Andaman and Nicobar tribe threatens poll boycott in land row

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Tribespeople from Andaman and Nicobar islands have threatened to boycott this year's general election because they say the navy has encroached on their land, a charge the navy denies.

Leaders from the Nicobarese tribe wrote a letter on behalf of 400 families to the lieutenant-governor of the Andaman and Nicobar islands this week, accusing the navy of taking "unfair advantage" of a people devastated by the 2004 tsunami.

The issue of land encroachment is highly sensitive on India's strategically important Andaman and Nicobar islands, home to Indian navy bases and near an important shipping channel.

Tribes on the archipelago, five of them close to extinction, have long held grievances about what they say is government neglect, exploitation and the decline of their indigenous culture.

"A few months ago the Navy suddenly came onto the lands. It is very cruel for the Navy to try to take unfair advantage of tribals who have suffered so much during the tsunami," said the letter, released to Reuters by the Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (SANE) on Thursday.

"To try and take additional land now which belongs to the tribals by threatening them is most cruel and illegal."

The letter said the tribal population of the Nancowrie islands would not cast their vote in elections likely in April and May.

The Andaman and Nicobar islands have a lone seat in the country's parliament.

Indian security forces stationed on the islands denied the allegation.

"At any cost defence forces will never encroach anyone's land," Abhinav Barve, a spokesman for the Andaman and Nicobar Command, told Reuters. "Soon the Andaman and Nicobar command will come out with an official version regarding this matter."

The Indian Ocean tsunami hit the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago badly, killing thousands and displacing nearly 40,000. The scenic isles, about 1,200 km east of the Indian mainland, are closer to Myanmar and Indonesia.

The Nicobarese, who number around 30,000 according to the rights group Survival International, made up the majority of the homeless.

Tribespeople and activists said the rebuilding of communities after the catastrophe was slow, threatening to undermine the tribes' indigenous culture by relocating them far from their traditional homes and livelihoods.

The cluster of more than 550 Andaman and Nicobar islands, of which only about three dozen are inhabited, are home to six tribes of Mongoloid and African origin who have lived there for thousands of years.

(Additional reporting by Sanjib Kumar Roy in PORT BLAIR)