Author: PN Khera
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Even as the National Socialist Council of Nagaland led by Isak Swu and T Muivah was negotiating with the Government delegation it was parlaying drugs to fill its coffers.
A letter intercepted by security forces addressed to 'The Ganja Smuggler Mahajon', shows that the so-called Crime Suppression Department of the 'Government of the People's Republic of Nagalim' (the document stamped with the legend 'Nagalim for Christ') is trafficking in lakhs of rupees of 'ganja' in the Northeast.
In the letter Angam Kalingmei, Southern Zone Incharge, demanded Rs 15 lakh from 'Ganja Smuggler Mahajon' as part of his 'crime suppression' activities. That his department is in the habit of dealing in ganja, the raw stock for other derivative drugs, is apparent from the admission in the letter that the drugs seized from peddlers are released 'on special terms and conditions' to 'Ganja Smuggler Mahajon' for large sums of money.
The letter reads: "We have identified your hideout. Therefore, you should not take out any goods from that place. If at all you desire to take out anything, you should come to meet me and negotiate with Rs 15 lakh at your earliest."
The 'Southern Zone Incharge' referred to an earlier instance where NSCN(I-M) men had gone to assert control over the drug trade and they were intercepted by the Assam Rifles.
Some of his men were injured in the shootout. The letter was dated May 26, 2005. At that time T Muiviah, the co-founder of the NSCN faction, was in India negotiating with the Government delegation on demands including an army of its own in the proposed 'Nagalim'.
The scenario that is emerging in land locked 'Nagalim' with scarce natural resources for agriculture and industrial growth is to be financed with the drug money as has been the case of the drug lords of Myanmar where Kung Sa's empire is a part of the famous golden triangle.
The demand for an army of its own made by the NSCN reads like the blueprint from Kung Sa's empire. He too had an army financed and equipped with money earned from drug smuggling to such far-off destinations as America and Europe.
On the strength of that contraband linkage he was able to fend the suzerainty of the Government in Yangon for the better part of three decades.
Nearly all the insurgencies operating in the Northeast use the narcotics trade to pay for weapons and the necessities of life in the forests. Within urban centres and villages they set up such extortion cells like the one operated by 'Southern Zone Incharge' Angam Kalingmei under the guise of 'Crime Suppression Department' of the Government of the People's Republic of Nagalim.
The recent blockade of Manipur by Naga students owing allegiance to the NSCN(I-M) indicates the kind of influence the organisation has among young and impressionable minds in Nagaland. As the letter indicates, the moneyed class in areas of its influence are deeply involved in the trafficking of narcotics.
The Government delegation has already had a taste of the consequences of the demands being made by the NSCN(I-M) for 'Greater Nagaland' comprising portions of contiguous States where Nagas reside.
So strong are the feelings against a redrawing of State boundaries to suit ethnic ambitions that Manipur went up in flames at the merest hint that the NDA Government is considering the proposition at that time. That is why the UPA Government is treading with extreme care in its current round of negotiations with the NSCN.