[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne more memorandum has been submitted to the Government of India by the Kukis urging the former not to sign any agreement with the NSCN-IM before settling the issue of the ‘heinous crimes committed by the NSCN-IM’ against the Kukis. The submission was made as recent as on November 1, 2014. Yesterday’s representation of the Kukis was one of the several such missives on the same issue.
For a long time now the Kuki organizations have been demanding from the Government of India to ‘deliver justice’ to the victims of the Kuki-Naga ethnic clashes of the 1990s before any agreement is reached with the NSCN-IM. The Kuki Inpi (traditional apex body of the Kukis), the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights (KOHR) and several other Kuki bodies have submitted memorandum after memorandum to the successive Governments of India ranging from Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Narendra Modi.Over a thousand people both from the Naga and the Kuki communities were killed in the 1990s Kuki-Naga ethnic clashes. The Kukis do not accept the term ‘Kuki-Naga ethnic clashes’. They rather prefer to call the cauldron as ‘ethnic cleansing carried out by the NSCN-IM led Nagas’. The Kuki organizations claimed that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) used the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ referring to the 1990s ethnic cauldron. Some Kuki intellectuals termed it as NSCN-IM sponsored ‘genocide’. The Kuki organizations alleged that 905 Kukis including children, women and aged people were killed in the cauldron.
Well, it was in fact ethnic clashes between the Kukis and the Nagas. Around a sizeable number of Nagas were also killed by the Kukis. Nearly 300 Nagas were killed by the Kukis during the clashes which dominated the better part of the 1990s. In fact, both the communities chased the other to have better scoring point. If one community had killed certain number of people the other would put their effort to outdo the rival group by killing more number of people. 87 Kukis were killed on September 13, 1993 in a place in Tamenglong district by the Nagas. To avenge these 87 Kukis killed a passenger bus plying between Imphal and Tamenglong district was waylaid in an isolated place by the Kukis and pushed it down to a deep gorge killing 38 Naga occupants along the National Highway 53 (now NH-37). Such was the scenario of the 1990s ethnic clashes.
