Naga factional clashes violate ceasefire rules, says Minister

Chairman of NSCN (I-M) Isak Chishi Swu (L) along with General Secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), and the chief negotiator for NSCN(I-M) Thuingaleng Muivah (R) delivering his speach at the Naga Reconciliation meeting in Dimapur, Nagaland on Feb. 29, 2012. A file photo.

Nagaland Home Minister G Kaito Aye has warned Naga underground groups that the state government would have no option but to intervene to stop fratricidal killings.

“If the factional killings continue then the state government may have no option, but to intervene for the larger interest of the Naga people,” Mr. Aye said in a press statement.

Stating that the clashes were narrowing down options for the state government, he said that it could not remain a “mute spectator to the continuing acts of factional kidnappings and killings.

Stating that ‘enough is enough’, he said that patience and time was running out for the factional clashes to end.

He said that the continuing standoff between the groups despite repeated appeals from all quarters and the state government was destroying the “very basic foundation they had set out to achieve in their common goal”.

This, he said, could prove detrimental to the peace process and all that was achieved in the last 16 years of ceasefire between the Naga underground and the Government of India.

Mr. Aye’s appeal came at a time when the Naga underground groups, especially the Khaplang and Khole-Kitovi faction of NSCN, were continually clashes despite the call for peace and reconciliation from civil societies and government.

The minister said it was with genuine intent that he sought the reconciliation of the cadres of various factions to the agreed ceasefire ground rules because they were under its purview.

“Factional clashes, kidnappings and killings are contrary to the ceasefire ground rules,” he said.