IMPHAL, June 23: A press statement of the Kuki National Organization has said that the UPF-a Kuki armed insurgent group signatory of the Suspension of Operation had yesterday sent an invite to the KNO to participate in a deliberation scheduled for the same day at the YPA hall, New Lamka.
“Recent days witnessed the floating of a Tribal People’s Organization of Manipur, (TPOM) backed by the UPF, one of the Kuki armed insurgent groupings who are signatories of the SoO with the center and state government of Manipur”, it said.
The state continued, “The KNO regrets that such an invite should come at such short notice, and the fact that it could not, for want of consultation within its fold attend the said meeting”.
It has also said that of the two tribal political alignments in the state, the Naga tribals had allowed themselves to be led in the exclusivist path defined by the NSCN (IM) and had never responded to overtures from Kuki tribals for a coordinated response to the “colonial and anti-tribal tendencies of the state of Manipur”.
“The NSCN (IM) and the UNC, the two political fronts representing Naga political aspirations continue to be exclusivist”, it said.
“The KNO had proffered a politically pragmatic “terms of engagement” to the Naga brothers, despite the NSCN (IM) sponsored Kuki Genocide, for tribal coordination and cooperation, wherein all disputable issues between the two tribal polities would first be settled to create opportunities for political cooperation” it continued.
Citing that the Tribal Peoples’ organization, Manipur, (TPOM) had proposed political arrangements within the so-called state of Manipur which presumes political unity between the two tribal groups, Naga and Kuki, it has said that the KNO “begs to seek if the exclusivist NSCN (IM) is in accord with this proposal”.
“The KNO once again appeals to the UPF leadership to confer within to deliberate on Kuki political rights and aspirations without taking resort to political one-upmanship through engaging ‘on-sale’ Naga individuals to project a united tribal cause with the petty objective of ostensibly outscoring the KNO on the broadness of aspired political settlements”, it said and added that the outfit continues to stand by its offer of political settlement of territorial disputes between Kuki and Naga peoples as a pre-condition for political coordination and cooperation, and persists in its appeal to the Naga people to take cognizance of the mutually destructive path the NSCN (IM) have led them into in so far as securing our common tribal rights are concerned.