Congratulations to the Chin people
By: Lian Uk
Congratulations to the Chin people every where the world over for the admission of the Chin National Front (CNF) to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO)!. The admission is not only to the Chin National Front as an organization, but it is the admission of the Chinland and its people which is for all the Chin people as a whole, the synonymous names of which in some of their native dialects are also Laimi, Zomi etc. Our exceeding thanks for this is also to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization General Assembly and their Steering Committee.
The territory known today as Chin State was an independent territory outside the Burmese kingdom till the British annexed it in the 1890s. It was directly ruled by the British governor from Rangoon through the chieftains of the territory outside the provincial government of British Burma even after its annexation until Burma independence in 1948.
When the British government was to give independence to the Burmese kingdom, the Chin territory annexed to the British empire had also a full right to become an independent sovereign state as it was not annexed as a part of the Burmese kingdom and as the Chin people are a distinct people much different from the Burmese or Burman in language, custom, culture and in their way of life.
The Chin Chieftains who ruled the Chin territory under the British Governor signed the historic Panglong Agreement with other nationalities on February 12, 1947 to achieve speedy freedom from any colonialism including British colonialism. February 12, the day on which the Panglong Agreement was signed, has been since then, observed as the Union day every year up to this day in the whole Union of Burma.
February 20th, the day which marked the change of despotic and aristocratic ruling system to elected system in democratic process in the Chin State since 1948, has also been recognized by the successive governments of the Union of Burma as ‘the Chin National Day’ recognizing their distinct national identity as a people .
But the Constitution of the Union of Burma 1947 after the assassination of the founding fathers of the Union made the Burmese people of the previous Burmese kingdom replacing the British colonialism. Thus the rest of the Panglong Agreement signatory nationalities have been made colony territories of the Burmans betraying the vision of the founding fathers of the Union led by General Aung San whom with his cabinet ministers were assassinated on July 19, 1947 before completing the Union constitution.
So the constitutional government of the Union in the Union Parliament had agreed to amend the 1947 Union Constitution in federal form in early 1962 according to the vision of the founding fathers of the Union. But a group of the armed forces led by General Ne Win overthrew the constitutional government and abolished parliamentary system with the Constitution of Union of Burma 1947 in the night of March 2, 1962. Ever since General Ne Win ruled the country as a despot dictator directly or indirectly leading to all these violation of human rights causing to all sort of sufferings and misery to the population of the whole country.
The Chin people every where in the Chin State joined the pro-democracy uprising against the military regime in 1988 to end the military dictatorship and to restore democracy and justice in the whole country. The military regime therefore occupied the Chin State with military force against the will of the people in the Chin State.
It was because of the American Baptist missions since 1899 that the Chin State today with its overwhelming Christian population in it becomes the only Christian State in the 14 provinces of the Union. The Chin people therefore in their Christian organizations and institutions are practicing democracy system as their way of life. The Burmese military regime therefore accusing the Chin people being a Christian State to be pro western or pro American has made the Chin State as a military occupied territory making the situation in the Chin state to be an uninhabitable place for the Chin people by giving them all sort of troubles by killing people for no good reasons at random extra judicially, raping, looting, robing and ransacking their properties and homes; by conscripting all men and women to forced labor with out giving them enough food a! nd drinks giving no time to work for them. Conscript Chin women to force labor are raped by the armed forces of the ruling military regime. They were arrested and tortured for no good reasons at random in many ways and treat them like animals.
These are all the persecution launched by the Burmese military regime to drive all the Chin people from their homeland to wipe them out to their extinction as a people. So those who could find ways fled the country in tens of thousands by all means to neighboring countries and there are now thousands of Chin refugees in the neighboring countries and around the world in Europe and in North America.
They are all stateless people and their life in neighboring countries is very miserable with no safety to be arrested by the authority concerned at random to be sent back to Burma in the hands of the Burmese military regime where they are tortured and imprisoned even to their death.
Since this persecution launched on the Chin people combine the general persecution of racial, religious and political, the individual Chin people are all the persecuted people not because any faults of their own. But they are persecuted just because they are Chin ethnic people and are Christians and believe and practice democracy in their religious organizations and institutions.
The instability of the Burmese leadership mentality in this way can not assure the other fellow union constituent ethnic nationalities for the security of each existence as a people that the Burmese or Burman are overwhelmingly majority constituent nationalities of the union to the rest of the union nationalities which make them aggressive on the nationalities of lesser number in population.
The insistence of the military regime State Peace and Development Council ( SPDC) up to now to have power in the Union legislature and civil administration and the constitution to be in unitary form is a sign which is greatly dangerous for the union constituent minority nationalities to continue on to be in the same sovereign independent state with them( the Burmese) in any form.
It has been a long history now that the Burmese like this SPDC cannot trust the minority nationalities. The reason could be no other than cowardliness. As a matter of fact, several nationalities can truly be more developed than the Burmese if they are free to develop their respective own territories.
So if this Burmese majority people are ever trying to annihilate the lesser number nationalities in population to their extinction as distinct peoples like what is going on under this military dictatorship, it will be a great loss to the minorities people themselves and to the world as their distinct nationalities in their languages, culture and literature and the great contribution they could made to the world will be totally wiped out with them.
It will only be safe for all the minority union nationalities to re join the Union with the Burmese or Burman nationality only if the ethnic Burmese majority, as a guarantee to equality to all, are willing retaining secession clause for them and for other union constituencies according to the 1947 Union constitution in the future constitution of the Union of Burma to be in true federal form.
Then only will the nationalities whose populations are lesser in number than the Burmese or Burman will be safe to reform the Union with the Burmese or Burman in federal or confederate form of the union.
But the Burmese people like the SPDC who now believe getting the upper hand to the minorities will be far from this concession. It is now also the best chance for the minorities as they are now free to establish their own sovereign independent state in their respective definite territories to be internationally recognized as there is nothing that bind them together with the Burman in the absence of the Panglong Agreement itself and the Constitution of Union of Burma 1947 which reflected the chore of the Panglong Agreement.
So it is the last resort for all the nationalities other than the Burmese at present to seek the most possible shelter to the fellow Un represented Nations and Peoples in the UNPO to which the Chin State and its people has been admitted.
Thus the admission is being most welcome and the Chin people deserves being congratulated for it.
Ethnic Groups In Burma
A peaceful and democratic Burma requires a flexible accommodation among the country's diverse ethnic groups. Without lasting resolution to questions of local autonomy and national power-sharing, rebellions that have flared and simmered in Burma's borderlands for over five decades cannot be resolved. And without peace, there is little chance for grassroots economic development that could help reduce the currently massive illicit dug production and trafficking in many impoverished ethnic minority areas.
The lack of a reliable census makes it impossible to more than roughly estimate the composition of Burma's ethnic mosaic or it total population. Some experts suggest existing population data is skewed, exaggerating the number of Burman, who are the largest single ethnic group. According to available statistics, they comprise about two-thirds of Burma's approximately 50 million people and dominate the army and government. Most of Burma's ethnic minorities inhabit areas along the country's mountainous frontiers. Karen and Shan groups comprise about 10% each of the total population, while Akha, Chin, Chinese, Danu, Indian, Kachin, Karenni, Kayan, Kokang, Lahu, Mon, Naga, Palaung, Pao, Rakhine, Rohingya, Tavoyan, and Wa peoples each constitute 5% or less of the population.
Burma has experienced a long history of migration and conflict among various ethnic groups along fluid frontiers, which were finally fixed only during British imperial rule from the 1820s to 1948. Under British control, diverse peoples far from Rangoon were brought under at least nominal central administration. Yet many areas remained effectively self-ruled, with only a thin veneer of imperial oversight. During World War II, while many Burman joined Japan's fight against British forces, many minority ethnic groups remained loyal to Britain. This reflected a genuine desire for independence on the part of both groups: Burmans struggling to be free of the British colonial yoke, and ethnic minorities wishing to escape Burman domination.
The Union of Burma became independent in 1948 only after extensive negotiations led by General Aung San, who convinced most ethnic minority groups to join the new union. The Panglong Agreement of 1947 outlined minority rights and specifically gave the Shan and Karenni peoples the option to secede from the union a decade after independence. Yet these constitutional guarantees were never fully respected. Almost immediately upon independence, Burma was wracked by a series of brutal ethnic wars that continue in varying intensity to this day.
The principal demands of Burma's ethnic minorities are to gain genuine autonomy for their home areas and to achieve a significant voice in the affairs of the country as a whole. Few demand total independence as their ultimate goal. Since its 1988 coup, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (or SLORC, renamed the State Peace and Development Council in November 1997), has negotiated cease-fires with most armed ethnic opposition groups and waged fierce assaults against others. Muslim Rohingya people in southwestern Burma were targeted in 1991, and over 250,000 fled to neighboring Bangladesh. A new wave of attacks was reported in late 2000.
At least 140,000 more Karen, Karenni, and Mon people from eastern Burma are refugees in Thailand following intense Burmese army offensives since 1984. Many Shan people have been forced to flee army assaults as well. In several areas, there are massive numbers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), mostly villagers who have fled their homes to escape conscription as military porters or other abuses. The suffering of Burma's estimated 600,000 IDPs is often far worse than refugees in neighboring countries, who receive at least some outside aid.
In many areas, uneasy truces prevail. Among the earlier cease-fires concluded were with ethnic Wa and Kokang armies, which until 1987 served under the Burmese Communist Party. The Burmese army's agreements with these groups permit opium cultivation and the right to trade without interference. The result has been a sharp increase in heroin production and smuggling from Burma and a concurrent worldwide rise in heroin use and addiction. These groups are now also engaged in large-scale illicit manufacture of methamphetamines. Some other ethnic opposition organizations, particularly the Kachin Independence Organization and the Karen National Union, have taken strong stands against drug production and trafficking. The present junta has exploited divisions within and among ethnic groups to bolster its rule. In 2000, the relocation of thousands of Wa farmers into traditional Shan areas has raised tensions an! d sparked fighting between those groups. The United Nationalities League for Democracy, an umbrella group for non-Burman political parties formed after the 1988 democracy movement, was revived in January 2001 by exiled politicians. A draft constitution was ratified and executive members were elected. These parties won a combined 65 seats in the 1990 elections and have a strong claim to political legitimacy. The National Democratic Front (NDF), another coalition of ethnic groups, is also striving to promote common positions among ethnic minorities. Prospects for a democratic, prosperous, and peaceful Burma are dim without a just and amicable settlement of the country's ethnic conflicts. The junta's proposed new constitution does little to acknowledge ethnic groups' grievances. Burma's democratic opposition has urged serious efforts to address these issues, as ethnic reconciliation and cooperation will be a major challenge for any future Burmese government. !
Showing posts with label lian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lian. Show all posts
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Martin Luther King Award Acceptance Lecture by Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong
Chinland Guardian Note: The following is Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong’s acceptance lecture for the 2007 Martin Luther King Jr. Award. The ceremony was held in the parliament hall of Sweden on 15th January 2007]
Martin Luther King Award Acceptance Lecture
By Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong
The Salemkyrkan, Stockholm, Sweden
15 January 2007
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Dear Friends:
When I was told that I had been awarded for the Martin Luther King Prize for 2007, I felt extremely honored. When I firs t heard from the chairperson of the Martin Luther King Prize, I was speechless because I could not believe what I was hearing. I certainly never expected such a prize for my involvement in this struggle. I am involved in this movement for just two reasons; first, it is to achieve for my country a free and open democratic system, which I think is often taken for granted here in Sweden.
Second, I am involved in this process for what I view as the very survival of my birth community of the Chin people in Burma and by extension the survival of my own ethnicity and identity as well as the other oppressed ethnic nationalities of Burma. So, it seems to me that what I am doing in this struggle is quite personal: reflecting my believes and struggling to achieve in the political context of Burma where those believes and my ethnic identity are valued and respected for my generation and the future generations of the peoples of Burma. You can understand that I did not expect any prize for working on something that reflects so much of my personal values. And I would like to take this opportunity and express my gratitude that it is one of the great privileges of belonging now to Swedish society that I have the freedom and a means to work and struggle to achieve what is important to me and the Chin people. To be associated with a prize bearing the name of one of the
persons I most admire is an honor beyond anything I could ever have imagined
I must admit that I was quite delighted when I heard the name of Martin Luther King, who was one of my heroes since my university days in Rangoon. It also brought back many sweet memories of student life when we were young and dared to think and challenge almost everything under the Sun. Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were the two theologians who inspired me personally, “daring in order to know” ─as they both taught us. Just before the fateful events of student-led uprising in 1988, I wrote a term paper at Theological Seminary comparing the non-violent strategy applied by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Ethic of “Just War” applied by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both of them dared to challenge unjust laws, and both did not survive their struggle. In those days, my heart was a bit closer to Bonhoeffer; may be it was because of the fact that the regime of Nazi Germany was more similar to the military dictatorship in Burma. However, both of them are my
inspiration; and both of them received their inspiration from the teachings of Jesus Christ, who proclaimed that
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners,
And recovery of sight for the blind, and released the oppressed.
Since I joined the movement, I have written many letters and statements calling for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Burma but not to avail. Since the popular uprising in 1988, the entire people of Burma “are the prisoners in our own house”, as Aung San Suu Kyi said. Burma under this military regime is just like a blind man who lost his sight intentionally, for it was covered by absolute darkness with extremely negative attitude. And there are millions of oppressed to be released. This is what our struggle is all about.
In this struggle, we are fighting for freedom, justice, peace and fundamental human rights. We want “freedom from fear” because we live our lives under this military regime in constant fear. We want “freedom of expression” because freedom of expression is a huge crime under military dictatorship. We have over one thousand political prisoners in Burma, who committed no crime but daring to express their free will. We want “freedom from want” because the peoples of Burma are destitute living under extreme conditions of impoverishment, hunger and disease without remedy in the land that used to be known as the “rice bowl of Asia”.
We want “peace” because the regime in Burma has been at war with its own people for more than five long decades. Yes, we want peace but the peace that we want is not just in terms of the absence of conflict but in terms of the presence of justice.
We want “justice” because there is no such thing as the rule of law under a military dictatorship. Martial Law, according to General Saw Maung, is no law at all but the use of force. In today’s Burma, law and order exist not for protecting its people but for sustaining dictators in power. We want basic “human rights” because human rights abuses have become part of the political system in the so-called “law and order restoration”, as the military junta used to call itself the “State Law and Order Restoration Council”.
Finally, we want to live with human dignity because when all kinds of rights are abused people lose their dignity, integrity and identity. And what we want is to live just like a human being who is the image of God. So, our struggle is a struggle to be an authentic human being again.
Our struggle is not just for changing the government in Rangoon, or in Naypidaw, but for restructuring the country into a Democratic Federal Union as it was agreed by General Aung San and ethnic national leaders in 1947 at the Panglong Conference, when the Union of Burma was founded at the first place. The root cause of political crisis in Burma is not just ideological confrontation between military dictatorship and democracy; it also involves constitutional problems rooted in the denial of the rights of self-determination for ethnic nationalities who joined the Union as equal partners according to the Panglong Agreement. The only solution for political crisis in Burma, in our view, is to establish a genuine Federal Union of Burma, which will guarantee the fundamental rights for all citizens of the Union, political equality for all ethnic nationalities, and the right of self-determination for all member states of the Union within federal arrangement.
In this struggle, we also challenge the notion of “nation-building” in which the concept of “nation” is blended with “one ethnicity, one language, and one religion”. As such, nation-building belongs to what social scientists call “subjective values”, that is, culture, language, religion, ethnicity, homeland, shared memories and history, etc., which differentiate one group of people from another—values that cannot be shared objectively between different peoples. From its process, the very notion of “nation-building” excludes other ethnic groups, cultures, religions and everything related to multiculturalism and diversity. Thus, by accepting only one homogeneous set of cultural and religious values as its political values, the process of nation-building can produce only a nation-state made by a homogeneous people or nation that claims pre-state unity based on culture, history or religion. As a result, a nation-state made by a nation through the nation-building process
cannot accommodate other cultures, religions and ethnic groups. What it can do at best is it can tolerate non-integrated minorities as guests, but not as equal citizens. The status of fully recognized citizen can be attained only by integration.
In such circumstances, minority groups have only “either-or” choice: either integrating within the majority culture after paying a big price of destroying their original cultural roots, or resisting integration but after paying a big price of being denied the opportunity to enhance their cultural identity through political means. In both cases, minority groups must pay a big price because the only choice for them is between assimilation and resistance. Assimilation in such situation is nothing but ethnic and cultural extinction, and resistance can be anything in between life and death. Thus, it is obvious that the nation-building process is impossible to implement in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious plural society like the Union of Burma. The only way to implement the nation-building process in a plural society is to use coercive force for assimilation. However, using force for ethnic assimilation will definitely be resulted in confrontation and conflict,
because the very notion of nation-building is hostile to multiculturalism and diversity. Unfortunately, this conflict is exactly what is happening in Burma during the past fifty years.
Since independence, the successive governments of the Union of Burma have applied “nation-building” process with the notion of nation as “one ethnicity, one language, and one religion’. First, U Nu introduced “religion” as a means of national integration in ‘nation-building’ process for newly independent Burma. For U Nu, the only means to build a new nation was to revive the pre-colonial cultural unity of Buda-bata Maynmar Lu-myo, which means, “To be a Myanmar is to be a Buddhist”. Although Buddhism had been a powerful integrative force in traditional Myanmar society, a modern multi-national state of the Union of Burma with its multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic plural society was a very different country from that of the pre-colonial Myanmar Kingdom. The pre-colonial Myanmar Kingdom, of course, was nothing to do with the Chin, Kachin, Shan and other ethnic groups who joined the Union of Burma only as a means to speed-up their own freedom. However, leaders
like U Nu believed that Buddhism could make a significant contribution to some aspects of national integration and assimilation. In this way, U Nu’s government officially adopted Buddhism as a means of national integration. In 1953, the Ministry of Religious and Cultural Affairs was created to promote the process of assimilation, and eventually the government promulgated Buddhism as the state religion of the Union of Burma in 1961. Since then, the successive governments of the Union of Burma officially made many attempts to achieve homogeneity by imposing religious and cultural assimilation into the predominant group of Myanmar Buddhists.
While U Nu opted for cultural and religious assimilation into Buddhism, or Buda-bata Myanmar-lumyo, as a means of integration, General Ne Win, who came to power through military coup in 1962, removed the rights of the country’s religious and cultural minorities, including all civil and basic human rights, as a means of creating a homogeneous unitary state. Moreover, General Ne Win imposed his “national language” policy by declaring Myanmar-sa as the only official language in the entire Union of Burma, which therefore was required to be used at all levels of government and public functions, and also to be the only medium of instruction at all levels of schools in the country—from primary to university levels. General Ne Win not only imposed the Myanmar-sa as the official language, he also suppressed the right to learn the other ethnic national languages of the Union.
Nation-building, for both U Nu and Ne Win, was simply based on the notion of “one ethnicity, one language and one religion’—that is to say, the ethnicity of Myanmar-lumyo, the language of Myanmar-sa and the state religion of Buddhism. Thus, what U Nu and Ne Win wanted to achieve through nation-building process was to create a homogeneous nation of Myanmar Naing-ngan, by drawing its political values from the cultural and religious values of Maynmar-sa and Budda-bata Myanmar-lumyo. Although their approaches to national integration were different, U Nu and Ne Win shared the goal of creating a homogeneous people in the country. While U Nu opted for cultural and religious assimilation into Buddhism as a means of integration, Ne Win used the national language policy of Myanmar-sa and denied the rights of the country’s religious and cultural minorities as a means of creating a homogeneous unitary state. U Nu and Ne Win thus complemented each other, although their approaches in
oppressing the cultural and religious minorities were quite different in nature.
Supplementing U Nu’s policy of state religion and Ne Win’s national language policy, the current military regime is opting for “ethnicity” as a means of national integration, by imposing ethnic assimilation into Myanmar-lumyo. The changing of the country name from Burma to Myanmar, the name only of the ethnic Myanmar, in 1989 is a case in point. When they implemented their policy of ethnic assimilation by force, the present military junta applied various methods: killing people and destroying the livelihood of ethnic minorities in the on-going civil war, using rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities, and religious persecution as a means of destroying ethnic identity, especially of the Chin, Kachin and Karen Christians. In this way, the successive governments of the Union of Burma—from U Nu to Ne Win to Saw Maung and Than Shwe—have carried out the nation-building process in terms of “one ethnicity, one language, and one religion”, that is—Myanmar-lumyo,
Myanmar-sa, and Buddhism.
In the name of nation-building, the successive governments of the Union of Burma have violated not only basic human rights and individual freedom but also all kind of collective rights. In the name of national sovereignty, the rights of self-determination for ethnic nationalities are rejected; in the name of national integration the right to follow different religions, to practice different cultures, and to speak different languages are deprived; and in the name of national assimilation, the rights to up-hold different identities and traditions are denied. In short, the successive governments of the Union of Burma have been practicing cultural genocide, if not ethnic cleansing, for the past fifty years.
In this struggle, we are calling for “state-building” instead of “nation-building” because the state, far from being identical with the nation, is “the supreme protector of a law” which guarantees individual rights for all its citizens as an individual citizen, and the collective rights of all ethnic nationalities in the country as a national group. The state is an open society, ruling over territory where its power protects and makes law. As a legal institution, the state knows only citizens no matter what nationality each and individual citizen belongs to, no matter what kind of religious belief he or she worships, no matter what kind of language he or she speaks; and its legal order is open to all who happen to live on its territory.
In this struggle, we are calling for “unity in diversity” instead of “national integration” or “national assimilation” because “unity in diversity” as political value would allow us to live different ethnic groups, different religious groups, and different cultural and language groups peacefully together. In this struggle, we are calling for “decentralization” instead of “centralization” where power is concentrated only in the hands of dictators. We are calling for the “rights of self-determination” because we believe that granting the “rights of self-determination” for member states of the Union through federal arrangement is the best means to solve political crisis in Burma.
In this struggle, we are opting for the “tripartite dialogue” as a means to achieve our goal. The “tripartite dialogue” means dialogue amongst the military regime, the 1990 election winning party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and ethnic nationalities ─ who are the founding members of the Union, as called for by the United Nations General Assembly since 1994. The “tripartite dialogue” strategy for us is the core essence of non-violent movement, and finding the common ground between current conflict parties in Burma. Instead of fighting each other and killing each other, we want to solve our political problems through political means on a dialogue table not on the battlefields. So, what we are saying is “stop fighting”, “stop killing”; killing innocent lives will not solve the problem, denying human rights will not make the country free, and destroying human and natural resources will not make any benefit for the future of Burma. However, by finding the common ground
through dialogue, negotiation and compromise, we can solve all of our problems together.
Unfortunately, the military government in Burma is still opting for violent confrontation instead of peaceful negotiation, killing and taking innocent life instead of negotiated settlement, destroying ethnic identity and abusing minority rights instead of building a peaceful country. So, it seems that the current political situation in Burma looks not only unpromising but the political storm is blowing violently into a direction of undesired end.
Despite all these negative images of the country, we are confident that we will able to turn current political situation and change political storm into freedom breeze. We are quite sure that we will be able to turn the current political situation with the help of international community, including the UN, EU, USA, ASEAN, Japan, China and India, and we are hoping that we will overcome all the obstacles and we will achieve our goal of building a free Burma. The inner strength of democracy movement in Burma, of course, is the peoples of Burma. And we know that the solution of Burma’s problem will not come from outside but from inside through the unity and collective efforts of the peoples of Burma. The inner strength of this unity is what you are recognizing today, here in Stockholm.
I am now standing before you to accept this prestigious prize, and you make me realize that the Martin Luther King Prize is awarded not just to me but also to the peoples of Burma. So, I receive this prize as the recognition of our struggle for human rights, justice, peace, democracy, political equality and self-determination in Burma. I thank you for your recognition of our struggle! With all your help, and with the unity and strength of the people of Burma, “We shall over come some day”.
In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Martin Luther King Prize Committee for your recognition of our struggle, the people of Sweden for your support and solidarity that you have shown to the people of Burma time to time, and all of you ─ my dear friends in Sweden. I would like to acknowledge also to my colleagues at the Ethnic Nationalities Council, United Nationalities League for Democracy, Chin National League for Democracy, Chin National Council, Federal Constitution Drafting and Coordinating Committee and National Reconciliation Program; and individually I would like to thank Harn Yawnghwe, Jack Sterken and Sai Mawn ─ although they are not here today, I must say that without you guys I would not be able to survive in the jungle of Thai-Burma border. And I would like to express my love and gratitude to my wife, Aapen, and my children ─ David Van Lian and Laura Thachin. Without your support, understanding and love; I would not
be able to stand here, and would not be able to work for what I believe and for the oppressed people of Burma.
Thank you!
Lian H. Sakhong
General Secretary
Ethnic Nationalities Council
The Union of Burma.
Martin Luther King Award Acceptance Lecture
By Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong
The Salemkyrkan, Stockholm, Sweden
15 January 2007
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Dear Friends:
When I was told that I had been awarded for the Martin Luther King Prize for 2007, I felt extremely honored. When I firs t heard from the chairperson of the Martin Luther King Prize, I was speechless because I could not believe what I was hearing. I certainly never expected such a prize for my involvement in this struggle. I am involved in this movement for just two reasons; first, it is to achieve for my country a free and open democratic system, which I think is often taken for granted here in Sweden.
Second, I am involved in this process for what I view as the very survival of my birth community of the Chin people in Burma and by extension the survival of my own ethnicity and identity as well as the other oppressed ethnic nationalities of Burma. So, it seems to me that what I am doing in this struggle is quite personal: reflecting my believes and struggling to achieve in the political context of Burma where those believes and my ethnic identity are valued and respected for my generation and the future generations of the peoples of Burma. You can understand that I did not expect any prize for working on something that reflects so much of my personal values. And I would like to take this opportunity and express my gratitude that it is one of the great privileges of belonging now to Swedish society that I have the freedom and a means to work and struggle to achieve what is important to me and the Chin people. To be associated with a prize bearing the name of one of the
persons I most admire is an honor beyond anything I could ever have imagined
I must admit that I was quite delighted when I heard the name of Martin Luther King, who was one of my heroes since my university days in Rangoon. It also brought back many sweet memories of student life when we were young and dared to think and challenge almost everything under the Sun. Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were the two theologians who inspired me personally, “daring in order to know” ─as they both taught us. Just before the fateful events of student-led uprising in 1988, I wrote a term paper at Theological Seminary comparing the non-violent strategy applied by Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Ethic of “Just War” applied by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both of them dared to challenge unjust laws, and both did not survive their struggle. In those days, my heart was a bit closer to Bonhoeffer; may be it was because of the fact that the regime of Nazi Germany was more similar to the military dictatorship in Burma. However, both of them are my
inspiration; and both of them received their inspiration from the teachings of Jesus Christ, who proclaimed that
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners,
And recovery of sight for the blind, and released the oppressed.
Since I joined the movement, I have written many letters and statements calling for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Burma but not to avail. Since the popular uprising in 1988, the entire people of Burma “are the prisoners in our own house”, as Aung San Suu Kyi said. Burma under this military regime is just like a blind man who lost his sight intentionally, for it was covered by absolute darkness with extremely negative attitude. And there are millions of oppressed to be released. This is what our struggle is all about.
In this struggle, we are fighting for freedom, justice, peace and fundamental human rights. We want “freedom from fear” because we live our lives under this military regime in constant fear. We want “freedom of expression” because freedom of expression is a huge crime under military dictatorship. We have over one thousand political prisoners in Burma, who committed no crime but daring to express their free will. We want “freedom from want” because the peoples of Burma are destitute living under extreme conditions of impoverishment, hunger and disease without remedy in the land that used to be known as the “rice bowl of Asia”.
We want “peace” because the regime in Burma has been at war with its own people for more than five long decades. Yes, we want peace but the peace that we want is not just in terms of the absence of conflict but in terms of the presence of justice.
We want “justice” because there is no such thing as the rule of law under a military dictatorship. Martial Law, according to General Saw Maung, is no law at all but the use of force. In today’s Burma, law and order exist not for protecting its people but for sustaining dictators in power. We want basic “human rights” because human rights abuses have become part of the political system in the so-called “law and order restoration”, as the military junta used to call itself the “State Law and Order Restoration Council”.
Finally, we want to live with human dignity because when all kinds of rights are abused people lose their dignity, integrity and identity. And what we want is to live just like a human being who is the image of God. So, our struggle is a struggle to be an authentic human being again.
Our struggle is not just for changing the government in Rangoon, or in Naypidaw, but for restructuring the country into a Democratic Federal Union as it was agreed by General Aung San and ethnic national leaders in 1947 at the Panglong Conference, when the Union of Burma was founded at the first place. The root cause of political crisis in Burma is not just ideological confrontation between military dictatorship and democracy; it also involves constitutional problems rooted in the denial of the rights of self-determination for ethnic nationalities who joined the Union as equal partners according to the Panglong Agreement. The only solution for political crisis in Burma, in our view, is to establish a genuine Federal Union of Burma, which will guarantee the fundamental rights for all citizens of the Union, political equality for all ethnic nationalities, and the right of self-determination for all member states of the Union within federal arrangement.
In this struggle, we also challenge the notion of “nation-building” in which the concept of “nation” is blended with “one ethnicity, one language, and one religion”. As such, nation-building belongs to what social scientists call “subjective values”, that is, culture, language, religion, ethnicity, homeland, shared memories and history, etc., which differentiate one group of people from another—values that cannot be shared objectively between different peoples. From its process, the very notion of “nation-building” excludes other ethnic groups, cultures, religions and everything related to multiculturalism and diversity. Thus, by accepting only one homogeneous set of cultural and religious values as its political values, the process of nation-building can produce only a nation-state made by a homogeneous people or nation that claims pre-state unity based on culture, history or religion. As a result, a nation-state made by a nation through the nation-building process
cannot accommodate other cultures, religions and ethnic groups. What it can do at best is it can tolerate non-integrated minorities as guests, but not as equal citizens. The status of fully recognized citizen can be attained only by integration.
In such circumstances, minority groups have only “either-or” choice: either integrating within the majority culture after paying a big price of destroying their original cultural roots, or resisting integration but after paying a big price of being denied the opportunity to enhance their cultural identity through political means. In both cases, minority groups must pay a big price because the only choice for them is between assimilation and resistance. Assimilation in such situation is nothing but ethnic and cultural extinction, and resistance can be anything in between life and death. Thus, it is obvious that the nation-building process is impossible to implement in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious plural society like the Union of Burma. The only way to implement the nation-building process in a plural society is to use coercive force for assimilation. However, using force for ethnic assimilation will definitely be resulted in confrontation and conflict,
because the very notion of nation-building is hostile to multiculturalism and diversity. Unfortunately, this conflict is exactly what is happening in Burma during the past fifty years.
Since independence, the successive governments of the Union of Burma have applied “nation-building” process with the notion of nation as “one ethnicity, one language, and one religion’. First, U Nu introduced “religion” as a means of national integration in ‘nation-building’ process for newly independent Burma. For U Nu, the only means to build a new nation was to revive the pre-colonial cultural unity of Buda-bata Maynmar Lu-myo, which means, “To be a Myanmar is to be a Buddhist”. Although Buddhism had been a powerful integrative force in traditional Myanmar society, a modern multi-national state of the Union of Burma with its multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic plural society was a very different country from that of the pre-colonial Myanmar Kingdom. The pre-colonial Myanmar Kingdom, of course, was nothing to do with the Chin, Kachin, Shan and other ethnic groups who joined the Union of Burma only as a means to speed-up their own freedom. However, leaders
like U Nu believed that Buddhism could make a significant contribution to some aspects of national integration and assimilation. In this way, U Nu’s government officially adopted Buddhism as a means of national integration. In 1953, the Ministry of Religious and Cultural Affairs was created to promote the process of assimilation, and eventually the government promulgated Buddhism as the state religion of the Union of Burma in 1961. Since then, the successive governments of the Union of Burma officially made many attempts to achieve homogeneity by imposing religious and cultural assimilation into the predominant group of Myanmar Buddhists.
While U Nu opted for cultural and religious assimilation into Buddhism, or Buda-bata Myanmar-lumyo, as a means of integration, General Ne Win, who came to power through military coup in 1962, removed the rights of the country’s religious and cultural minorities, including all civil and basic human rights, as a means of creating a homogeneous unitary state. Moreover, General Ne Win imposed his “national language” policy by declaring Myanmar-sa as the only official language in the entire Union of Burma, which therefore was required to be used at all levels of government and public functions, and also to be the only medium of instruction at all levels of schools in the country—from primary to university levels. General Ne Win not only imposed the Myanmar-sa as the official language, he also suppressed the right to learn the other ethnic national languages of the Union.
Nation-building, for both U Nu and Ne Win, was simply based on the notion of “one ethnicity, one language and one religion’—that is to say, the ethnicity of Myanmar-lumyo, the language of Myanmar-sa and the state religion of Buddhism. Thus, what U Nu and Ne Win wanted to achieve through nation-building process was to create a homogeneous nation of Myanmar Naing-ngan, by drawing its political values from the cultural and religious values of Maynmar-sa and Budda-bata Myanmar-lumyo. Although their approaches to national integration were different, U Nu and Ne Win shared the goal of creating a homogeneous people in the country. While U Nu opted for cultural and religious assimilation into Buddhism as a means of integration, Ne Win used the national language policy of Myanmar-sa and denied the rights of the country’s religious and cultural minorities as a means of creating a homogeneous unitary state. U Nu and Ne Win thus complemented each other, although their approaches in
oppressing the cultural and religious minorities were quite different in nature.
Supplementing U Nu’s policy of state religion and Ne Win’s national language policy, the current military regime is opting for “ethnicity” as a means of national integration, by imposing ethnic assimilation into Myanmar-lumyo. The changing of the country name from Burma to Myanmar, the name only of the ethnic Myanmar, in 1989 is a case in point. When they implemented their policy of ethnic assimilation by force, the present military junta applied various methods: killing people and destroying the livelihood of ethnic minorities in the on-going civil war, using rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities, and religious persecution as a means of destroying ethnic identity, especially of the Chin, Kachin and Karen Christians. In this way, the successive governments of the Union of Burma—from U Nu to Ne Win to Saw Maung and Than Shwe—have carried out the nation-building process in terms of “one ethnicity, one language, and one religion”, that is—Myanmar-lumyo,
Myanmar-sa, and Buddhism.
In the name of nation-building, the successive governments of the Union of Burma have violated not only basic human rights and individual freedom but also all kind of collective rights. In the name of national sovereignty, the rights of self-determination for ethnic nationalities are rejected; in the name of national integration the right to follow different religions, to practice different cultures, and to speak different languages are deprived; and in the name of national assimilation, the rights to up-hold different identities and traditions are denied. In short, the successive governments of the Union of Burma have been practicing cultural genocide, if not ethnic cleansing, for the past fifty years.
In this struggle, we are calling for “state-building” instead of “nation-building” because the state, far from being identical with the nation, is “the supreme protector of a law” which guarantees individual rights for all its citizens as an individual citizen, and the collective rights of all ethnic nationalities in the country as a national group. The state is an open society, ruling over territory where its power protects and makes law. As a legal institution, the state knows only citizens no matter what nationality each and individual citizen belongs to, no matter what kind of religious belief he or she worships, no matter what kind of language he or she speaks; and its legal order is open to all who happen to live on its territory.
In this struggle, we are calling for “unity in diversity” instead of “national integration” or “national assimilation” because “unity in diversity” as political value would allow us to live different ethnic groups, different religious groups, and different cultural and language groups peacefully together. In this struggle, we are calling for “decentralization” instead of “centralization” where power is concentrated only in the hands of dictators. We are calling for the “rights of self-determination” because we believe that granting the “rights of self-determination” for member states of the Union through federal arrangement is the best means to solve political crisis in Burma.
In this struggle, we are opting for the “tripartite dialogue” as a means to achieve our goal. The “tripartite dialogue” means dialogue amongst the military regime, the 1990 election winning party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and ethnic nationalities ─ who are the founding members of the Union, as called for by the United Nations General Assembly since 1994. The “tripartite dialogue” strategy for us is the core essence of non-violent movement, and finding the common ground between current conflict parties in Burma. Instead of fighting each other and killing each other, we want to solve our political problems through political means on a dialogue table not on the battlefields. So, what we are saying is “stop fighting”, “stop killing”; killing innocent lives will not solve the problem, denying human rights will not make the country free, and destroying human and natural resources will not make any benefit for the future of Burma. However, by finding the common ground
through dialogue, negotiation and compromise, we can solve all of our problems together.
Unfortunately, the military government in Burma is still opting for violent confrontation instead of peaceful negotiation, killing and taking innocent life instead of negotiated settlement, destroying ethnic identity and abusing minority rights instead of building a peaceful country. So, it seems that the current political situation in Burma looks not only unpromising but the political storm is blowing violently into a direction of undesired end.
Despite all these negative images of the country, we are confident that we will able to turn current political situation and change political storm into freedom breeze. We are quite sure that we will be able to turn the current political situation with the help of international community, including the UN, EU, USA, ASEAN, Japan, China and India, and we are hoping that we will overcome all the obstacles and we will achieve our goal of building a free Burma. The inner strength of democracy movement in Burma, of course, is the peoples of Burma. And we know that the solution of Burma’s problem will not come from outside but from inside through the unity and collective efforts of the peoples of Burma. The inner strength of this unity is what you are recognizing today, here in Stockholm.
I am now standing before you to accept this prestigious prize, and you make me realize that the Martin Luther King Prize is awarded not just to me but also to the peoples of Burma. So, I receive this prize as the recognition of our struggle for human rights, justice, peace, democracy, political equality and self-determination in Burma. I thank you for your recognition of our struggle! With all your help, and with the unity and strength of the people of Burma, “We shall over come some day”.
In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Martin Luther King Prize Committee for your recognition of our struggle, the people of Sweden for your support and solidarity that you have shown to the people of Burma time to time, and all of you ─ my dear friends in Sweden. I would like to acknowledge also to my colleagues at the Ethnic Nationalities Council, United Nationalities League for Democracy, Chin National League for Democracy, Chin National Council, Federal Constitution Drafting and Coordinating Committee and National Reconciliation Program; and individually I would like to thank Harn Yawnghwe, Jack Sterken and Sai Mawn ─ although they are not here today, I must say that without you guys I would not be able to survive in the jungle of Thai-Burma border. And I would like to express my love and gratitude to my wife, Aapen, and my children ─ David Van Lian and Laura Thachin. Without your support, understanding and love; I would not
be able to stand here, and would not be able to work for what I believe and for the oppressed people of Burma.
Thank you!
Lian H. Sakhong
General Secretary
Ethnic Nationalities Council
The Union of Burma.
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