DIMAPUR, JANUARY 13 (MExN): President of the Eastern Naga National Government (ENNG), R Stephen Naga in a statement to commemorate the first anniversary of the ENNG, which falls on January 14, called upon all youths to “join hands with the ENNG to strengthen our national Government and the Naga Army in order to defend our nation vigorously.”
Stating that under the military occupation of Burma, the Eastern Nagas have been through untold sufferings in the past more than fifty years, he reminded that villages were burned, thousands killed, molested, raped and “Christian villagers were forcefully converted into Buddhism.”
“Our people were marginalized and treated as inferior to them. Our lands are being confiscated according to their Constitution, in which they enshrined that Land belongs to the Government, and minerals which are underneath or surface, under water or in the air, belongs to the Government,” Naga stated.
He informed that the Eastern Nagas have lost land ownership rights, minerals, forest cover; their environment has been contaminated and their men irrespective of age are being destroyed by opium.
“No Government or organization is there to check and control all these evil practices. We are therefore, imperatively needed to strengthen our Naga Army in order to protect our land, our right and to defend our people from being destroyed,” he stated.
He said that the ENNG was formed to “strengthen the Naga Army in Eastern Nagaland in order to defend the right of Eastern Naga people joining hands with the armed groups of other ethnic nationalities of Burma.” This he said was needed because, “unless the Eastern Nagas have a separate political entity at present, we find no way to build up friendship and alliance with other ethnic nationalities in Burma.”
“The ENNG will maintain solidarity of the Naga people and uphold what truth is and will cooperate with the political organizations and all socio organizations of Nagas who stand for the truth and are working for the wellbeing of the Naga people,” he affirmed.
The ENNG President said that the Eastern Nagas are “proud as free people.” He however lamented that after the 1950s the nascent independent Government of Myanmar “started forcefully claiming Eastern Nagaland as integral part of Burma without the knowledge of Naga people and sent its Army to occupy our land. Eastern Nagaland had thus unfortunately fallen into the military occupation of Burma since then.”
The Nagas, he stated, “had no choice but to resist the aggressor at all cost and formed the Eastern Naga Revolutionary Council (ENRC) on 7th April 1964 and hence the Eastern Nagas have been relentlessly defending the sovereignty of Eastern Nagaland. We pay homage and respect to the ENRC leaders and soldiers who sacrificed their lives and undauntedly defended our country in their times.”
“Though we have formed the ENNG to face the present circumstances, we uphold a single entity of Nagaland as only one nation,” Naga meanwhile affirmed. He assured that the ENNG would “maintain peace with all the Naga political groups and also with the Indian Government.” He however cautioned that the ENNG would not give room for “factionalism and sectarian political games.”
