NEW DELHI: The insurgency in Kashmir looked like a picnic com- pared to what was likely to happen in the north-east if the insurgency there took its full form, warned Janata Dal member George Femandes last week.
Participating in the debate on the statutory resolution opposing the imposition of President’s rule in Manipur, Femandes blamed the rise of insurgency in the State on the political establishment in the north-eastern States and at the Center.
“Everyone in the north-east knows which insurgent group receives patronage from which politician the Government machinery is corrupt and elections have been a farce and fraud perpetrated on these people,” Femandes said.
The politicians in the northeast who had been the puppets of the Center, had been corrupt opportunists, if anything. Fernandes told Home Minister S.B.Chavan, who was listening intently to the de- bate. The Janata Dal stalwart repeatedly stressed that unless the fundamental problems which had led to the rise of insurgency were tack- led, the country’s north-eastern borders would continue to be threatened. He also warned the Government that the foremost threat to the country’s unity and integrity in the form of the Kashmir problem, would pale into insignificance if the insurgency in the north-cast attained full blown status in these States do not matter to our petty political game..so we ignore them and have played havoc with the destinies of the people there.” charged Femandes, accusing the mainstream political and administrative establishment of having deliberately corrupted the system in the north-east
His next allegation had an ominous ring to it: “I have a feeling. I cannot, of course, substantiate it but I have a feeling that there is an objective of letting innocent people die of drugs and AIDS.”
Article extracted from this publication >> March 4, 1994
