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Naga rebel leader threatens to end ceasefire

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Guwahati, Nov 5, IRNA
India-Assam-Ceasefire
A frontline tribal separatist group in India's northeastern state of Nagaland Saturday threatened to call off an eight-year-old ceasefire with New Delhi if their demands were not met by January, rebel leaders said.

"There is no point in operating a ceasefire and holding talks without any solution in sight. If the Indian government fails to hammer out a solution within the tenure of the present ceasefire there would be no option but to probably call off the truce and fight back," R.H. Raising, a senior leader of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM), told IRNA by telephone from the state's commercial hub, Dimapur.

The NSCN-IM and New Delhi entered into a ceasefire in August 1997 which is ongoing and due to expire on January 31, 2006.

"We are still committed to resolving the problem through political negotiations but we cannot wait indefinitely. There is a limit to everything," Raising, the self-styled home minister of the rebel group, said.

The two sides have held at least 45 rounds of peace talks since 1997 aimed at ending one of South Asia's longest-running insurgencies that claimed an estimated 25,000 lives since India attained independence in 1947.

"The government of India is simply giving us assurances and commitments without trying to work out a tangible solution," NSCN-IM Spokesman Kraibo Chawang told IRNA.

The last round of talks between the NSCN and Indian government peace negotiators ended in Bangkok last month.

The NSCN-IM, led by guerilla leaders Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, is one of the oldest and most powerful of about 30 rebel groups in India's northeast. It wants to create a "Greater Nagaland" by slicing off parts of neighboring states that have Naga tribal populations.

The three regional governments of Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh have already rejected the NSCN-IM's demand for unification of Naga-dominated areas.

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