India’s Naga tribals intensify stir despite truce
Tuesday 02-08-2005
GUWAHATI: Tribesmen campaigning for a separate homeland in India’s restive northeast blocked vital roads and stopped hundreds of supply-laden trucks on Monday, saying a new truce with New Delhi was not helping them. On Saturday, Naga rebel leaders and Indian officials extended their seven-year-long ceasefire by another six months to push for a peaceful solution to a decades-old revolt in the mainly Christian Nagaland state.
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) (NSCN-IM), which is fighting for the freedom of three million Naga tribesmen, said it had extended the truce with Delhi to “give peace a chance”.
But a powerful Naga students group said it would continue blocking roads into the neighbouring state of Manipur until its demand that all Naga-dominated areas in the northeast be united into a “Greater Nagaland” is accepted. “We will continue with our agitation. We are not concerned with the extension of the ceasefire as it isn’t helping us,” said Ngachonmi Chamroy, spokesman of the All Naga Students Association Manipur.