Isak Chisi Swu, chairman of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), or NSCN (I-M), died the way he lived — every inch the fighter. Swu passed away in a Delhi hospital at about 12.40 pm on Tuesday, eleven months after the “accord”. He was 87.
It is said that the “Naga Accord” signed by the top NSCN (I-M) leadership and the Naga talks interlocutor on August 3, 2015 was finalised very quickly as Swu was seriously ill and wanted to see a resolution in his lifetime.
Swu joined the Naga underground movement in the 1950s and rose from the ranks to become the “foreign secretary” and vice-president of the A.Z. Phizo-led Naga National Council. After the Shillong Accord (1975), those opposed to the accord, including Swu, set up the NSCN. In 1988, the NSCN split, with Swu assuming chairmanship of the organisation and Thuingaleng Muivah becoming general secretary.
A shocked Muivah told reporters in Delhi: “This (death) is what we can’t avoid... we wanted him to be with us till the end of the solution (peace process).”
Swu’s body will be kept outside Nagaland House in New Delhi for people to pay their last respects before being flown to Nagaland on Wednesday for the final rites in his ancestral village.
Framework pact a ‘historic step’ Isak Chisi Swu, along with Thuingaleng Muivah and S S Khaplang, had formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) on January 31, 1980, opposing the Shillong Accord signed by the then Naga National Council (NNC) with the central government for bringing peace to Nagaland.
However, following some discord, the group split into two factions, the NSCN-K led by Khaplang, and the NSCN-IM, led by chairman Isak Chishi Swu and general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah.
Over the years, NSCN-IM has been accused of indulging in killings, extortion and other subversive activities. Its persistent demand for separation from the country, led to a military clamp down on the group. In 1997, NSCN-IM entered into a truce with New Delhi for peace, and since then, has been continuing a dialogue with the centre’s emissaries.
In August 2015, the NSCN-IM signed a framework agreement with the government, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi described as a “historic” step to usher in peace in trouble-torn Nagaland. The framework agreement was signed in the presence of the Prime Minister, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval by Muivah and government’s interlocutor R.N. Ravi at the PM’s residence.
