Responding to demands by the Kuki-Zo community for a separate administration in Manipur, the United Naga Council on Monday issued a statement vehemently opposing the inclusion of “disputed” territory in the proposed Kuki-Zo administration.
The UNC Manipur said there was no Anglo-Kuki War in 1917-19, calling it a rebellion that ended in massacres of Naga people living in Ukhrul, Chandel, and Tamenglong at the time. The UNC further said that Kuki tribes were “distorting history” in a bid to “legitimise their imagined Kuki homeland within the Naga ancestral homeland”.
The UNC Manipur, which recently rebuked eight of the state’s Naga MLAs for signing a statement with 32 Meitei MLAs, said its statement was a reaction to several representations by Kuki-Zo civil society organisations and MLAs seeking a separate administration. These were sent to leaders in India and abroad.
The UNC said the aversions made in these representations were “a big threat to the very existence and inalienable rights of the Nagas particularly in the state of Manipur”.
The UNC said that Manipur had been “flooded with illegal immigrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh” and called for the Union Government and the State Government to act urgently to prevent the “indigenous population” of the state from being reduced to a minority.
“In all the districts, there has been an expansion of villages…Columns of illegal camps are being built at an alarming rate near the town of Moreh and its surrounding areas to facilitate the settlement of intruding Kukis from Myanmar,” it added.
It further alleged that the Kuki-Zo community was “fooling” people by claiming that the Kuki villages settled in Naga districts were for those displaced in the conflict of the 1990s by “hiding the fact of illegal immigrants”.
The UNC statement, signed by its Information and Publicity Secretary James Hau, said, “the Nagas will not remain mute over the issue. Despite all this Nagas believe its not too late to set the wrong right.”
The Apex body of Naga tribes in Manipur said that the “planting of Kukis in Naga hills” was just one of the many problems inherited from the British, who they said used Kukis as “mercenary tribes” to crush indigenous communities of Manipur at the time.
The representations the UNC has taken issue with include memoranda sent by the World Kuki-Zo Intellectual Council to the United Nations Organisation, the European Parliament and the Prime Minister of Israel.
The UNC said that as for the breaking up of Senapati and Chandel districts in 2016 is concerned, they still consider it an “unfinished” issue. It said this break up was the “result of the Congress’ appeasement policy”.
“Hence the demand for separate administration which incorporates the so-called new two districts is necessarily opposed,” the UNC’s statement said, adding that similar demands for an Outer Manipur region including parts of Chandel and Tengnoupal were not acceptable.
The UNC Manipur went on to say that there was a demand for a “Kuki state” in one of these representations, and wanted to know why it excluded the Zo people.
Furthermore, the Naga body also slammed the representation of Kuki Zo MLAs seeking a separate chief secretary, and DGP.
As the ethnic conflict in Manipur continues, the latest instance of violence was reported last week in Ukhrul district, a Naga-dominated area, where “armed miscreants” shot dead three Kuki-Zo village volunteers.
