On Thursday, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti stated that the US is prepared to help India cope with the unrest in Manipur. According to Garcetti, Manipur is a “human concern” for the US and can attract greater investment if there is peace.
A day after local schools resumed operations, a woman was shot and killed outside a school in Manipur’s Imphal West district on Thursday. After a “Tribal Solidarity March” was held to oppose the Meitei community’s quest for Scheduled Tribe recognition, unrest in Manipur erupted. Since then, ethnic conflict between the Meitei and Kuki communities has claimed the lives of over 100 people.
At a press conference in Kolkata, Ambassador Eric Garcetti said, “Let me speak about Manipur first. We pray for peace there. When you ask us about the concern of the United States, I don’t think it’s a strategic concern. I think it’s about human concern.”
“You don’t have to be Indian to care when we see children and individuals die in the sort of violence that we see [in Manipur] and we know that peace is the precedent for so many other good things. There have been so many other good things in the northeast and those can’t continue without peace,” he said.
Offering US assistance, Garcetti said, “We stand ready to assist in any ways if asked. We know it’s an Indian matter and we pray for that peace and it may come quickly. Because we can bring more collaboration, more projects, more investment if that peace is in place.”
“One very clear message I want to send — the east of India and the northeast of India matters to the United States. Its people, its places, its potential and its future matter to us,” he said.
On his first visit to Kolkata, Garcetti met with West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose and Amit Mitra’s principal chief advisor to talk about economic potential, plans for regional connections, cultural ties, and concerns pertaining to women’s empowerment. Both nations should, according to him, “invest in the future for peace and progress.”
