Recently, rallies were held in some villages of Mizoram’s Champai and Lunglei districts and Manipur’s Tengnoupal district against the central government’s decision to revoke the Free Movement Regime (FMR) agreement with Myanmar. The FMR allows people on both sides of the international border to move within a 16 km radius across the border without a visa. The bilateral arrangement, initiated in the 1970s, allows people who share kinship with those on the other side of the border to maintain their mutual age-old relations. Protesters were demanding continuation of the FMR between the two neighbouring countries.
At least two MLAs of the ruling Zoram People’s Party (ZPM) took part in the protest. Interestingly, Zomi Reunification Organization (ZORO) general secretary L Ramdinliana Renthlei threatened to take up arms, if the Centre goes ahead with its plan to fence the Indo-Myanmar border and withdraw the FMR, they will take this as a Declaration of Independence for the ethnic Zo or Mizo communities. He also warned,
"If the Centre continues its plan to fence the border and ditch the FMR, the youths will have no other alternative but to take up arms again.” Well, Mizo insurgency under the leadership of Laldenga in the 60s sought separation of Mizo territories from India, but the genesis of the movement was birthed by Centre’s indifference to a severe famine in the state in the late 50s. ZORO is an Aizawl-based group which seeks the reunification of all Chin-Kuki-Mizo-Zomi tribes of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar by bringing them under one administration.
The BJP government at the Centre has not yet responded to the new threat. Political leaders in Mizoram had time and again protested against fencing of the Indo-Myanmar border and suspension of Free Movement Regime. Their basic argument is that the Chin-Mizo people had never accepted the border drawn in colonial times and there should not be any kind of restrictions in movement of their kith and kin from across the border.
Till recently, the Manipur government was the only one in the Indo-Myanmar belt which has agreed to border fencing and biometric registration of aliens from across the border. Mizoram recently agreed to the biometric registration exercise. Manipur’s case, however, is different from others. It is a strategic border state plus a springboard from where the Indian mainland is planning to launch its economic ties with the Southeast Asian countries including neighbouring Myanmar and the Asian Highway or Trans-border railway line passes through it.
The Indian government might have developed some border trading posts in the other states, but the route passing through Manipur via Moreh is the traditional highway. So, control of Moreh is paramount to any stakeholder. The opening of the border trade and free movement regime comes along with risks particularly drug smuggling and cross border activities of insurgents. In recent times, the impact of free movement regime has come out in the open with Myanmarese aliens of the same racial stock of some communities here coming in waves from across the border and from establishing new villages to capturing power bases in the adjoining hill districts of Churachandpur and Chandel besides poppy cultivation, drugs and arms smuggling,
Myanmarese rebel groups establishing bases. Hence, the advent of narco-terrorism in an already complex environment of inter-communal relations. Coming back to the issue of opposition against border fencing and abolition of the free movement regime, one must say much more is at stake than the argument of communities of same racial stock being separated by an arbitrary border. It is not only a case of how many more the country is going to welcome or give shelter to, given the war-like conditions across the border.
Even with the fighting going on, there is no let up in smuggling activities not only of drugs and alien crossings. For example, timber and betel nuts besides other items are in high demand among the barons of smuggling and the little that has been seized and compounded is only the tip of the iceberg. And, so many stakeholders are involved in this smuggling business.
