KUKI NATIONAL ORGANISATION
PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF
ZALE’N-GAM, MANMASI
ZG
No.006/01/05
Manmasi 21st May 2005
George W Bush
President
United States of America
Dear Mr Bush,
Your conscientious zeal
to uplift the downtrodden among humanity and to genuinely defend the
integrity of human dignity through democratic principles is a source of much
inspiration. The courage you have demonstrated, for example, in Afghanistan
and Iraq has given me hope and confidence to appeal for your attention and
intervention to alleviate the plight of the Kuki people in northeast India
and northwest Burma.
India has the reputation
of being the largest democracy in the world today. The United States of
America is a champion of democratic rights for all citizens of the world.
The Kuki people live in their ancestral land, which was brought under the
British India and British Burma administrations. Prior to the arrival of the
British, the Kukis were never part of India, Burma or any other entity. They
were an independent people. Following the Kuki rising of 1917-1919, the
British imprisoned the prominent Kuki chiefs in Sadiya jail in Assam, and
Taungyi jail in Burma. In post-independent India and Burma, a lack of
initiative from the respective governments has failed to address the plight
of the Kukis.
Records of human rights
abuse by the Military Junta of Burma are well known, but abuse of Kuki
people’s rights may not be widely available. In India, the Kuki genocide
between 1992-1997 led by National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Isak &
Muivah (NSCN-IM) left over nine hundred people – mostly women and children –
dead, three hundred and fifty villages uprooted particularly from the hill
districts Ukhrul, Tamenglong and Senapati in Manipur state, and about fifty
thousand people displaced. Ironically, however, the Government of India is
more concerned about talking to the NSCN-IM, perpetrators of crime against
humanity, rather than to Kukis, the victims.
A
few of the gruesome incidents carried out by the NSCN-IM are listed as
follows (Please see enclosure ‘NSCN-IM MASSACRE OF OVER 900 INNOCENT KUKI
AND UPROOTING OF OVER 350 KUKI VILLAGES’):
i)
The Zoupi massacre of 13 September 1993. 90 Kuki men were mercilessly hacked
to death with machetes. This day is marked as ‘The Black Day’ for Kukis.
ii)
19 September 1993, at Taloulong transit camp, thirteen male infants all
under 5 years old were selected and butchered in front of their mothers.
iii)
7 June 1993, at Khalong, in Sadar Hills, 8 women were raped and then killed,
along with 3 children and 3 men.
iv)
8 October 1992, at Moultuh, in Chandel district, 3 women were murdered after
being raped; a two-month old female and two men were also killed.
v)
19 November 1994, at Thingsan, also in Chandel district, NSCN-IM cadre
dressed in Indian Security Forces’ uniform killed 25 Kuki men.
The Government Of India
made a hue and cry when NSCN (IM) was targeting the Indian Security forces,
looted Indian Banks, or when they abducted Indian bureaucrats. As a result,
the Government of India published Does Violence Get a Mandate, a
document submitted to the United Nations Organisation, in which NSCN-IM was
declared a terrorist organisation. However, when NSCN (IM) shifted their
target upon innocent Kuki civilians, GOI appeared to be relieved.
Subsequently, contrary to their previous stance, GOI negotiated with NSCN-IM
in 1997, declared a bilateral ceasefire, invited the leadership for talks,
appointed various interlocutors and continue to hold talks with this
terrorist organisation, sometimes abroad and sometimes in India, trying to
please them. This is very difficult for Kukis to bear when NSCN-IM have
killed hundreds of my people, burnt down our houses and chased us like wild
animals. According to National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang (NSCN-K),
too, the NSCN-IM are terrorists and has links with Al-Qaeda. By any stretch
of the imagination the priority given by the Government of India to NSCN-IM
seems highly irregular for a democratic nation. It appears that the
Government’ is only willing to hold dialogue with organisations that indulge
in grave atrocities.
Even though numerous
memoranda have been submitted to the heads of the Government of India
(including the present prime minister, Shri Manmohan Singh) and to the
Military Junta of Burma, precious little has been done to address the needs
of the Kukis. For example, in 2003 during the NDA government, I personally
met with Shri ID Swamy, the State Minister for Home Affairs, and explained
the problem of the Kukis. Perceiving my reconciliatory intentions, he
promised that the Government would have talks with KNO at the Prime
Minister’s level. When nothing was forthcoming regarding the promise, an
enquiry was made through Holkhomang Haokip, Member of Parliament from the
outer hill constituency of Manipur. Mr H Haokip received a written reply
shortly from Shri LK Advani, Home Minster and the Home Secretary stating
that they would hold talks with KNO. Despite the formal assurances, however,
the Government did not keep their promise, and talks with KNO have never
been held. This is the nature of treatment Kukis get from the Government of
India.
In 2004, NSCN (IM) Leaders came to New Delhi at the invitation of the
Government. Hundreds of Kuki students in Delhi belonging to Kuki Students
Organisation, held peaceful demonstrations against GOI holding talks with
the organisation and their criminal leadership, Isak and Muivah, who are
responsible for the death of hundreds of Kukis. KSO questioned GOI’s
rationale for engaging in dialogue with NSCN (IM), the perpetrators of Kuki
genocide, but not with Kukis, who are the landowners and the victims of
genocide. The students displayed placards and banners calling for
preservation of ‘Kuki territorial integrity’ and also showing photos of
innocents Kuki women and children raped and killed by the Tangkhul-led NSCN
(IM) and their supporters. Coffin rallies carried out by the student body in
Delhi in December 2004 (Hindustan Times 8 December 2004) and February 2005
(Hindustan Times 2 February 2005) bore no response either; regardless, GOI
continued to hold talks with NSCN-IM. The danger that lurks behind the talks
is that NSCN-IM may con GOI into conceding Kuki ancestral land to become a
part of Muivah’s design of ‘Greater Nagaland’. In such an eventuality, GOI
would be encouraging terrorism. They would also be sending a wrong signal
that terrorist activities do gain attention in order to get what they want,
rather than peaceful approaches, such as followed by the Kukis’ thus far.
Given the nature of the
ongoing dialogues between GOI and NSCN-IM and all the measures the former
adopts to accommodate the latter provides ample evidence that Kukis are the
neglected group. For instance, since colonialism came to pass in India, the
Government created Nagaland state. In contrast, Kukis who defied colonialism
to the very end of WWII for the sake of their territory – along with the
Indian National Army led by Subhas Chandra Bose – but accepted citizenship
of post-independent India and Burma in good faith, as yet have not been
given statehood in either country. It seems that the Government’s attention
can only be gained by violent activities, such as the mass killings and
deracination of the Kuki people by NSCN-IM. Should the Kukis be forced to
resort to the same strategy in order to draw the Government’s attention?
Notwithstanding the
positive principles Kukis hold steadfast to, they are in an abysmal state
today. This is a result of total negligence by the governments of India and
Burma. Through colonial deliberations the territories that our forefathers
strove hard to defend are now incorporated in different states and districts
in India, and in different state and Division in northwest Burma. Following
India’s independence from Britain in 1947, by 1960s in efforts to seek
proper redressal of their lot the Kuki National Assembly developed
irredentist ideals. Reversal to the status quo of pre-British era promised a
panacea to Kuki predicament. Proclamations of secession from India followed.
However, a change in KNA’s objectives necessitated striving instead for
statehood within the Indian union. In post-independent Burma, appeals for
statehood in Burma also fell on deaf ears. Rather than initiate dialogue,
the Military Junta adopted harsh measures to blot out Kukis from the map.
The people have been deprived of their rights since General Ne Win took over
the country in the 1962
coup-de-tat.
The military junta launched the Khadawmi operation against the Kukis in
1967. Over 20,000 people fled to the neighbouring country. As a part of the
Military Junta’s clandestine Burmanisation policy, thousands of ethnic
Burmese people were settled in former Kuki villages. There were instances of
Kuki Christian pastors being skinned alive and many villagers being
imprisoned on false charges.
Consider investigation
concerning the Kukis and the instantaneous reports normally provided would
be uncomplimentary images largely based on the accounts written by British
officials. British accounts have been biased because Kukis opposed
colonialism from the outset, i.e. since 1777 at the time Warren Hastings was
Governor General of India. In contrast, Nagas were mostly supporters of
colonialism. After 1919, Kuki chiefs, as landowners, were not allowed to
receive tax and tributes from the Tangkhuls and Kabui Nagas in Manipur. The
NSCN-IM are now negotiating with GOI to include in ‘Greater Nagaland’, land
that belong to the Kuki chiefs. On what rationale does GOI engage in talks
with NSCN-IM regarding ‘territorial integration’ without also talking to
Kukis, the landowners? Owing to suppression by colonialism, today, Kukis are
underdogs, and consequently victims of atrocities committed by the dominant
neighbours, be it in Assam and Nagaland in northeast India, or in northwest
Burma. The dire predicament of the Kuki people is being taken advantage of
in regard to talks concerning their future. This is unbecoming of a
democratic Government. Nevertheless, Kuki’s response to their circumstance
is often attributed to their ‘recalcitrant’ disposition (another legacy of
the colonialism), rather than as measures they are driven to in total
desperation and exasperation. On the question of the ludicrous idea of
‘Greater Nagaland’, an illuminating news item was printed recently in the
Imphal Free Press:
Dimapur, May 22: In what
is seen as a major blow to the NSCN (IM), its MIP Kilonser (Minister), AZ
Jami, who had also served the faction as Kilo Kilonser (Deputy Prime
Minister) and Executive Secretary of the Steering Committee, defected to
rival NSCN (K) faction on May 20.
Jami’s comment with
regard to integration:
When we talk about Naga
integration, we must remember that unless the people concerned prepare
themselves for it, no individual or organization can do that by force,” he
said while also observing that political solution of the Nagas of Manipur
could not be negotiated by the Nagas of Nagaland and vice versa as that
would be a cardinal error.
Mr President, in view of
your commitment to democracy and will to firmly oppose terrorism wherever it
raises its ugly head, I, president of KNO, like to appeal to your fair
judgement concerning the Kuki people and your support to alleviate their
plight. As indicated above, direct appeals to the Government of India and
the Military Junta of Burma have neither generated confidence nor
inspiration for us to follow entirely the same avenues. Spurred by NSCN-IM’s
drive for ‘Greater Nagaland’, which rests claim to a vast stretch of Kuki
territory, and the need for peace, stability and security for the Kuki
people, KNO was formed in 1989. The organisation has an armed wing to defend
the Kukis from the threat of NSCN-IM, and to prevent the designs of the
Meitei militants of Manipur to forcibly settle in Kuki areas of Chandel and
Churachandpur districts in the state.
The objectives of KNO
are not anti-India or anti-Burma. They are reconciliatory and respect the
historical rights of their immediate neighbours, Nagas and Meiteis in India,
and Nagas, Kachins and Shans in Burma. With regard to the independent
countries India and Burma, KNO, imbued with a sense of irredentism, but also
exercising appreciation of the existing circumstance, espouse the ideology
of Zale’n-gam, a term used to refer to Kuki ancestral land and
nation. Concomitant to the ideology, the two strands of KNO’s objectives
are:
a) the historicity of
Zale’n-gam’s sovereignty be recognised;
b) the land that the
British divided between India and Burma be accorded Kuki statehood, one in
each of the two independent countries.
Mr President, your kind
intervention to initiate dialogues between the Kuki National Organisation
and Government of India, and also with the Military Junta of Burma, would be
much appreciated. Purposeful discourses to create statehood for Kukis, one
in India and another in Burma, are vital. Given Kuki people’s history and
the turmoil they have been in especially for the last half-century
necessitates creation of statehood in the two countries. Statehood in the
each of the two countries would help to redress their grievances and the
deprivation suffered for so many years. This will also ensure the people’s
proper confidence and integration within the two nations, India and Burma,
and provide the much needed-guarantee to secure their identity and their
future material development.
The Kuki people, who are
one of the least known on the face of the earth, in sheer desperation is
soliciting the help of the world’s most powerful leader, the president of
the United States of America. Please do not regard the Kukis too small a
community to be seriously considered. The Kukis face continued apathy and
neglect from the Government of India and the Military Junta of Burma. They
remain insecure because of lingering threats from the NSCN-IM and Meitei
militants of Manipur. Protection from the Governments concerned by way of
according statehood and the measures that comes with the status is the only
means of securing the fate of the Kukis. Our people will always cherish your
timely intervention in their present predicament.
Yours faithfully,
PS Haokip
President,
Kuki National
Organisation (KNO)
Zale’n-gam
MANMASI
Enclosure:
1.
‘NSCN-IM Massacre of
Over 900 Innocent Kuki And Uprooting of Over 350 Kuki Villages’ – a KNO
publication.
2.
Memorandum of Kuki
Students’ Organisation.
Note: Views expressed in this letter are entirely of the author.
