the NDFB, but fell short of making a direct statement if a ceasefire was on with the rebel group.

“The NDFB wants to hold talks with New Delhi and we are hopeful of something positive emerging soon,” Gogoi said.

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who was in Assam last month, evaded a direct reply on the status of the ceasefire with the NDFB and possibilities for peace talks with the outfit.

“Our patience is being tested and any further delay by New Delhi in reciprocating our ceasefire offer will be detrimental,” Nabla said in the statement.



Assam-Nagaland boundary row continues

The Assam-Nagaland border is beginning to resemble a battleground with both states sticking to their guns on the decades-old boundary dispute.

At the border posts on either side of the road stretching from Naginimora in Mon district to Tuli paper mill town in Mokokchung, police personnel seem ready to shoot from their mounted light machine guns.

Assam has been staking claim to land on one side of the feeder road, while Nagaland insists that the land now occupied by tea estates along the border was originally leased out by residents of over 40 Naga villages. Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio visited the area last week.

The tension in the area is reminiscent of the face-off between the police forces of the two states in 1985. New posts on both sides of the border were set up in the wake of a fracas on Christmas-eve last year.

Last week, Rio accused Assam of becoming “aggressive”. Last week, he asked residents of Bura Namsang, Shetab, Namhaching and Yonglok villages to till the land in the valleys.

Nagaland has argued in the Supreme Court that it wants a solution to the dispute from the “historical and political perspectives”.

Assam maintains that a solution can be found only on the basis of constitutional provisions.

The apex court last month proposed the formation of a judicial commission - a suggestion opposed by Nagaland - and asked both states to provide maps of the disputed area.

Nagaland has been relying on the Survey of India maps of 1925 and pre-Independence reserve forest maps to outline its territory. The state wants portions marked in these maps as Naga-inhabited areas to be restored to it.

Nagaland is publishing a booklet on pre-Independence land records to support its arguments.