DIMAPUR, JUNE 15 (MExN): Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation (ACAUT) Nagaland on Wednesday said the NSCN (IM) and the other Naga Political Groups (NPG) should view ACAUT, as an ally for it has been their “safety-valve.”
“Instead of engaging in self glorifying propaganda like ‘banning’ ACAUT, the NSCN (IM) and the other factions should view ACAUT as an ally for it has been the safety-valve,” stated Media Cell, ACAUT Nagaland in a press statement issued to the media.
This statement comes as response to NSCN (IM) June 12 press statement terming the anti-corruption and anti-taxation watchdog as an agent of “divide and kill the Naga nationalist movement” and questioning why befitting action should not be initiated against them.
According to ACAUT, its movement has been pacifying public anger against the NPGs by channeling this anger into positive nationalism resulting in the desire for “One Government One Tax” and inclusive Naga solution. Therefore, it asserted that they are not only champions of the anti-corruption agenda, but “are propagators of Naga nationalism as well.”
ACAUT, while admitting that factional taxations is a serious domestic problem, however said “the compulsive obsession of the NSCN (IM) to link it with the ongoing Naga settlement is getting tiresome, especially the cooked up stories which everyone knows, even the ranks and files within the NSCN(IM) themselves know these to be false that ACAUT conniving with Indian establishment.”
Maintaining that it was not formed to oppose the NSCN (IM) or any factions, ACAUT wondered as to what kind of people in their right minds would oppose the armed Naga organizations fighting for Naga sovereignty.
“When even the mighty Indian army has failed to eliminate the Naga armed groups, the NSCN (IM) with some of the sharpest minds should not engage in petty talks that this and that Army General and retired bureaucrats helped form the ACAUT to oppose the NSCN (IM),” it stated.
Rather, the NSCN (IM) should accept the truth that ACAUT was birthed out of desperation; a desperation so deep-seated that people left their fear psychosis for factional groups in their kitchens, and came out in the streets and adopted the slogan of “One Government One Tax” as the final solution to end all factional fights and factional taxes, it stated.
ACAUT also stated that the Government of India was urged to settle the Indo-Naga issue at the October 31 rally. It, therefore, said NSCN (IM)’s accusation that ACAUT Nagaland is anti-Naga movement and anti-solution does not convince anyone.
On the accusation of “divide and kill the Naga movement” agenda, ACAUT said it was the “factional groups which have divided and killed the Naga movement as the fighting prowess of the once indomitable Nagas lies splattered due to their obsession with money.”
Stating that it has no intention of scuttling the NSCN (IM) settlement talks, rather, ACAUT pointed out how it was one of the first to congratulate the Prime Minister of India for his sincere efforts to settle the Naga Issue when the Framework Agreement was announced.
ACAUT said it may be a ‘nuisance’ to the factions, but pointing out the menace of unabated taxation decidedly dividing the Naga movement into inconsequential factions having nightmarish consequences for the poor general people is not nuisance; since the issue is deliberate suppression of Naga people’s right to live a dignified existence by side-tracking the core issue of Naga sovereignty.
It therefore advised the NSCN-IM to learn to live with dissensions, constructive oppositions, facts, and reasons as it gears itself up for the settlement period since these are all democratic expressions.
