The Lingering Question

Some degree of unity was needed before Burma could take the step of shedding colonialism, and on February 12, 1947, representatives of the Shan, Kachin and Chin nationalities joined Gen Aung San in signing the Panglong Agreement leading to independence.

Various ethnic groups, however, claimed they were being denied the equal rights and self-determination promised by the Panglong Agreement, and civil war broke out just after independence in 1948. Hostilities have continued on many fronts to this day.

Ethnic peoples make up about 30 percent of Burma’s population of more than 50 million, and no true national unity will be achieved without their full participation in the political process. The country has more than 130 ethnic tribes mainly distributed among seven main ethnic groups: Shan, Karen, Mon, Arakan, Chin, Kachin and Karenni.

There was a time when Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), and ethnic groups united in defiance of the regime. When the junta failed to accept the result of the 1990 general election, they formed a Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP).

Gen Shwe Mann, center, wearing a Kachin traditional sword and bag, meets with ethnic leaders in Kachin State

The CRPP was chaired by Dr Saw Mra Aung, chairman of the Arakan League for Democracy, and included NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Shan, Mon and Zomi leaders.

The junta’s response to the appearance of the CRPP on the political scene was to demand its dissolution and to arrest 110 NLD members and officials, including Saw Mra Aung, and to shut down 43 NLD offices across the country.

Despite the post-election alliance between the NLD and some ethnic leaders, Burma’s geography and the regime’s splinter policies have combined to isolate the already divided ethnic groups from the democratic movement in Burma’s cities. Burmese army positions in ethnic areas, particularly Karen State, were strengthened during the September demonstrations, sealing the region off.

Some border-based ethnic groups even took a moderate stance during September’s uprising, arguing that if they took part it could prove counter-productive.

“We do not want the international community to see peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators supported by armed groups,” said Mahn Sha.

The peaceful nature of the September demonstrations was emphasized by several ethnic leaders, who invariably contrasted the restrained nature of the protests with the violence used by the authorities to suppress them.

Despite the regime’s brutality, there were no calls for violent resistance—let alone intervention by armed ethnic groups. On the contrary, several ethnic groups, including the UWSA, the National Democratic Army (Kachin State) and the National Democracy Alliance Army issued a joint statement in October calling for a settlement using “democratic and peaceful means.”

This was also the tenor of a rare statement issued by Suu Kyi through UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari. She urged the regime to “give constant and serious considerations to the interests and opinions of as broad a range of political organizations and forces as possible, in particular those of our ethnic national races.”

Suu Kyi’s reference to Burma’s “ethnic national races” didn’t please the regime, which rooted out some ceasefire groups willing to criticize her approach and question her role in the process of national reconciliation. The regime is clearly unhappy about any hint of rapprochement between ethnic leaders and a woman they would like to see excluded from the political scene.

Ethnic delegates at the junta’s National Convention in Rangoon (Photo: Reuters)

Held under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years, Suu Kyi has anyway been silenced as effectively as many distinguished ethnic leaders who are serving long terms of imprisonment.

Maj-Gen Sao Hso Ten, president of the Shan State Peace Council, and Hkun Htun Oo, chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), were arrested in 2005 and sentenced to 106 years and 92 years respectively after holding a clandestine meeting in Shan State and allegedly planning to boycott the military-sponsored National Convention.

The SNLD is Burma’s largest ethnic-based party and the second biggest winner in the 1990 election after the NLD.