Our Correspondent
Chedema | March 22
The Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN) today observed 61st Nagaland Republic Day at Chedema Peace Camp in Kohima district.
Adinno Phizo, President, Naga National Council (NNC) said that within 60 years, FGN has gone through many crises to handle. The most unexpected was that India invaded Nagaland and devastated the country. “But with the strong village background discipline and resilience our people stayed united and controlled the situation under FGN,” she said.
She also pointed out that through a Peace Mission, the cease-fire agreement was signed between the FGN and the GoI in May 1964 and both the sides met officially several times. However, the Indian government abrogated the agreement in August 1972 and started sending their army and camped in every corner of Nagaland till today empowered with the order of Armed Force Special Powers Act (AFSPA) of 1958, she lamented.
“NNC count all the Nagas as one and the FGN is the centre authority under the Yehzabo (Constitution). There is only one way to save our country, which is the original stand. Nagaland is surrounded by sea of peoples and if our right is lost we could possibly become a minority in our land that we should never allow to happen,” she asserted
General (Retd) Viyalie Metha, Kedahge of FGN, said in the history of nations, the founding of a nation’s Republic Day is always a joyous occasion celebrated in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. “But in our case, the founding of our government was done amidst the sound of gunfire, bombs, destructions and deaths,” he said.
Viyalie also informed that the Nagas had declared Independence on August 14, 1947 after that the Indian troops started to invade Nagaland from 1954 onwards. As proof, he quoted B.N. Mullik, the then director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau, who had written, “Troops moved into Tuensang by October 1955, and the war with the Nagas started from then.”
He also said that every government on earth must note that it was not Naga troops moving into India; but Indian troops moving into Tuensang, Nagaland, that caused the Indo-Naga conflict and that led to establish the FGN on March 22, 1956.
On politics of today, he said, centralization of political power is nullifying the individual’s right to freedom and liberty. With this, he said the Naga people must take upmost caution against all alien political ideologies that are threatening to overtake Naga system of pure democracy.
