Ethnic Chins Celebrate Chin National Day

Influential Chin leaders have called on all Chin people to work together with other ethnicities in Burma in the struggle for freedom, democracy and self-determination.

Chin National Day celebrates in Haka, capital of Chin State, February, 2007. (Photo: myatthura.blogspot.com)

The call came on the 60th anniversary ceremony of Chin National Day, which is being celebrated both in Chin State and around the world by ethnic Chins.

Rangoon-based Cin Sian Thang, chairman of Zomi National Congress, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday: “I want to urge all nationalities in Burma to cooperate peacefully in reestablishing a federal union.”

Chin National Day is a day of historical importance, emerging through the course of the Chin’s struggle for self-determination. In February 1948, instead of the traditional hereditary system of chieftainship, Chin representatives were elected at a conference in Falam town near the Mizoram border. The final day of the conference, February 20, was thereafter recognized as Chin National Day.

The Chins were among the ethnic groups represented at the signing of the Panglong Agreement in 1947, an agreement to create unity in the country before Burma gained independence from Britain a year later. Since then, Chin nationals have consistently joined the other ethnic nationalities to build a union.

Cin Sian Thang said that a low-key ceremony would take place in Rangoon today to celebrate Chin National Day, despite the Burmese authorities’ restrictions. He added that similar events would be held around Chin State on Wednesday.

Exiled Chin leader, Suikhar, the joint general secretary of the Chin National Front, said: “Based on the belief in the Panglong Agreement, the cooperation among our ethnic people is to establish democracy, self-determination and a federal union in Burma.”

He also urged ethnic Chin people to uphold Chin culture and traditions, as well as cooperating toward the development of Chin State in Burma.

Chin National Day was celebrated by ethnic Chin people on Wednesday in countries such as Germany, Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and Thailand.

Over the last six decades, thousands of Chin people have moved abroad due to systematic human rights abuses such as forced labor, forced relocations and land confiscation at the hands of the Burmese junta. Many Chin people are currently resettling in third countries to seek better jobs or as refugees.

Many ethnic Chins are migrant workers in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United States, Canada, Australia and some EU countries.