EMN
DIMAPUR, MARCH 29
Expelled NSCN-K leaders Wangtin Naga and P Tikhak have disclosed today that they will float a new party. “In a next couple of days we will officially declare the new party which will work for peace and national reconciliation and built a better society for the Naga people,” said the two former NSCN-K leaders in a joint statement.
“It has been almost about two decades since we got ourselves associated with the NSCN led by chairman S.S.Khaplang. Firstly, because he is one of our own as ‘blood is thicker than water.’ Secondly, we felt that, he is one of the tallest and outstanding leaders and therefore we chose him to serve for the cause of the people. Right after coming out of our college we gave our youthful days to the nation and particularly to Mr. Khaplang. We felt it was necessity to assist Khaplang in all good times and bad times,” the statement said.
“Therefore, we swam together and sank together in all situations. Even when almost all the national workers from the Indian side decided to
leave him during in the 2011 split we, both of us were with him and had a very difficult time to get the ceasefire back on track with the
NSCN keeping in mind the interest of the people and thus, we stood by him at all odds,” Wangtin and Tikhak recalled.
According to them, immediately after the re-arrangement of the ceasefire pact with the Government of India, some ‘national workers’ came back to join the NSCN-K. They were readily accepted as ‘we had the feeling that they must have come back with a good intention but, immediately they started developing many controversies among us’. “The situation has come thus far that, those few power mongers and money mongers have fed the ears of Khaplang so much so that, he simply forgot all our contributions for the people of eastern Nagaland and for the NSCN, including the signing of ceasefire agreement with the Union of Myanmar. We never wanted any plum portfolio, we were never after money. At any point of time if we have shared any of our opinion then, it was only because of our humble attempt to rebuilt the past and lost glory of NSCN-K. Unfortunately, Chairman Khaplang was always misguided, mis-represented and misled by handful of people,” Wangtin and Tikhak further stated.
“We all know that ‘a chain is as weak as its link’ we thought that however small our contribution may be for the cause of the Naga peopleor for the NSCN but, we always consider ourselves as a last link after Gen. Khole and former Ato-Kilonser parted ways with him,” they added.
“We thought that, we shall remain as a bridge among the Nagas of both the sides where we can envision for a shared future”. According to them, Khaplang has failed to read their nerves. He has fallen prey to a handful of people whose only agenda is to mint money in the name of political movement and not actually work for the cause of the people, they alleged.
“Now that, he has expelled us from the NSCN-K; we are free to serve our people at our best,” Wangtin and Tikhak said. The statement said they feel that they had been freed to join the Naga people through the reconciliation process. “We feel that, we are free to give however small contribution it may be in building a new and better Naga society. Therefore, as long as this expulsion is serving the interest of the Naga people, if it is serving the interest of the peace we are prepared to take hundreds of more such expulsions,” state joint statement of Wangtin and Tikhak stated.
