Mail News service
Shillong, Oct 4 : The North East Dialogue Forum (NEDF), a powerful civil society group in India’s northeastern states Thursday branded the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) as “racial” Act.
“The UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination has found beyond proof, doubt and dispute that AFSPA is racially discriminatory. The committee has urged India to repeal the act,” NEDF Convener U Nobokishore told journalists.
The forum, which is an umbrella of several civil society groups in the region, also urged the cabinet committee on security under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to repeal the act.
“The government’s own commissions like the Justice (Rtd) Jeevan Reddy commission set up in 2004 and the Second Administrative Reforms Commission chaired by Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily recommended that the act should be repealed,” Nobokishore said.
Rights activists say that the AFSPA, which is enforced in Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Tripura, Assam and Nagaland and some other parts of the northeast like Meghalaya, gives the armed forces authority to kill or detain terror suspects in insurgency-prone areas.
Nobokishore reminded that during May-June 2012, in the second cycle of Universal Period Review of the UN Human Rights Commission, 80 countries expressed deep concern over human rights violation related to AFSPA.
Stating that the Centre refused to repeal the AFSPA in the Country, the NEDF Convener said, “They (Indian authorities) argued that China is trying to lend support to insurgent groups in the Northeast. In the name of China, India is trying to justify the imposition of AFSPA. But northeast has nothing to do with Chinese influence and there is no basis on their justification.”
Moreover, Nobokishore said AFSPA has been imposed in the northeastern states to fulfill the aspirations of multi-national companies as the region is endowed with several natural resources, including minerals.
“The region has rich minerals like coal, chromium and uranium while recently; petroleum has been discovered in the western part of Manipur like Tamenglong. The fact is the region as a whole can provide large quantity of resources to the rest of the country and the world,” the stated.
However, army officials engaged in counter-insurgency operations maintain that it is for the central and the state governments to decide whether to repeal the act or let it continue.
Meghalaya Governor R.S. Mooshahary, who favoured the repeal of the AFSPA in the region, had said that its prolonged use had alienated the civil society.
“We cannot contain insurgency-related violence by alienating the citizens; we can do so more effectively by involving them,” said Mooshahary, a former chief of the Border Security Force and the National Security Guard.
Irom Sharmila Chanu, a human rights activist, has been on indefinite strike for nearly a decade in Manipur, demanding the withdrawal of the AFSPA from the state.
Several human rights groups, including the powerful North East Students’ Organisation (NESO), have also been demanding revocation of the AFSPA from the northeastern region.
In view of the outcry against the AFSPA, the central government had appointed a five-member committee headed by Supreme Court Judge B.P. Jeevan Reddy a few years ago to examine whether the act was required or not.
After visiting all affected states, the committee submitted its report to the central government in October 2006. The government has not yet made public the committee’s findings.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/nedf-brands-afspa-as-a-racial-act/
