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Manipur Conflict in India on UN's Margins Despite Child Soldiers, Impunity and Press Restrictions

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, October 11, updated -- The decades long insurgency in Manipur in northeast India gets little attention globally, and virtually none within the United Nations. This despite 10,000 deaths in the conflict, the imposition of martial law and restrictions on press access.

  Manipur, with 2.2 million residents, was an independent kingdom until colonialized by Britain in 1891. It was incorporated into India at the end of British rule in 1947.  Armed rebellion began in 1964 and martial law was imposed in 1980 and remains in place today.

  Inner City Press interviewed the founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network Ms. Binalakshmi Nepram on October 10 after she narrated a short film about the conflict in an ill-attended screening across the street from the UN. Ms. Nepram said that India is so powerful that the issue can never be raised within the UN Headquarters. 

  Inner City Press asked her if there is any recruitment of child soldiers, as that should trigger involvement, with or without host country consent, at least by the UN's Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy and UNICEF.  Yes, Ms. Nepram said, children are incorporated into the fighting. "There are testimonies," she said. She also spoke passionately about the use in Manipur of rape as a weapon of war, which also should trigger UN involvement, unless double standards as is too common rule the day.

Women in Manipur protest use of rape as a weapon of war, UN response not shown

  Even before receiving these from Ms. Nepram's office in New Delhi. it's worth reviewing the evidence that's in the public record.

    In July 2008, Manipur police chief Y. Joykumar Singh said that "about 30 or more children are believed to be missing from different parts of the Imphal valley although many cases have not been reported to the police. So far, 13 cases of abductions have been registered." Radheshyam Singh, police chief of Imphal East district said "it is certain that these children were lured or kidnapped by various outlawed militant groups."

   Among the accused recruiters are the Peoples Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak, Prepak, both its Vice-Chairman and General Secretayr factions and its so-called Cobra Task Force. Local accounts have 45-year-old Muhila Devi, a resident of Pishumthong near Imphal, crying inconsolably and breaking into regular fits when her 14-year-old daughter Surda went missing. "She is a minor and anybody who is holding her captive, please return her to me," a sobbing Devi said, as she blankly stared at her daughter's schoolbag. (The Pioneer, July 21, 2008.)

"Sensation prevailed in Manipur with the disappearance of two little boys July 6 and a separatist later claiming the children have joined the outfit of their own volition. 'The two boys are bent on joining us but we shall not stop them from returning to their families if they want,' Bobby Mangang, commander of the little-known group, the Prepak Cobra Task Force, told a group of journalists who visited the rebel base last fortnight.

"Yengkhom Naobi, 13 and Angom Langamba, 11, missing since July 6, appeared before journalists in Bishenpur district, close to state capital Imphal, and declared they have joined the group on their own. The children are students of Class III and IV. The children were paraded before journalists soon after their mothers had told the media that they were in the custody of the Task Force. Now, parents of Kshetrimayum, a Class VI student, and Wangkheimayum Sohadeva, a Class V student, have said their children are missing since June 19."

  This should be enough detail for the UN to finally start working. Ms. Nepram said there is also evidence of Myanmar's military government being involved in the fighting in Manipur. This makes it a threat to international peace and security, the standards for UN Security Council involvement.

  Inner City Press also spoke about Manipur with Walter Dorn, formerly a UN Peacekeeper in Timore Leste. Dorn called for the deployment of UN personnel in Manipur, while acknowledging that this would require the consent of the government of India. He said it would take "meetings like this to pressure India." There were less than a dozen people at the October 10 screening, held just across the street from the UN with free samosas and chai tea.

  Dorn makes analogies to the UN's role in Timor Leste, Cambodia, Namibia and Central America, and his native Canada's granting of limited autonomy to Quebec. One could not help thinking of the precedent created by those countries recognizing the unlateral declaration of independence of Kosovo.

    Film curator Somi Roy, also present, stated that Manipur has a distinct civilization than India's, and that New Delhi police recently produced an insulting booklet telling people from Manipur how to dispose of garbage and for women not to dress too provocatively. 

  Impunity is one of the biggest problems in Manipur, according to Ms. Nepram. She cites the 1958 Indian Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, in which soldiers in "disturbed areas" like Manipur are allowed to shoot to kill while remaining immune from prosecution.  

   Ms. Nepram said that the continuance of this law is one of the sources of resentment in Manipur, one of the reasons it remains a disturbed area. She expressed frustration that the press does not cover the deaths and abuse, including disappearances and rape by Army soldiers. Foreign media is rarely allowed in Manipur, and then only for ten days at a time. Similar restrictions in Sudan's Darfur region are widely covered and denounced. Why not those in northeast India?

  The Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network is still small; its program to help women open bank accounts has to date helped 25 women. It also makes micro-loans to help women entrepreneurs. It began in 2004 in response to the killing of 27-year old Buddhi Moirangthem, and now "will keep documenting the testimonies of women and children gun survivors," including child soldiers.  But will the UN listen?

Footnote: Catch this reporter on Icelandic television, www.ruv.is

Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on UN, bailout, MDGs.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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