Kohima: A group of leaders has broken away from the Isak-Muivah-led National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM) and announced the formation of a “provisional government”. They claimed that the spirit of the ceasefire agreement with the Centre had “ceased to exist”.
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The new Eastern Flank faction said the decision was taken at an “extraordinary joint emergency meeting” held on July 21 at Mt Horeb Camp in Myanmar’s Sagaing region. It said the move was aimed at “saving the nation from another surrender” and “rescuing the Naga political movement from its present predicament”.
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The group announced a nine-member “provisional government” headed by Ikato Chishi Swu, the son of late NSCN(IM) co-founder Isak Chishi Swu, as chairman and Hs Ramsan as vice chairman.
The elevation of Swu is likely to deepen the crisis of NSCN(M), since it is construed as a challenge to the parent organisation’s leadership headed by Thuingaleng Muivah who is now over 90 years old.
Swu had joined the Myanmar-based faction in April 2025, saying he had lost confidence in the present leadership of the group.
The breakaway faction also declared “null and void” the expulsion orders issued by the NSCN-IM leadership against Ramsan and Absalom Raman on June 24 and against Swu and four others on July 7.
“Those who have surrendered and yielded to the pressure of the government of India have no right to expel/terminate those who remain steadfast in striving for the sovereign existence of the Naga nation,” the faction said.
The group rejected the “competencies” submitted by the NSCN-IM leadership to the Centre, alleging that they compromised the Naga political position by placing it within the Union and Constitution of India. It also accused the leadership of engaging in “meaningless and endless” talks and failing to act after what it described as the Centre’s “betrayal” of the Framework Agreement signed on August 3, 2015.
Asserting that the spirit of the 1997 ceasefire agreement had ended, the faction said it would continue both political and armed resistance to safeguard the “sovereign existence” of the Naga nation.
The Centre and NSCN(IM) entered into a ceasefire in 1997, beginning negotiations for a political resolution to the long-standing conflict.
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