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BURMA
Suu Kyi Calls for Ethnic Rights in First Debate
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to MPs in the Lower House on Wednesday. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for laws protecting the rights of ethnic minorities during her first parliamentary debate in Burma’s Lower House on Wednesday.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) chairman supported a proposal of Ti Khun Myat, the MP representing Shan State’s Kut Khai Constituency for the ruling military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), to enact laws to protect minority groups.
Protecting the rights of ethnic minorities is a complex issue and more than simply preserving their culture and language, said the Nobel Laureate.
“It also cannot be detached from the Panglong spirit which is based on equality and mutual respect,” said Suu Kyi. “Keeping this in mind, we, all of us parliamentarians, must work together to amend the laws as necessary to be able to protect ethnic rights as well as to develop a truly democratic nation.”
The proposal to protect the rights of minorities applied mainly to ethnic languages, literature and culture, and some MPs criticized the current wording for lacking provisions for equality, autonomy and human rights.
Ba Shein, a Lower House MP for the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, said he supports the proposal but it also needs to include guarantees of ethnic equality.
“There needs to be many amendments to make in order to have equality for the ethnics as well as to build the federal union which the ethnics consistently want to establish,” he said.
Nine MPs including Suu Kyi discussed the proposed legislation during Wednesday’s session of the People’s Parliament after it was first introduced as a topic on Tuesday.
Two other NLD members—Min Thu from Naypyidaw’s Ottarathiri Constituency and Ohn Kyaing from Mandalay’s Maha-Aung-Myay Constituency—joined Suu Kyi in the debate.
The democracy icon also raised the issue of the term “ethnics” as the controversial 2008 Constitution does not contain a specific definition. According to the 1982 citizenship law, an ethnic group must have been living permanently on Burmese soil since before 1823 to be eligible for citizenship.
Suu Kyi also highlighted poverty in ethnic states as well as their underdeveloped condition due to a continuous cycle of civil wars. Burma’s highest poverty rate is in Chin State at 73.3 percent with 43.5 percent in Arakan State and 37.1 percent in Shan State, she said, noting that the national average was 25.6 percent.
Her speech was broadcasted live on Burma’s SkyNet channel which offers live coverage of parliamentary debates.
I for one support this resolution.
The definition of the ethnics? I am not sure what term is being referred to here. But in my mind it is “Taing-Yin-Thar” (တိုင္းရင္းသား) This is a most confusing term.
Who are the natives, aborigines or the indigenous people of Myanmar? Does anybody really know?
The ethnic peoples in the hills (and on the plains) are the rightful citizens of this country just as much as the Bamas are and vice versa. TaingYinThar sounds somewhat inferior to who are not, as the colonialists referred to all of us as “natives”. We are all natives, yes, but not the way the colonial administrators said and meant it to be.
So, let us chuck this term “TaingYinThar” out. Call us Myanmar citizens (ျမန္မာျပည္သား/ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသား/ျမန္မာမ်ား) regardless of race, color or religion. There should be no such thing as guest citizen (ဧည့္ႏိုင္ငံသား) either. A guest is a guest, not a citizen. A citizen is no guest either.
Thank you, Irrawaddy, for this opportunity of a say-so.
Thank you.
Good point about the difficulty of defining “ethnic groups”. Right now there are 135 of them officially (not counting Rohingyas?) That’s already a ridiculous number for a medium-sized country. For example are we counting from the “Tarong”, a vanishing group of people of “small stature” (see I am using the politically correct word by not calling them “pygmy-esque”) living in the far north down to the “Moken sea-gypsies” (what’s the politically correct word here?) living in the Mergui archipelago. All the “ethnic States”, such as the Shan and Kachin States will have smaller sub-states for the smaller ethnic groups: Wa, Pa’o, Palaung, Kokang, Akha etc. in Shan State. I’m not even counting the hundreds of thousands of recent Chinese immigrants (legal or not). It would indeed be very complicated to divide up Burma into 135 pieces (well we have to be fair to every ethnic group if we start doing it, no?). . What about people from mixed marriages? If you logically and legally follow the notion of “ethnic group” it becomes nonsense. The only definition needed is that of a CITIZEN (irrespective of race and religion as prescribed by the UN Charter of Human Rights, which Suu Kyi should be an expert on!)
Good call by Ms Suu Kyi in parliament.All Burmese must support her.
It is a good time to look after ethnic monorities, otherwise, the promise of General Aung San will be never accomplished and would never end the civil war for another century.
Why Rohingya were massacred?
The root cause of the current unfolding Rohingya situation started long time ago when Rakhines (Magh) of Bangladesh Hill Tracks migrated into Arakan State of Burma in large scale in 1972 just after Bangladesh got Independence. It is estimated that 80,000 Rakhines Magh entered into Arakan though it may be much more. To cover up this influx of Rakhine from Bangladesh, Burmese newspaper used to write articles in daily basic which expressed concern about Bangali Muslim influx into Arakan through the western border of Bangladesh. The slogan was “Tightly Close the door of the western border”. Since then the situations of Rohingyas dramatically changed from bad to worse and mass scale Rohingya ethnic cleansing has taken the real momentum.
The question is how could this large scale of Rakhine (Magh) flux could have taken place so easily. Surely, there was some strong support behind which can be easily understood as no one but the Ne Win’s strong military regime planned to replace Rohingya people. The strong reason is that all educated Rakhine migrants were provided with jobs in schools as teachers, in Armies as Generals and in industries an engineers and so on.
Since then the persecution on Rohingya has been steadily increased to such an extend that people can not move even from village to village without authorities approval, and marriage ban was imposed taking years to get married, possible only when the authority approve it. Professional Higher Education and movement to any other states were totally banned. Thousands have been killed who tried to sneak out the ban and so on. Many Rohingya were forced to leave the country causing a lot diaspora in many parts of the world the largest being in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh totaling about 1.5 millions.
Very complex issue.
If I may say this and I emphasize this is my opinion only.
I am a Kala (indian). But I like to call myself Pyi-daung-su Kala.
So what I have never knew anything but Myanmar.
After all I didn’t have any choice what race I wanted to be.
I think this is not a big deal.
Each and everyone of us belongs to Myanmar.
Let’s be united and have goodwill.
We are all in the same boat.
No need to fight.
Whats about the Rohingyas?Like to hear from your mouth what you think about them?
If the Bengali Rhingya is Burmese citizen or hold FRC and then they have the same right as any Burmese citizen who live in Burma.
If they do not have any kind of permit for to stay in Burma and then they will be deported to where they come from.
I would like to say a few word regarding ( Tai Yin Thar ) ethic right. The Burmese government need to learn from India in this ethnic issue. In India, they were more ethnic minorities living than Burma had but they know exactly how to handle. They, Indian government pick up all of the representative from ethnic minorities not from their population but from representing their ethnic groups. A few weeks ago there were Chin ethnic minority was a candidate for president. Compare to the other population in India, the Chin ethnic were less than 5% percent in India.They do not look on their background or population but they look upon their ability.
Lets look at Burma/Myanmar, how the previous government handle on ethnic issue? They send troops to ethnic area, they force to married the Army with ethnic minorities woman and force the ethnic woman to covert to their religion.In this way they think, they can influence ethnic minorities but it is not. The best way they should do is, they should send Teachers, nurses, doctors, and volunteers civil groups to ethnic area. But they never did.
Another way for ethnic right. The president post should go for rotation to Arakan, Bamar, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kaya, Mon and Shan. At the same time all of the Minister post should share with according to State and Division and State and Division chief should be elected by their constituency and not hand pick by the president. As for civil servant, there should not need who they are and where they from but depending on their experience and their ability they should get promotion.
Lets look at in Asian country like Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand. Singapore President S.R Nathan, Foreign Minister K Shanmugam were Indian descendant, In Thailand they have several Prime Minister, Minister from Chinese descendant. Malaysia and Brunei country is the same situation. Why the Burmese people were so selfish so reluctant to point ethnic minorities groups in Cabinet position? If, they really want to have peace and harmony in Myanmar, they need not look on race and ethnic but they have to look up on who has this and that ability, experience and background. They have so many Chinese and Indian descendant well educated Myanmar.When I was in Malaysia one of my friend told me, Brunei Vice Foreign Minster and Malaysia Vice Foreign minister were arguing over on their water boundary. They both are Chinese descendant and they both speak well their native dialect and the Chinese common language Mandarin but they used English language and Malay native language when they make conversation. How beautiful is this…
The Burmese people think they were the most patriotic in Myanmar. Actually is not. Some time people whom you may not know were more patriotic than who you are. It is no too late to change our old ideology. It is a time to wake up. The world is moving so fast than your imagination. Let make it for a better world and carrying the heavy burden with who want to help you. Don’t carry your self it’s too heavy for for you.
Thanks a lot for irrawaddy.
Burma ( also call Myanmar ) has two type of laws, concerning with citizenship law One type of law
was passed at constituent assembly in 1947-48. According to that law clearly mentioned that those are residing as their residence on the territory of Burma on the day this law was passed in constituent assembly of Burma are regarded or recognized as national or citizens of Burma. Again 1982 citizenship law was passed by one party dictatorship of New Win government undemocratically and bias, to eliminate Muslims of Burma from the soil.
Therefore it is required to discuss and debate not only in parliament but also with all civil society within Burma to make a new citizenship law so as to meet international standard.
I do not care the Burmans get the lion’s share. The most important thing is to have federal Union. Seven divisions(The Proper Burma) can become seven federal states and the Union of Burma can have fourteen automous States. All States must have equal status in the Union. We will no longer need to worry about the ethnic or the Burmans. Chin State, Kachin State, Shan State, Kayah State, Karen State, Mon State, Arakan State, Irrawaddy State, Rangoon State, Pegu State, Magwe State, Mandalay State, and Sagaing State. Having equality? Nothing wrong with that. If we establish Naga State, it will make the Union of Burma even more beautiful.
As long as the States can have self-determination on their respective lands(State), our Union will prosper day and night. Let the people of Shan State decide for the Shan State. The same things to other States. In the past, the Burmese decided our affairs which was absolutely none of their businesses. Self-determination is the key word here and important to build the genuine Union.
What is the voice of U S D P ?
There is endless peace talks with negotiator and ethnics groups on the guideline of government.
National general congress should be called for this issue and meet the peace agreement by all people without grouping.
After that we go to amend Constitutional laws by decisions from congress.
On our mind we are no minority and majority that we all are just Bamar( oldest used ) in only one country should be federation or union.
We have not seem someone or an ethnic group ask for divine .
They are waiting for the voices of all people in myanmar not just the voices from parliament.
Let me answer Hasam Md Abdur Rouf mentioning about Bengali Rohingyas issue! lets make it clearly about this so called Bengali Rohingyas and other ethnic minority groups.
Ethnic groups. They were the one who lived in their own territory, their own culture, their own land and who fought for independence and gain that independence with the Burmese freedom fighter were called ethnic groups.
Citizenship. Regarding citizenship and immigration law, they need to review. According to the current immigration law in Myanmar, if you lived in the country for third generation than you can claim you right of citizenship or you have to convert to Buddhist. How about those who lived in Myanmar for generation to generation but they didn’t have the right to claim their right? It is too bad for them. Some people were living in Myanmar and could not speak their mother tongue at all but they still holding FRC card including some Bengali Rohingyas people. It is not fare for those who could not speak their own tongue and used to communicate in the native Burmese language. The government should do some thing for those who could not speak their own mother tongue.
But one thing let me remind you…… There were some Bengali Rohingyas in Myanmar, it doesn’t mean Myanmar government is responsible the whole entire Bengali Rohingyas. It is unacceptable and it is not fare to claim this kind of right.
seeing all what is happening at presence in Myanmar gives inspire.
I always love to give support through prayer. May the good Lord helps in all situations for the people of Myanmar and bring solution.