‘Question of regret does not arise’
SHILLONG: The ANVC which is set to sign the peace pact with both the Centre and the State governments on Wednesday does not regret the killings, kidnappings, extortions and other crimes perpetrated by the militant outfit over the years.
The ANVC, formed in 1995 and banned in 2000, had entered into a tripartite ceasefire agreement with the Government on July 23, 2004.
For almost 10 years, the ANVC had unleashed a reign of terror in Garo Hills and committed various atrocities resulting in loss of human lives, physical and mental agony to the kidnapped victims and their families and other economic hardships to the people.
While many security personnel were also killed in the encounter with ANVC militants, the outfit also lost many cadres in the police operations.
In a written reply to The Shillong Times to the query on whether the outfit regrets the mistakes it had committed in the past, ANVC general secretary Wanding K. Marak said, “The question of regret does not arise. When you make a new road, you have to start from scratch and if your plantation is in the way, though you have precious trees in it, they will have to be sacrificed and cut down if it comes within the alignment of the new road.”
“Over the course of our movement, many people have lost their lives, from our organization, from the police and from the public, but it has all been for the greater good. Though it is not a fair comparison, even the United Nations was formed after millions of people lost their lives in the Second World War,” the ANVC general secretary further said. To another question on whether it is not too late to sign the peace pact as enough damage has already been done in Garo Hills due to the formation of splinter groups, mostly breakaway factions of ANVC, Marak said, “They say it is better late than never; so we would not say that it is too late, but we would say that had it been done earlier, say around the year 2008, it might have prevented the situation from worsening in Garo Hills.”