Morung Express News
Senapati (Tamhazam) | May 28
The Naga Peoples’ Front (NPF) on Saturday made a bold declaration that “integration” of Nagas is a birth right that cannot be negotiated at any cost. “Integration is our birth right, our fundamental right,’ declared NPF President Dr. Shurhozelie Liezietsu at the launching programme of the NPF Manipur unit at Tamhazam (Senapati) district, Manipur, on Saturday. In the same breath, Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio said that it is the duty of every Naga to have a feeling of ‘Pan Naga’ and that Nagas should be integrated “politically, emotionally, socially and culturally.”
“Whatever people may say, we will go ahead and support Naga integration. Nagas are one family and if we have the desire to live together, nobody can stop us,” Shurhozelie said and added that NPF and Nagas will continue to fight till Nagas achieve this aspiration. “In saying that Nagas want to live together, we have not done nothing anything against our neighbours,” the veteran regionalist said. He also said that it was high time that Nagas seize the opportunity of the “historic” moment (launching of the NPF party in Manipur) and make it a “people’s movement.”
Dwelling on the NPF’s motto “Fide non armies” (through faith and not through arms), the NPF president said that the NPF party has no hidden agenda but that its expansion was in line with the party slogan “Peace for development and development for peace.”
Shurhozelie and chief minister Neiphiu Rio have been credited as the architects behind the NPF expansion in Naga inhibited areas outside Nagaland.
Supplementing the NPF president’s assertion on Naga integration, Rio said, “For our neighbours, they have to bear the truth because the truth will prevail.” In his ‘unique’ and inimitable Naga style, Rio assured that the “seeds that we have sown finally will germinate and bear fruits.”
Both the NPF president and Rio also impressed upon the NPF party workers to forego their personal interests and work for the greater benefit of Nagas as a whole.
