The NSCN/GPRN (K) Yung Aung (Myanmar) has  condemned the Coal India Limited’s (CIL) violent attempt to forcefully evict Naga villagers and other tribal communities in Tinsukia’s Ledo area despite mass opposition. “The widespread illegal coal extractions and coal dumping along the Assam-Arunachal border, specifically Tinsukia district in Assam and Changlang district in Arunachal which has been heavily protested by the Tangsa Nagas had landed on deaf ears,” stated the group in a press statement issued today through its Ministry of Information and Publicity.

It claimed that for the last many decades, the area’s coal and crude oil reserves has been relentlessly looted by Coal India and its subsidiaries alongside other conglomerates like ONGC and Geo Enpro Petroleum Limited which has caused irreversible environment damage upon the sacred lands of the indigenous Nagas and other tribal communities. A deliberate violation of fundamental human rights laws and values, the NSCN (YA) highlighted that the rampant and unethical mining is closely associated with land grabs and forced displacement of indigenous people who are desperately dependent on their land and forest.

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“In order to maintain their huge profits, the Assam and Arunachal Pradesh State governments and local authorities have been applying various tactics to subdue the voices of the ethnic communities who are living in their ancestral land for thousands of years. This is a direct policy to threaten the identity, culture and traditional way of life of the indigenous people and to reduce them to refugee status in their own homeland,” the group asserted.

It also affirmed that the Tangsa people are Nagas by flesh and blood and that their security and well being are not negotiable.

“For too long the voices of our people have been silenced through authoritarian tactics and systematic repression. The NSCN/GPRN will no longer remain a passive observer to the various injustice meted out to our people perpetrated by these Coal and Oil mafias. We will protect the interest of our people and respond to their wishes with appropriate military action,” it stated, reiterating its commitment to defend the Naga ancestral land, natural resources and national freedom.