Dimapur, April 29 (EMN): The United Naga Tribes Association on Border Areas (Untaba) has asserted that the ‘fact of the Naga political issue is the inalienable rights of the Naga people over its lands unilaterally allowed to be occupied by Assam by the government of India in spite of political agreements made with the Naga people: 9-Point Agreement/Hydari Ali Agreement as well as the 10-Point Agreement’.
The group issued a press release on Sunday stating that “these agreements envisages (sic) the right to transfer back all the Naga traditional and ancestral lands under illegal occupation of Assam to Naga people roughly covering an area of 4974.16 square miles, the boundary of which starts from the tri-junction of Kachar, Khasi and Jaintia boundary and Nowgong district at Kopili river in the west and goes up northward from headlamp to headlamp up to the source of Kaliani river, a few kilometres downstream from its conjunction with Doyang river and from there by a triangular posts up to Ladaigarh Bund which goes up to Boridihing river dividing the Naga Hills to the east”.
In the south, it added, is Cachar (Dima Hasao) district of Kopili river and its conjunction with Barak river flowing down the Hills of Manipur. “This is the crux of the matter of the emergence of Naga political struggle. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Referring to the recent news report in The Indian Express, the association stated that ‘any political agreement between the negotiating parties without settling the crux of the issue can never be a final solution to the protracted Indo-Naga political problem’.
“We firmly believe that the negotiating parties are well aware of the fact that unless the crux of the issue is settled in its right perspective, it may be speculated that the land between Brahmaputra valley and the Naga country may become a new ‘Middle-East’ between the Indian sub-continent and south-east Asian sub-continent.
“The ongoing political talk is between Naga people and the GoI and not with the people of Manipur or with Arunachal. This fact had to be underscore by the power that be in Manipur, Arunachal and Assam. The GoI may also therefore be advised to be extremely cautious in allowing its functionaries to express their so called ‘tangible’ solutions on the ongoing Indo-Naga political talk.”
