Bru National Liberation Front – Redrawing Faultlines in Mizoram
17 Sep, 2001 · 578
Shivaji Mukherjee writes on the various issues involved in the dialogue between the Mizo government and the BNLF
This is the season for negotiating with militants in the North East. After the denouement of the NSCN-IM cease-fire extension, it was the turn of Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) to hold talks with the Union government in August, followed by the first dialogue with the NSCN-Khaplang in September, since cease-fire with the outfit on April 28, 2001 . With the
Assam
government requesting the Centre to start a process of dialogue with terrorist outfits in
Assam
, the Indian Prime Minister on September 6, indicated that the Union government would be initiating negotiations with terrorist outfits in the North East.
Contrary to this general momentum for peace talks, the former Lok Sabha speaker, P.A. Sangma, stated recently that it was not possible to achieve peace in the North East by holding dialogue or signing accords with different terrorist outfits. What is more crucial is economic development and employment generation. The lesson to be learnt from this statement is that it may be futile to “go to the tableâ€Â
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