It is likely to disrupt movement of goods trucks on NH-2, which connects Manipur's capital to Nagaland
An apex body of Manipur Nagas has stuck to its decision to enforce an indefinite 'trade embargo' across all Naga-majority areas of the State from September 8 midnight, less than a week after the Centre announced the "reopening" of a crucial national highway.
The United Naga Council (UNC) had announced the 'trade embargo', expected to affect all forms of trade and transportation of goods, after a meeting between its team and officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs on August 26 was inconclusive. The meeting was on the twin issues of the Centre's move to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR), and fence the 1,643-km India-Myanmar border.
The FMR, agreed between India and Myanmar, allows transboundary movement of residents within a certain distance from the line dividing the two countries. India unilaterally reduced the free travel distance from 16 km to 10 km less than a year ago.
The UNC is opposed to the border fencing as Nagas believe the boundary was imposed by the British to divide the Naga homeland straddling Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland, and Myanmar's Sagaing Division. It claims that the Naga territory extends up to the Chindwin river in Myanmar.
"The trade embargo to protest the Centre's rigidity on the twin issues will be in force until further notice," a UNC leader said, declining to be named.
The embargo is likely to disrupt the movement of goods trucks on National Highway 2, which connects Manipur's capital, Imphal, to Nagaland through the Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi district and the Naga-dominated Senapati district.
On September 4, the Centre said an apex Kuki-Zo body decided to "reopen" NH-2. Kuki-Zo organisations, however, clarified that the highway was never closed to vehicles carrying essential goods, but the restrictions on the movement of the Meitei and Kuki-Zo people into each other's territory remain.
NH2 reopening does not mean unrestricted movement, say Kuki-Zo groupsOpposing group
Meanwhile, another Naga group called the Zeliangrong United Front (ZUF) denounced the UNC's "indefinite economic blockade" ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the State. It said if Naga interests and sentiments are hurt, the UNC should have protested soon after the Cabinet Committee on Security approved the fencing of the India-Myanmar border and the scrapping of the FMR on September 18, 2024, to check cross-border terrorism, insurgency, arms smuggling, and human trafficking.
Accusing the UNC of working under the influence of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the ZUF asked the UNC and its constituent units "not to create any form of agitation in Zeliangrong areas".
Zeliangrong is a hybrid term for three Naga communities - Zeme, Liangmai, and Rongmei.
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'Rights undermined'
In an unrelated development, the Foothills Naga Coordination Committee (FNCC) said the extension of the Suspension of Operations agreement between the Centre and two umbrella organisations of Kuki-Zo extremist groups undermined the rights of the Naga people.
The FNCC represents Nagas living on the periphery of the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley. The areas they inhabit overlap those where the Kukis, many of them allegedly migrants, reside.
According to the FNCC, the renewed agreement would lead to the shifting of Kuki-Zo armed groups from the Thingsat camp under the Kangpokpi police station to Kharam Vaiphei village, which is a Naga ancestral land.