Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 21
NSCN (IM) Vice President, Gen (Retd) Kholi Konyak, today assured that the future of the Naga people is safe under the Framework Agreement signed between the Government of India and NSCN (IM) on August 3, 2015.
“Let us look forward, not backward. The past has gone never to come back. Let us dwell on the present keeping the future in mind. Rest assured our present and future are safe in the Framework Agreement”, Kholi said in his presidential address on the occasion of the Republic Day celebration at Camp Hebron.
Kholi said that after decades of conflict, the Indian leadership finally realized that the Indo-Naga issue is political not military, which led to signing of the Framework Agreement. He said the agreement was signed on the basis of respecting the rights of the Nagas and the security of India.
“It embraces all Nagas and their territories, not a part of the people and a part of the territories. It is an issue-based agreement, rejection of which will pull the Nagas back to decades behind others. It is made in the best interest of the two peoples at this given point of time”, he added. Stating that people and nations move and change through revolutions, Kholi said Nagas too must move and change in tune with the changing world.
Kholi at the same time reminded that the mushrooming of factions to fight against each other would only magnify problems and take Nagas further away from solution.
Representatives from Naga civil societies including the Naga Hoho, NGBF, ENPO, UNC and NSF also extended greetings and reiterated the need for an early and honorable solution.
‘Integration within ambit of Framework Agreement’
NSCN (IM) General Secretary and Chief Negotiator of the Indo-Naga Peace Talks, Th. Muivah asserted that integration of Naga inhabited areas and people is very much alive and within the ambit of the Framework Agreement. “Even the Indian leaders agreed that without integration there will not be solution but that it (integration) has to be worked through peaceful and democratic means”, the NSCN (IM) General Secretary said in his address.
Muivah stated that the Framework Agreement is based on mutual respect for separate sovereign rights of India and the Nagas. “Solution is at sight. Now Nagas will have their own rights, we have worked out a path for our future”, he said.
Muivah however said that even as solution is at sight, a section of Nagas are trying to create division and asserted it will not be India or any other country but Nagas themselves who would be responsible for their own downfall. The NSCN (IM) leader cautioned that Nagas shall all perish together if they do not know “who we are and where are we going?” and God’s purpose for the Nagas.
