India, Naga rebels talk peace but rivals threaten war

INDIA: Leaders of a powerful separatist group in India's northeast will hold a new round of talks with government negotiators in Amsterdam on Monday with threats of violence from a rival group hanging over the meeting.

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) (NSCN-IM) and officials have met more than 50 times over the past nine years to try to forge an end to the country's longest-running insurgency.

But little progress has been made on the group's key demands for the right to self-rule and the creation of a new state containing all Naga dominated areas, which is opposed by other tribes living amongst them.

Leaders of the Kuki community recently warned they would go on the war path if areas they inhabit were handed to the Nagas.

"Let the government of India give the Nagas what they have been demanding, but they can't touch an inch of Kuki land to please the Nagas," Satkhokai Chongloi, a senior Kuki leader told Reuters in Imphal, capital of neighbouring Manipur state.

The Kukis live across five northeastern states - Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura - three of which are also home to mainly Christian Nagas the NSCN says must be included in any territorial deal.

"We urge the Indian government to stop grabbing land belonging to others for the NSCN-IM, or civil war is inevitable," Chongloi said.

The NSCN-IM said after the last round of talks in October the stalemate was due to insincerity on the part of the government.

The group agreed a ceasefire with government troops in 1997, but peace talks have failed to find a political solution to their revolt which began in 1947 and in which 20,000 people were killed before the truce.

"It was decided in the last round of talks that in this round we will discuss the core issue of self-governance and explore possibilities for a special federal arrangement between India and Greater Nagaland," said Rh. Raising, a senior NSCN-IM leader.

Kuki leaders say nearly a thousand of their people were killed and over 300 villages burnt by NSCN-IM guerrillas in ethnic cleansing in four districts of Manipur before 1997. In response the Kuki took up arms but later agreed a truce.

India's northeast is home to a complex web of tribal groups, many of which have launched insurgencies, accusing New Delhi of plundering resources and doing little to improve their lives.

Security analysts say peace with the Nagas is crucial to a broader peace in the region.

IMPHAL, Monday, Reuters