We have been deliberately trying to play down the unfortunate developments in which two labourers were inhumanly beaten to death in captivity and another 12 year old student tortured in beastly manner by cadres of the KRF militants, now on Suspension of Operation, SoO agreement with the government, for fear of the consequences this can have. Others were less concerned but that is their outlook. Whatever the case may be, what was feared, has happened. In the blind rage that followed, especially in the locality of the deceased labourers, there has been one more innocent casualty. The driver of a Shaktiman truck who probably unaware of the developments, tried to pass a blockade along the Imphal-Jiri road by protestors against the KRF affront, tragically ended up killed, while more were injured. Several vehicles were also put to fire. Moreover, the disturbing reports are, there were attacks on some Kuki villages in the vicinity in which houses and churches were torched. In an emergency cabinet meeting yesterday, the government has decided to clamp indefinite curfew in the Patsoi area where the two dead labourers belonged, so that the violence does not escalate any further. Commendable in the midst of the crisis is the fact of civil organisations belonging to both the Meitei and Kuki communities, which by force of circumstance found themselves on the opposite sides of the dividing line of the present tension, standing together to denounce the violence and appealing to all earnestly for the return of calm. Blessed are the peacemakers, as Christ preached in the Beatitude, for the kingdom of heaven will belong to them.
Peacemaking however is not just about crisis management, as peacemakers in conflict torn states like Manipur are often left to do. It is on the other hand also about identifying deeper issues that run behind these conflicts, and in a spirit of accommodation, seeking to resolve them conclusively. Often also these conflicts are fallouts of faulty or sometimes sinister policies of the government which is often inclined to tackle only the immediate, without a thought on their larger and longer term implications on the society. In this light, the SoO itself, its genesis and what it has been reduced to today, must come under some serious scrutiny. This consideration is important for on an incremental basis in the past few months, militant groups covered by SoO have been responsible for triggering one crisis after another, many of them with extremely dangerous portents.
When SoO came to the surface for the first time in the state about 10 years ago, it did become evident it made its entry into the body politics of the state surreptitiously. It was an agreement the Army signed with certain Kuki militant groups operating in the Moreh area, by which the Army suspended its operations against the latter without disarming them, self professedly to prepare for an ultimate peace negotiation. When it came to light, there were flutters in the official circles, and wide suspicions everywhere that the Army was playing its own politics, and was using the Kuki militants as their proxies to fight Meitei militants in the Moreh area. Subir Bhaumik, a former NDA cadet, says as much without mincing words in his book, `Troubled Periphery` (Sage 2009). Events at the time seemed to support this claim, for ethnic tensions in the Moreh area had escalated to an unprecedented high not long after SoO came into force. A lot has happened ever since. The state government is now on board, and many more militant groups, including many splinters of Meitei organisations are under the SoO umbrella.
This notwithstanding, after more than 10 years of SoO, peace negotiations are still nowhere in sight. Prospects of peace remain equally distant. And now, the SoO groups are routinely breaking the ground rules of the agreement, haranguing the public. The question is, what should the government do now? As we see it, there are only three options. First, begin peace negotiations and bring about a permanent settlement so these militants can return to normal life respectably. Second, if the government feels the time is still not ripe for any substantial negotiations, ensure that the SoO signatories strictly abide by the ground rules of the agreement. Third, if this is not going to work at all, and is instead going to remain a cause for strains in ethnic relations, banish SoO altogether. We do hope the first is the outcome.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam