Peace in Nagaland continues to remain an elusive possibility. Despite a four-year-old cease-fire between security forces and the State’s main insurgent group, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM), a basic disagreement persists between the government and the outfit’s goals. The Union Home Minister I.D. Swami claimed on December 28, 2001 at Imphal, that the NSCN-IM had given up its demand for sovereignty and extension of cease-fire beyond Nagaland. However, speaking in Bangkok in the first week of January 2002, Thuingelang Muivah, General Secretary of the NSCN-IM, remarked that his group had not altered its agenda on sovereignty for Nagaland. This fundamental disagreement continues to overshadow the prospects of a final solution.
On the ground, trends in violence in the State appeared to be showing some improvements. In Nagaland, a total of 10 persons, including eight terrorists and two security force personnel were killed between January 1 and August 4, 2002. Only two security force personnel were killed in terrorism related incidents during 2001 indicating a low level of anti-State violence. This also constituted a decline in comparison with the four fatalities suffered by security forces in 2000. However, 25 civilians and 76 terrorists were killed in 2001 as compared to 13 and 84 respectively in 2000.
Casualties of Terrorist Violence in Nagaland - 2002
Note:Figures compiled from news reports and are provisional. (More Data>>)
2001 was marked by two major hurdles to peace in the State, namely:
1. The Issue of extension of the cease-fire with the NSCN-IM to the Naga inhabited areas of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.
2. Internecine clashes between the Khaplang and Isak-Muivah factions of the NSCN.
There were several positive and negative features that marked the peace process in 2001. On December 7, 2001 Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee met the NSCN-IM leadership in Osaka, Japan. In this meeting both sides ‘reiterated that a negotiated, peaceful, political settlement remained their objective’. This meeting fulfilled a long-standing demand by the insurgent group to ‘elevate’ the dialogue process to the political level. The meeting was, however, of greater symbolic than practical value.
There was, however, a threat to the peace process in June-July 2001 over the issue of the extension of the cease-fire to areas outside Nagaland. The Union government’s decision on June 14, 2001, after negotiations at Bangkok, to extend the cease-fire with the NSCN-IM ‘without territorial limits’ was perceived by the people of Manipur as an incursion on their territorial integrity. Following street violence in Manipur in which 19 people were killed, the government was forced to revoke the decision on July 8, 2001. The NSCN-IM, which had earlier threatened to resume violence if the extension in the territorial jurisdiction of the cease-fire agreement was withdrawn, eventually accepted the July 8 decision and continued to participate in the negotiations.
In an effort to broad base the peace process, a cease-fire agreement was signed with the Khaplang faction of the NSCN (NSCN-K) on April 28, 2001. Earlier, on January 13, 2001, a set of revised cease-fire ground rules was finalised with the NSCN-IM. The government even tried to woo the nondescript Naga National Council-Federal (NNC-F) to join the peace process. But these efforts failed to bring about a final settlement on the Naga issue.
Internecine clashes between the NSCN-K and NSCN-IM remained a major cause for concern in Nagaland. Even as the NSCN-K extended its support to the Union government’s extension of the cease-fire with the NSCN-IM ‘without territorial limits’, the two rivals continued their internecine conflict, particularly towards the end of 2001. Hostilities broke out when activists of the NSCN-K attacked the NSCN-IM’s Cease-fire Monitoring Cell office at Dimapur on October 24, 2001. After several clashes and deaths that followed, the NSCN-K announced a unilateral cease-fire on December 19, 2001.
The continuing cease-fire, despite the reduction of fatalities, has failed to halt large-scale extortion activities by the insurgent groups. ‘Taxes’ were collected by these outfits from common people, public sector undertakings and government staff. Similar activities by the two NSCM groups were also reported from the Tirap and Changlang districts of neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh, and the Dibrugarh and Jorhat districts of Assam. The cease-fire appeared to have provided the insurgents with a legal cover for their illicit financial transactions. News reports on March 3, 2001, said that Coal India Limited, operating in Margherita in Dibrugarh district of Assam, was asked to pay an amount of Rs. 500,000 by the NSCN-IM. Similarly on August 4, 2001, Oil India Limited received an extortion notice of Rs. 600,000. Another news report, on April 14, 2001, citing Ministry of Home Affairs sources, said that the telecom department suffered a loss of Rs. 300 million as a result of unlisted telephone connections with the NSCN-IM in the districts of Dimapur, Kohima and Mokokchung. On November 26, the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) received an extortion note from the NSCN-IM demanding Rs. 300,000 for its operation in Changpang and Gholapani areas in Jorhat district of Assam.
The cease-fire has also failed to halt arms acquisition by the NSCN-IM. A raid on the group’s Information and Publicity Wing office in Kohima on March 29, 2001, led to the seizure of arms, ammunition and extortion letters. The October 24, 2001, attack by the NSCN-K on the cease-fire monitoring cell office of the NSCN-IM was also on the pretext that the office is virtually functioning as a centre for extortion. There are also indications that the NSCN-IM is procuring arms from Thailand through newly identified across dense forest areas of Manipur, Mizoram and Assam.
The political set up in the State, headed by Chief Minister S.C. Jamir, has been long been seen as being ‘close’ to the NSCN-K, and this has been one of the grounds on which the State government has been excluded from the peace parleys. On January 5, 2001, Jamir offered to quit his post to pave the way for the restoration of peace ‘after the Naga problem reaches the final stages for a settlement’.
Civil society in Nagaland, under the leadership of the Naga Hoho, the apex tribal council, has been fast emerging as a rallying point for the Nagas. The council has, of late, successfully carved out a common plan of action along with students’ bodies, the Church and Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs). The Council has been careful to underline the indivisibility of peace, emphasising peace and reconciliation not only between the State’s various tribes but also with neighbouring States. A Hoho delegation’s trip to Assam in September 2001, following the flare-up in Manipur, was aimed at assuaging the hurt feelings of the larger neighbour. The Hoho’s Reconciliation Meet at Kohima on December 20, 2001, helped it to emerge as the symbol of the Nagas, a fact that has also been eventually accepted by the insurgent groups. The NSCN-IM’s initial scepticism was quickly dispensed with, and the group attended the Reconciliation meet to endorse the Council’s initiative. The growing stature of the Hoho has compelled the NSCN-IM faction to call its representatives to Bangkok for further negotiations.
However, the unity of purpose between the Hoho, other active civil society bodies and the insurgent groups cannot be expected to lead to an early solution of the Naga problem. The concept of an independent land for the Nagas is jointly endorsed by the Naga Hoho and the elements of civil society associated with it. In fact, sections of the vocal civil society and human rights groups have been identified as maintaining close links with the insurgent groups. An April 24, 2001, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notification identified the Naga People's Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) and Naga Students Federation (NSF) for maintaining links with the extremists. The State government was directed not to release any funds to the NGOs without proper 'physical verification' of activities and utilisation of funds.
In June 2001, the Naga Hoho rejected the suggestion for a ‘Sami Council’ type of arrangement for the Nagas in the Northeast, proposed by the noted anthropologist B.K. Roy Burman, though they had invited him to recommend a solution. The proposal was based on the Sami council in Scandinavian countries which looks after the interests of the Sami tribe whose members are spread over Sweden, Finland, Norway and parts of Russia and are citizens of these countries. Resolutions adopted in the four-day Bangkok Consultative meeting in the first week of January 2002 between representatives of Naga civil society and the NSCN-IM, also reiterated the idea of Naga sovereignty. One of the resolutions even asked the British government clarify on the status of the Nagas in 1947, when independence was granted to India. It is, consequently, questionable whether the ‘invigorated civil society’ will be of any assistance in the restoration of an early peace to Nagaland.