GUWAHATI: The NSCN-IM has maintained its firm stance on a separate Naga national flag and Naga national constitution, with the outfit’s general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah on Wednesday asserting that they are the sole basis for a negotiated political settlement between the organisation and the central government.
“The final negotiated political settlement between the Government of India and the NSCN representing Nagalim shall be according to the uniqueness of Nagalim’s history,” Muivah said at Senapati, a Naga-majority district in Manipur.
Explaining this position, he said “a new relationship” of “sharing of sovereign power” would be based on sovereign Nagalim’s unique history, duly recognised with the inclusion of the Naga national flag and Naga national constitution.
“The new relationship of sharing of sovereign power shall not be defined by the Constitution of India and Myanmar but by the political agreement of the two sovereign entities, and it shall be outside the Union and Constitution of India and Myanmar,” the NSCN-IM leader said.
He further stated that Nagas must be sufficiently warned of the Indian state’s alleged strategy of “divide and conquer” through what he described as distortion and perversion of the letter and spirit of the Framework Agreement of August 3, 2015.
Muivah lamented that a section of Nagas had become pawns in the hands of the Government of India and its agencies. He asserted that the NSCN-IM did not and would not recognise any agreement signed within the framework of the Constitution of India – past, present or future.
“Any Nagas and organisations promoting and advocating the corrupt version of the Indian state and its agencies, regarding the Amsterdam Joint Communiqué of July 11, 2002, and the Framework Agreement of August 3, 2015, shall be deemed as traitors to the Naga nation,” Muivah said.
He made it clear that the only honourable negotiated political agreement would be in accordance with the letter and spirit of the two agreements and the officially recognised Nagalim’s unique history, sovereignty, territory, Naga national flag and Naga national constitution.
“Therefore, the letter and spirit of the Amsterdam Joint Communiqué and the Framework Agreement, duly recognizing the sovereign Naga national flag and the sovereign Nagalim national constitution, are the rallying point for Nagalim and the Naga people, wherever they are,” he further stated.
The NSCN-IM had entered into a peace process with the Centre in 1997 after signing a ceasefire agreement. Despite peace talks spanning nearly three decades, a final solution to the Naga issue continues to remain elusive.