Morung Express News
Dimapur | July 31
After agreeing on a broad framework to resolve the Naga issue politically, Indian and Naga negotiators following extension of the ceasefire by a comfortable one year period will make an attempt to reach a settlement during this one year period. Earlier there were reports about the option of making the ceasefire irrevocable and coterminous with the peace talks.
According to a news report in The Telegraph yesterday, the idea of making the ceasefire coterminous with the talks originally came from Michael van Walt, legal adviser to the Dalai Lama and a facilitator in the peace talks. “This way neither the NSCN (I-M) nor the government of India would have the choice of breaking the ceasefire. If the talks break down, so will the ceasefire. We were agreeable to this from the beginning,” an Indian negotiator said.
On the Indian objections to the principles underlying the framework of analysing the Indian Constitution article by article, Indian negotiators said the NSCN (I-M) was being accommodative. According to the Telegraph news report yesterday, Muivah was reported to have said: “We have yet to finalise a redefined framework. But a few changes have been made and the approach to a solution has been mutually accepted.”
The Naga leader said not only the Indian Constitution, “but the Naga Constitution will also be analysed by the two sides”.
He said it was “simply not possible” for the Nagas to accept the Indian Constitution. However, he added: “We will accept the fundamental principles of the Indian Constitution such as democracy, secularism, republicanism and the protection of human rights. These are universal principles and they have been an essential part of Naga polity.”
He said the terms of the agreement would “define the relationship between the two entities”.
The Indian negotiators have not taken a hard stand on a separate Naga Constitution, according to the news report.
“We are not closing the option of a separate Constitution. What we are saying is that let us begin by analysing the Constitution of India, as suggested in the agreed framework article by article and see where it takes us. After that we will see what can be done,” one of them said.
The Indian negotiator claimed that the approach of the proposed framework had been appreciated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself.
Commending the approach of the Nagas to the agreed framework, he said: “The only way negotiators can go to the government is after a procedure has been agreed.”
That procedure has now been accepted.
“From the next round of talks, we will start the process of constitutional analysis,” Muivah was quoted as saying in the news report.
