Manipur: Third-party negotiators could play a key role in reducing mistrust between Kukis and Meiteis

Shah said that 30 km of the border with Myanmar in Manipur has already been fenced. Ground reports indicate that a single stretch of fencing of about 10 Km exists only patches near Border Pillar 79 near Moreh town. This is an old project started a few years ago and had to be abandoned due to resistance by locals. While guarding the border proactively to prevent infiltration and illegal immigrants is important, resources available and the terrain, which is remote and thickly forested, is not amenable to 24x7 surveillance. Besides, the number of Assam Rifle (AR) battalions earmarked to secure the boundary is too few to manage the entire stretch of the India – Myanmar border.

Fencing the border can only be a long-term solution because of the logistics involved and government officials have to understand the enormity of the task of fencing over 1643 km of the India –Myanmar border. This involves multiple and time-consuming tasks including planning, survey, acquisition of land, procurement of stores, and construction of roads and tracks to fetch these stores to the site.

Therefore, completion of fencing the entire border will not take anything less than a couple of decades. Even the fencing of the 398 km long border with Myanmar in Manipur itself will take at least four to five years to complete, given the terrain and fragile ecology of the area. Even when the fencing is completed, it will have to be under constant surveillance of troops deployed at Border Out Posts (BOPs), which also have to be constructed at regular points along the border.

Further, until the time BOPs can be established close to the border, it is difficult to enforce the suspension of the FMR. That’s because locals can cross over from any point along the open border because a few villages, on either side, are located close to the international boundary.

The rationale behind replacing AR with two CRPF units is difficult to comprehend because the latter are neither familiar with the area nor aware of the problem’s genesis. Assam Rifles, deployed in the region for a long time, have developed strong intelligence networks and were therefore able to operate effectively whereas CRPF Battalions will have to start from scratch.

The strategic community dealing with the ongoing Manipur conflict must prioritise their actions. What is most important is to control the violence effectively and get the two communities to talk. While people entering India from the porous Myanmar border may be involved in fomenting trouble in Manipur, the problem exists because of internal factors, which have been further aggravated due to a widely perceived lack of action and/or active support to one community by the state government.

A sense of artificial peace achieved by creating buffer zones and keeping the communities away from each other is not the ideal situation.

The Union government must involve a third party trusted by both communities for negotiations. The third party could be the Nagas who have so far maintained a neutral stance and are likely to be trusted by both Kukis and Meiteis. Besides Nagas, women organisations from both communities and village heads who are widely respected by locals could also be roped in to engage the communities.

Another important action to control the violence in Manipur is to give a free hand to the security forces (SF) to operate. They are now operating with one hand tied behind their back as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is not extended to all of Manipur. While it has been imposed in the hill areas, 19 police stations in Imphal Valley have been left out of its ambit.

This prevents the SF from carrying out search and seizure operations, which are critical to recovering weapons looted by miscreants. It is also important to suspend the agreement to cease operations against militant organisations to enable SF to take action against them.

Sanjiv Krishan Sood retired as Additional Director General, Border Security Forces BSF. The views expressed are personal