SHILLONG, MAR 9: The proscribed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) on Friday asked the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) to consider including the outfit for peace talks with the Centre government.
“We expect the NPP which is in the ruling in the state and also an ally of NDA-led Centre government to consider including the outfit for peace talks in order to address the issues which are pending for past 70 years,” HNLC publicity secretary Sainkupar Nongtraw said in a statement issued here.
He also said the HNLC is willing to have talks with the Government of India without any condition.
Nongtraw recalled that in the year 2004, late Purno Agitok Sangma, the founder of the NPP, had invited the leaders of the HNLC to meet him at Kolkata for the purpose of facilitating talks between the outfit and the Government of India.
“However, it so happen in the same year, the Ministry of Home Affairs also sent an official communication inviting the outfit for talks and it was in 2005 that Rev PBM Basaiawmoit was appointed as an interlocutor,” he said.
The statement came a day after the State’s home minister James K Sangma had maintained that the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government will welcome talks with militant outfits but it should be ‘unconditional’.
Reacting to this, the HNCL publicity secretary however said the statement of the home minister only reflected that the stand of the government is not clear.
“This is not the way to call peace. If peace has condition, then real peace will not come,” he said.
Nongtraw also said that the present government by saying that within five years, Meghalaya will be free from militancy problem is just repeating what the former chief minister Mukul Sangma had been saying for the past many years.
He further slammed the then Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance (MUA-II) government for inviting talks to newly floated Garo militant outfits which are without ideology and forgot to restore peace in Khasi-Jaintia Hills region.
“Therefore, we urged the politicians from the Khasi-Jaintia region who are part and parcel of the new dispensation in the state to take up the matter serious as the HNLC is fighting for freedom in governance,” he said.
Meanwhile, the HNLC also stated that the willingness of the regional parties to work with the BJP and the NPP is not that they are having common ideology but because they are having common interests.
Likened politics in Meghalaya to a Circus, Nongtraw also predicted that the present state government will collapse within few months since most of the politicians are like “clowns”.
By Our Reporter
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