The Nagaland Indigenous People’s Forum (NIPF) and Zo Reunification Organization (ZORO) have expressed strong opposition to Centre’s decision to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) and to fence the India-Myanmar border. This was among several resolutions adopted on March 16 against certain policies of the government of India including CAA, FCA and AFSPA.
As per the joint Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by NIPF president Dr. T Lima Jamir and ZORO president R. Sangkawia, the two organizations pointed out that scrapping FMR and fencing the border would divide the Zo ethnic (Chin-Kuki-Mizo) living in India, Burma, Bangladesh and Nagas residing in India and Burma.
“Our political history requires a new rereading when the British colonisation recognised us that we are neither Indian nor Burmese. As a result, they declared our area “Excluded Area- where the Indian nor the Burmese government directly controlled our areas,” they said.
They said scrapping of FMR and border fencing between Mizoram and Bangladesh, Mizoram would lose 15 villages completely and 21 villages partially, all cultivable land by the river side as well as the river itself.
In the case of Nagaland, they said the house of the Angh of Longwa village in Mon district is divided between India and Myanmar.
They said that people living in these border villages would suffer as their main economic survival was at stake. Alleging that the Border Security Forces were directed to monitor in the most unfriendly manner, leading to the arrest of villagers, they warned that peace in the region was at stake.
Further, NIPF and ZORO said that being an agrarian community, the implementation of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) 2023 would lead to the loss of several square miles of their land, which constitutes their daily economic sustenance.
They also said that Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was closely related to FMR and border fencing.
The two organizations also expressed grave concern over the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), particularly the tribal people of the North East, emphasizing that the customs and traditions that govern their holistic way of life could be affected by its implementation.
“We cannot accept this act to surrender the ancestral practices of our culture and traditions,” they said.
Alleging that Armed Forces Special Power Act 1958 (AFSPA) was “enacted racially against the people of North East”, NIPF and ZORO said that it was a law that obliterate all rules of law in the area where it is applied and it was high time the government of India rescind this act.
NIPF and ZORO said that the notion of abolishing the FMR and implementing border fencing, FCA 2023, CAA 2024, UCC and AFSPA 1958, were indirect contradiction to Article 36: (1). (2) of the United National Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007 (UNDRIP) and runs in contradiction to the spirit of the declaration. NIPF and ZORO appealed to government of India to revoke the above mention Acts and laws while at the same time sough the support of the Nagas and Zo ethnic tribes to the MoU.