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| India-Pakistan |
| Separatists give assurance abducted German national will be released |
| 2003-03-30 |
| A tribal separatist group in India's northeastern state of Manipur Sunday said it would release a kidnapped German aid worker within the next week after completing the "investigation" now underway in their hideout. "We are investigating the credentials and integrity of the German national in our camp and the process might take another five to six days," a spokesman of the outlawed Kuki Liberation Army (KLA) told local journalists in Manipur. The "Kookie Liberation Army"? That's a new one on me... KLA militants abducted Heinrich Wolfgang, a Bonn-based aid worker,on March 23 from the village Maphou, 30 kilometers east of Manipur's capital Imphal. Wolfgang was kidnapped while on his way to a community development program funded by the German non-government organization, Evangelicher Entwicklings Dienst, which he was to oversee. The German fund was being given for relief and rehabilitation work on displaced refugees of a violent ethnic conflict in the state torn between tribal Nagas and Kukis. The Nagas are about the ugliest bunch, as a group, that I've ever seen. Can't say I've ever seen a Kuki, though, so they might be even uglier... The rebel group refuted earlier reports that blamed the outfit of demanding 10 million rupees as ransom money to secure the release of the German worker. "There was discrimination against the tribal Kukis in the implementation of the German-backed development program and so we have abducted him," the rebel leader said. I always do that when I can't get my way, too... "Food and clothes were being provided to Wolfgang through the negotiators and we understand he is safe and sound," a senior police official told IRNA by telephone from Imphal. The abduction of the German worker has sparked off a string of protests in Manipur with women groups and rival rebel armies terming the kidnapping as a "blemish" on the region's image. How do you "blemish" a zit? "The abduction of a foreign national for ransom is a blemish on the freedom struggle in the northeast," a statement by the Manipur People's Liberation Front (MPLF) said. The MPLF is an umbrella organization of the outlawed United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the Revolutionary People's Front (RPF) and the People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK). Seems like everybody's got his own army in those parts... The KLA is fighting for an independent homeland for the tribal Kukis in Manipur. There are more than 19 separatist groups in Manipur with demands ranging from secession to greater autonomy and the right to self-determination. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 So just how many of these rebel/terrorist/glorified bandit groups are there in India? It seems like you can't tell all of these people apart without a program and a chart explaining who wants to kill whom ... |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2003-03-30 18:37:36 |