Hostile terrain, porous border aid Manipur rebels

GUWAHATI: Poll-bound Manipur has been in the conflict zone ever since the state's oldest insurgent outfit - United National Liberation Front (UNLF) - was formed in 1964 to fight for the state's sovereignty even as the other NE states have either embraced peace or in the process of doing so.
Though the number of insurgency related incidents have come down over the years, Saturday's militant ambush in Churachandpur district is a grim reminder of the June 4, 2015 militant attack on a convoy of 6th Dogra Regiment in Chandel district in which 18 soldiers were killed and 11 others were injured. Incidentally, this was the opening shot in Bollywood hit "Uri".
The MHA website shows that there are eight major active insurgent outfits in the state, which include People's Liberation Army (PLA) and its political wing the Revolutionary People's Front (RPF), United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and its armed wing, Manipur People's Army(MPA), Peoples' Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), Coordination Committee (CorCom), Alliance for Socialist Unity Kangleipak (ASUK) and Manipur People's Liberation Front(MPLF).
CorCom, in fact, is an umbrella organization of UNLF, PLA, Prepak and Prepak (Progressive), which until a couple of years back were partners of Ulfa (I) and NSCN (K) on a common platform to fight for a separate region called "Western South East Asia (WESEA) region".
Brigadier (retd) Ranjit Borthakur, an expert on the region, including China, said Manipur needs to get itself into a peace mode for the situation to change. "Unlike the other states of the region, insurgent outfits of Manipur have never talked about peace dialogue so far. The government, too, has not made any significant attempt to offer the olive branch to persuade them to join the peace process," the former military intelligence officer said.
There are only two Kuki outfits in Manipur - United People's Front (UPF) and Kuki National Organisation (KNO) - which are in the peace process with the Centre and the state government since 2008.
All the other outfits outside the peace process have their bases in Rakhine and Chin states of Myanmar and have close links with Arakan Army and United Wa State Army (UWSA). The Ulfa (I) also shares its base with NSCN(K) in Myanmar's Kachin state in Sagaing division. The erstwhile NDFB, too, was operating from the neighbouring country.
Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram share boundaries with Myanmar. The porous border and the inhospitable terrain make it easy for these insurgent groups to hit in India and run into Myanmar.
The Zomi Chiefs Association (ZCA) of the Zomi tribe, which has a large population in Churachandpur district, said the "cold-blooded incident (ambush) jeopardized and put at peril the life and security of innocent peace-loving Zomi villagers residing in the area."
The ZCA appealed to all Zomi chiefs and villagers along the Indo-Myanmar border to cooperate with the security forces in their hunt for the perpetrators of these heinous acts and urged the Centre to exert all measures required to apprehend, book and penalise the culprits as per the law of the and carry on unhindered political dialogue with groups which have entered the peace process.