Baptist leaders welcome Nagaland pledge by three rival political factions to cease hostilities

Baptist leaders have welcomed a pledge by top leaders of Nagaland’s three rival political factions to cease hostilities that have for decades beset the heavily Baptist state in northeastern India.

In an open letter, John Sundquist, retired director of International Ministries for American Baptist Churches USA; Daniel Buttry, American Baptists’ global consultant for peace and justice; Ken Sehested, founding director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America; and Raimundo Barreto of the Baptist World Alliance said the four were “beside ourselves with joy” at the outcome of a Sept. 18 summit meeting in the Nagaland city of Dimapur. Barreto, director of the BWA division of justice and freedom, also joined BWA General Secretary Neville Callam in welcoming the peace accord signed by political leaders. The accord followed meetings brokered by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation, a group of organizations and tribal bodies formed in 2008 to urge underground factions to stop fighting. The conflict has killed more than 2,330 people in Nagaland since 1992.

Leaders of the three groups at the summit committed themselves to “working out our differences” as outlined in a “Covenant of Reconciliation” that contains action steps for reconciliation. They also pledged “cessation of all forms of hostilities, including any territorial expansion.” The pledge to work out differences shows the value of seeking peace in practice (Matthew 5:9).

Nagaland is 90 percent Christian, a result of the influence of Christian missionaries during British rule. Three-quarters of its Christians are Baptists, which gives the state the distinction of being known as the only predominantly Baptist state in the world. Baptists have long tried to help broker peace between armed political parties with differing ideologies and different visions for Nagaland’s future.

The political conflict involving the Nagas, tribal people groups that were largely isolated from one another before the British colonial era, dates to 1947, when the Naga National Council declared independence. India sent troops to restore order, and in 1963 Nagaland was named a self-governing state in the Indian union. A flawed peace agreement between India and Nagaland in 1975 led to division among the Nagas that became as bloody as the conflict with India. The National Socialist Council of Nagaland, formed in 1980 with a goal of establishing a socialist Christian state, divided in 1988 into the NSCN-K and NSCN-IM factions, which also clashed violently.

Wati Aier, principal of the Oriental Theological Seminary in Dimapur, Nagaland’s main commercial city, was elected interim convener of the reconciliation forum. Aier is a past vice president of the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, one of six regional fellowships of the Baptist World Alliance, and has worked on the reconciliation process for about 20 years. The Forum for Naga Reconciliation described the summit as “the beginning of a new phase of Naga Reconciliation.” The forum said it was encouraged by the leaders’ attitude and urged them “to continue displaying wise and courageous leadership for Naga Reconciliation.”

In their letter, Callam and Barreto said they were “greatly encouraged” by news from the September summit. Callam had praised the Nagas for progress in their reconciliation efforts in an address to the Baptist World Congress that summer in Hawaii. “We appreciate the symbolism of this covenant, and the impact it might have among the Naga people,” they wrote. “We also understand that any process of reconciliation and healing needs to be nurtured every day.”

The letter noted earlier efforts that did not succeed, including a meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in June 2008 in which the Baptist World Alliance took part. Sehested, Sundquist and Buttry helped broker mediation talks in Atlanta in 1997 and have continued to work for reconciliation among Naga groups. Sehested, now co-pastor of Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville, N.C., plans to write about attending a June meeting of the Naga Forum for Reconciliation in an upcoming issue of the Baptist Peacemaker, the Peace Fellowship’s magazine.

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