ZoRO marked the 122nd anniversary of the Fort William Conference under the theme of "Together We can Ascend." About 2, 000 people, Including Zo delegates from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Mizoram, Assam, and Tripura attended the conference-cum-commemoration event.
The Chin-Lushai conference of January 29, 1892 decided to keep the Chin-Lushai Hills under one administration.
The conference opened in Calcutta on January 25 under the presidentship of Sir Charles Alfred Elliot, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal.
It dealt with a variety of connected questions on the future, civil and military of the Chin-Lushai Hillls.
Saikul constituency MLA, Yamthong Haokip; ZoRO president, R Thangmawi; Autonomous District Council (ADC), Sadar Hills, chairman, Haokholal Hangshing; Kuki National Organisation (KNO) president, PS Haokip; general secretary, ZoRO, Northern Zone, and S Thangchinlal Simte, Kuki Inpi, Manipur president, Thangsei Haokip also attended the conference.
Addressing the conference, KNO president Haokip reiterated the organisation roadmap concerning the resurrection of 'Zo country' began with securing statehood and the Kuki 'ancestral land' from the British colonialists but later on it was included into the present-day Manipur state and a Kuki state in present-day Saigang division in Myanmar.
"This will be followed by consolidation of our territories in other parts of India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
Once we achieve this objective, together with Mizoram, Chin, and Kachin states, we can aspire to be one great nation," Haokip said.
He added, "Today, the Zo people dispersed in three different countries-Tripura, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram in India, the Sagaing Division, Kachin state and Chin state in Burma, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh are coming together as the one people under ZoRO" .
Haokip added ZoRO started with becoming a member of the UN Permanent Settlement and attending the UN meetings in New York.
He maintained that in order to achieve the objective of uniting 'Zo country' it is essential that "Our people cooperate as Mizo in the state of Mizoram, Chin in Chin state, Kachin in Kachin state, and in the rest such as Sagaing Division, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, and Chittagong Hill Tracts as Kuki.