[Assam] JOINT STATEMENT OF KAMOTAPUR LIBERATION ORGANISATION, MANIPUR PEOPLE’S LIBERA

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JOINT  STATEMENT 
OF 
KAMOTAPUR  LIBERATION ORGANISATION, 
MANIPUR PEOPLE’S LIBERATION FRONT   
AND 
TRIPURA PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC  FRONT 
AGAINST INDIAN ANNEXATION OF  
KAMOTAPUR, MANIPUR AND  TRIPURA

10 October  2006

This is the  fifty-seventh year of annexation by India of Kamotapur, Manipur 
and Tripura in  October 1949.  
On this  occasion, Kamotapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), Manipur People’s 
Liberation  Front (MPLF) and Tripura People’s Democratic Front (TPDF), making 
common cause  against the annexation of our States by India,  once again 
reaffirm our resolve and determination to regain the sovereignty and  independence 
of our respective States. Sovereign independence is a nation’s  fundamental 
right as is enshrined in the UN Charter. The use of any form of  struggle, 
including armed struggle, to achieve or restore this national right is  justified 
under international law.          
Ever since the illegal annexations, the Government of India has been  
pursuing a deliberate policy of complete Indianisation of the three States as  
elsewhere in the Region by adopting measures to make indigenous peoples  minorities 
in their own land. This is the gravest of the threats to the  distinctive 
identities of the peoples of the Region. In pursuance of this  colonial policy, 
Kamotapur was merged with West  Bengal in January  1951 thereby making the 
Kamotapuris a minority community among the Bengalis of  West Bengal. The Tripuri 
people who constituted more than 85% of the total  population of Tripura at the 
time of annexation have since been swamped by  ethnic Bengali settlers who now 
constitute more than 70% of the total  population. In Manipur, foreign 
refugees having ethnic affinity with mainland  Indians have been resettled in 
fertile areas of the valley. This population  transfer has gravely disturbed the 
original demography of the Region resulting  in chronic racial, cultural, social, 
economic and political conflicts.      
However, Indian colonial policy does not end with population transfer.  The 
time tested policy of ‘divide and rule’ which India has refined and  developed 
as ‘divide and destroy’ being pursued against the liberation struggles  of 
our Region is another aspect of Indian colonial occupation. This policy has  
effectively exploited the multi-ethnic situation of the Region by playing up  
narrow ethnic sentiments against one another thus fragmenting, in the name of  
democracy, the unity of the Region. But we firmly believe that this is a  
temporary phenomenon in the historical development of the Region towards ethnic  
harmony and unity. 
Despite India’s all-out effort to suppress our national liberation  
struggles, despite all the ups and downs natural in any such national struggle,  those 
of our struggles with correct political line and policies have made  
significant progress thereby exposing those with wrong political line and  policies, 
though it is still a long way to our goal of sovereignty and  independence. 
However, we firmly believe that despite temporary setbacks caused  by Indian ‘
divide and destroy’ policy and lack of practical unity among our  liberation 
forces, Indian colonial rule is destined to be ultimately overthrown  from our 
Region.   
On this occasion KLO, MPLF and TPDF jointly appeal to all the fraternal  
peoples and revolutionary organisations of the Region to strengthen their  
traditional brotherhood and fight together to overthrow Indian colonial rule  from 
the Region.  

Let us build our unity through struggle! 

“All for one, one for all!” 
Dated   
10 October 2006                      KLO, MPLF and TPDF         

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