DIMAPUR, MAY 16 (MExN): The Global Naga Forum today said that it supports the Naga Club’s and the Forum for Naga Reconciliation’s (FNR) stand for justice, truth, and accountability with relation to the December 4 and 5, 2021 killings in Mon.
A press release welcomed the call for justice for the victims and their families; truth from the state government and those entrusted to investigate the killings; prosecution of the perpetrators; and accountability for the Indian Army establishment and for Government of India under whose laws the crimes were committed.
The GNF said that it carried out a fact-finding mission on location last December, following the killings. It informed that the GNF made a detailed report of the facts gathered and, with permission of the injured and the families of the victims, made a formal appeal for justice to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and further submitted the case to the National Human Rights Commission, India (NHRC). It further reminded that following a two day walkathon organized by the Naga people under the aegis of GNF from January 11 to 12, 2022, a memorandum was submitted to the Prime Minister of India.
“The UN’s capacity to intervene in such cases is not assured because of India’s stubborn opposition to the UN’s intervention in human rights violations against Nagas, which have been going on for over sixty years. But GNF is keeping up the pressure and will continue to appeal for justice with the appropriate UN agencies for human and indigenous peoples’ rights,” it assured.
The struggle against extra-judicial killings of Naga civilians by Indian armed forces will go on despite the challenges from India and some quarters within Naga society, the GNF said. It mentioned that since the Oting and Mon killings last December, “innocent Nagas in other parts of the Naga homeland (Arunachal Pradesh) have been shot and injured or killed by the armed forces (one killed in Kolagaon and Retto Kakho on March 21 and on April 1 four were shot at in Chasa village while returning from a fishing trip, two seriously injured and hospitalized).”
Predictably, there has been no justice for the victims or punishment for the criminals, it rued.
The GNF asserted that the Naga people’s movement for justice and self-determination must go on. It said that the forum is in complete agreement with FNR that “AFSPA must be decisively repealed.” “Naga people have the right to live in our homeland without being harassed and killed by the Indian Army without consequence,” it said.
