Thousands of people marched Friday along the historic Stilwell Road to demand the reopening of the 1,079-mile (1,700 kilometres) route linking northeastern India to China via Myanmar, witnesses said. Organisers said more than 10,000 people shouted slogans and carried placards and banners along one stretch of the road built by US army general Joe Stilwell between 1942-1944 to send supplies to Chinese forces.
The route, which begins in India's Assam state, runs all the way to Kunming, in southern China, and is considered one of the great engineering feats of World War II.
But it has fallen into neglect, particularly in Myanmar, which has been under military rule since 1962.
"The symbolic march … is the beginning of a mass movement to pressurize New Delhi about the need to facilitate (the) reopening of the Stilwell Road for border trade with South Asia," Shankar Prasad Rai, president of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), told AFP by telephone.
Politicians and students from Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland joined the union-organised protest 600 kilometers east of Assam's main city of Guwahati.
"Reopening the Stilwell Road would allow free trade, besides transforming the northeast as the gateway to South Asian business centers," Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi told AFP.
"The stretch of the Stilwell Road within Myanmar is still not developed and we are urging New Delhi to impress upon Yangon to take steps for re-opening the historic road for trade," he said.
The road, which begins in Ledo, in Assam, follows ancient trade routes cutting through the Pangsau pass in Myanmar to South China.
"We want the Stilwell Road reopened to establish strong trade links between the northeastern region and South Asian countries like Myanmar, China, and Thailand," said N. Lotha, a youth leader from Nagaland.
The northeastern states are linked to India through a narrow corridor but have borders running 4,750 kilometers with China, Myanmar, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China, and Nepal.
Source: Agence France-Presse
