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 nsurgency
in Mizoram led by the Mizo National Front (MNF), which
started with the infamous Mautam Famine of the 1960s,
ended with the Mizo Peace Accord of 1986. Former insurgent
leaders were absorbed into the political stream in the
State, and following that, the State has remained, more
or less, peaceful, except for the peripheral conflicts.
Prominent among them has been the case of the Brus or
the Reangs, who were forced out of the State to neighbouring
Tripura in 1997, following alleged atrocities on them.
Nearly 17,000 of them, whose number steadily grew to
about 35,000 by early 2000, were housed in six relief
camps in the Kanchanpur sub-division of North district
in Tripura. As Mizoram government dithered over the
repatriation of the Reangs, citing reasons like an inflated
number of refugees, militant outfits like the Bru National
Liberation Front (BNLF) and subsequently, Bru Liberation
Front of Mizoram (BLFM) emerged out of the camps and
indulged in intermittent violence inside Mizoram and
also in the border areas in Assam.
In June 5, 2009, the Mizoram Government decided to
take back the Bru refugees residing in the six refugee
camps of North Tripura. But the refugee’s repatriation
from Tripura to Mizoram was stopped in November 2009
when a mob in Mizoram burnt down around 700 tribal houses
after an 18-year-old Mizo youth was shot dead by unidentified
miscreants. Following the incident, about 5,500 more
displaced Bru/Reang tribals took shelter afresh in North
Tripura. The process of repatriation began again on
May 21, 2010 with 154 families, which fled from the
state in November 2009, returning to Mizoram. By 26
May, 2010, about 235 families comprising 1,200 men,
women and children had been repatriated in three batches
to Mamit district of western Mizoram.
Other outfits like the Hmar People’s Convention-Democracy
(HPC-D), however, continues to carry out its activities
beyond the borders of Mizoram, mostly inside Assam and
Manipur.
In May 2007, a new outfit called Singlung Tiger Force
was formed, which later became the Singlung People’s
Liberation Army (SPLA). It is an armed group whose cadres
are drawn from the Hmar community having its bases in
the border areas of Manipur-Mizoram-Myanmar. The ideology
behind the formation of the outfit was to defend the
rights of the indigenous Singlung people affected by
the proposed construction of Tuirial and Tipaimukh multi-purpose
hydel project in their area including the adjoining
border areas of Manipur and Mizoram. Recently, on July
17, 2009, 64 cadres of SPLA laid down their arms and
surrendered to the Mizoram Government.
However, a problem that is affecting peace in Mizoram
is the smuggling of arms through its porous borders
with Myanmar and Bangladesh. Mizoram's international
border areas are frequently used by arms smugglers to
bring in arms to the northeastern region.
Mizoram continues to be peaceful barring its odd experience
with peripheral insurgency. It has managed to bring
both the BNLF and the BLFM to the peace fold. Peace
talks began between the Mizoram government and the BNLF
on 7 September 2001. Both sides held several rounds
of talks to reach at a solution. However, in spite of
a peace deal between the BNLF and the Mizoram government
on April 26, 2005, repatriation of the refugees into
Mizoram is yet to begin.
The State police have not only kept insurgency under
manageable level, but its anti-insurgency efforts yielded
significant results. On April 22, 2006, a joint team
of the Mizoram Police and Assam Rifles arrested four
top leaders of the BLFM, including its ‘president’
Vanlalliana, ‘vice-president’ Vanrama, ‘army
chief’ Romawia Meska and ‘lieutenant’
Lallawma, from different places of the State. The arrest
subsequently led to the en masse surrender of 802 BLFM
cadres on 26 October 2006.
In the beginning of 2007, the Mizoram government initiated
a series of steps to bring the HPC-D to the negotiating
table. On January 5, Chief Minister, Zoramthanga delegated
Charlton Lien Amo, a legislator from Manipur, as the
representative to negotiate with the HPC-D. The outfit
responded by asking for the involvement of the Union
Government in peace talks between the outfit and the
Mizoram Government. A note issued by the outfit on January
11 said, "If there is any negotiation to discuss
the fulfillment of the provisions of the 1994 accord
signed between the Mizoram government and the HPC, the
Centre must intervene." There has been no further
progress in the negotiation process.
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