IMPHAL, Feb 8: The military affairs committee, United National Liberation Front, has sent its greetings to the people of Manipur and the rank and files of other revolutionary groups on the 25th anniversary of its armed wing, the Manipur Peoples’ Army.
In a press statement, the MAC stated that the MPA had continuously carried out an armed struggle to regain the forsaken independence of Manipur and defeat the ‘Indian Occupation Force’. During the last 25 years, the MPA has been involved in more than 160 engagements in the battle-field with the IOF and mad exterminate scores of their soldiers. The outfit understands the need to intensify the arm-struggle to totally uproot the occupational forces from the land, it stated.
With each confrontation with the IOF, the organization has grown in experience and enhanced its capability. The party is also fully aware that it draws its strength from the public and truly believed that the fight for freedom will be successful only if the trust between the public and the revolutionaries are upheld, it added.
Manipur bore the adverse consequences of being neighbors to the economically and militarily powerful state like India. The MAC claimed that armed struggle is the most potent option to wrest self-rule from imperialist India.
Democratic form of struggle has always remained as an alternative. However, recently the use of force and finance supplied by western powers enable the existing regime to successfully quell the democratic struggles for liberation in the Arab countries. Similarly, there is no other struggle than taking up arms to make a powerful state like India bite the dust, it stated.
It questioned on the philosophy behind the Indian government overseeing an administration in Manipur under the shield of military laws like AFSPA for the last five decades since it became a Union Territory in 1958. It alleged, the dependence of governance on inputs supplied by the military is fool-proof evidence that the Indian government is bent on using brute force to suppress the independence of a culturally, linguistically and physiologically different race. The Indian rule will perish as others who have believed in disparity of races have met the same fate, it stated.
The dastardly and violent acts of counter-revolutionary and reactionary groups can neither kill the revolutionary spirit nor dishearten their fighters. On the other hand, the combined strength of the revolutionary groups will easily vanquish them, it added.
In consideration with the sentiment of the public and revolutionary demands, the CorCom was set up by seven different revolutionary groups. UNLF will extend full cooperation for creation of a common command and joint armed unit, it stated.
Operation Singhat in Churachandpur where a joint team of PLA, MPA and Red Army snatched weapons from the enemies was a successful experimentation towards formation of a single armed unit, it stated. The UNLF will support a united war for independence, it said.
The UNLF has offered revolutionary salute to all those who have died in the war waged for independence from India or killed by IOF, it stated, extending its regards to those who were injured in similar circumstances.