Done my part, says Naga leader’s will
Widely regarded leader of the Naga militancy, Shangwang Shangyung Khaplang, who passed away in his Taga camp headquarters in Myanmar on Saturday evening, in his last will has said he did his “part”.
“I have done my part for the freedom of my people with the little capacity God has given me… as a human, I have done many wrongs and forgive me for my failures,” he wrote in his will which has been vouched as “genuine” by a top Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang faction) functionary to this newspaper. However, the functionary added: “His (Khaplang’s) will in fact was not meant for mass publication at this hour”.
Besides leading the NSCN(K), Khaplang was instrumental in April 2015 to have got most insurgent groups from Nagaland, Assam and Manipur together under a single umbrella organisation called United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia. Khaplang’s demise has left the NSCN(K) leaderless although speculations are rife that deputy chairman Khango Konyak has taken over as officiating chief for the next six months.
Khaplang’s word was law in a virtually ungoverned and inaccessible 60,000 sq km tract in western Myanmar skirting Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur.
It is from this jungled tract that most of the insurgent groups from Assam, Manipur and Nagaland operate with bases in training camps where cadres are trained in warfare.
Nagaland CM Shurhozelie Liezietsu wrote: “It is tragic that such an important leader like Mr Khaplang has expired considering the fact that the protracted Naga political problem is on the verge of being resolved.”