Dr SC Jamir is the only living signatory of the 16-Point Agreement. (Morung File Photo)
KOHIMA, December 2 (NEPS): Former Nagaland Chief Minister and Governor Dr SC Jamir dismissed the statement of the NSCN (IM) that the Naga People’s Convention (NPC) had hijacked the Naga issue without the concern of the bonafide freedom fighters.
Without naming NSCN (IM), Dr Jamir, who is also one of the signatories of the 16-Point Agreement and the only surviving signatory of the accord today, while talking to NEPS here at his residence on Wednesday, however, said that it was the NPC that had rescued and redeemed the Naga people who were wandering in the wilderness with chaotic condition and hardships which no other human being in any part of the world had faced.
They should know what the difference between the redemption and hijacking was, he said. “The NPC had never hijacked the Naga issue,” he added.
Dr Jamir recalled how the Naga people had been enduring the hardship unknown, unheard, uncared, and unrecognized by any people. And yet, the indomitable spirit of the Naga people could withstand the onslaught of all these adverse circumstances, he said.
He further narrated that it was definitely the divine intervention that God Almighty focused the apple of his eyes on his children, the Naga people. Having seen the plight of the people, God steered the minds and souls of enlightened Naga leaders who were available at that time and the NPC was born. The leaders of that generation had only one objective that was to rescue and redeem the Naga people to safeguard their political identity, he said.
He also said the State of Nagaland was neither a gift nor manna falling from heaven. But it was purchased neither by gold nor silver but by the precious blood of the Naga people, he mentioned and said, “The very name Nagaland is very dear to our hearts.”
“Today, I feel very happy that after 58 years, the truth has come out in the form of putting a bust of Dr Imkongliba Ao, first President of NPC, at the Raj Bhavan, Kohima.”
“For too long, this light has been put off,” he said, “But today, it is out now before the glare of the Naga public and the whole country,” he added.
On Nagaland Governor RN Ravi’s Statehood Day statement wherein he, without naming NSCN (IM), accused them for the current political stalemate in resolving the Naga political issue, Dr Jamir said whether the Governor or the Chief Minister, they should be true to what it was. In other words, they should tell the truth, he said.
“Why should we mislead the people,” he asked and further said, “You know the truth is bitter.”
On the NSCN (IM)’s sticking to a separate Naga flag and the constitution for resolving the Naga political issue, Dr Jamir replied that neither sovereignty nor integration appeared in the “Framework Agreement.”
Stating that the flag and the constitution are attributes of the sovereign country, he said even NNC President AZ Phizo, in his long years of struggle, had never spoken about the constitution or a flag because it was part of the sovereign independent country.
