After meeting leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in Guwahati, the Naga National Political Groups (NNGPs) — an umbrella organisation of seven Nagaland-based extremist groups — have reached out to the rival Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim, or NSCN(IM).
A church organisation and a federation of village elders brokered the “reconciliatory meeting” over breakfast in Nagaland capital Kohima on Friday.
The NNGPs comprise the NSCN (Unification), NSCN (Reformation), NSCN (Khango), Naga National Council and two of its factions, and Federal Government of Nagaland. Most of these groups have fought fratricidal battles with the NSCN (IM) since the NSCN, formed in 1980, split into the Isak-Muivah and S.S. Khaplang factions eight years later.
The other NSCN factions formed by Nagas on the Indian side of the border had broken away from the NSCN (Khaplang), which is primarily Myanmar-based.
“Leaders of the ruling dispensation [Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party and ally BJP] and the Opposition (Naga People’s Front) will take part in the meeting, besides delegates from the two groups and some key members of civil society organisations,” a member of Nagaland Gaon Burah (village elder) Federation said.
The meeting is believed to be the start of a process to bring the groups on a platform for pressuring the Centre for a solution to the Naga political process. Several rounds of talks since 1997 have failed to yield the final settlement, although a Framework Agreement, whose contents have not been made public, was signed in August 2015.
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