Kachin girls wear traditional costumes during the annual Manaw Festival in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, in January. (Photo: Reuters)Several of Burma's ethnic leaders have dismissed the ruling junta's plans to mark the 63rd anniversary of Union Day on Friday, saying that the celebration lacks essence and any meaningful spirit.
During the 1970s and 80s, the Burmese military government held held a military parade on Union Day and drove through the streets of Rangoon in jeeps bearing the Union flag. Offices and schools are usually coerced into bring their staff and schoolchildren out to line the streets and wave flags as the regime chiefs pass by.
The agreement essentially guaranteed government support for the ethnic minorities' self-determination and offered a large degree of autonomy, including independent legislative, judiciary and administrative authorities.
However, the dream of equality and a federal union is far from realized some six decades after the declaration and many ethnic groups are still engaged in a conflict with the centralized government army that erupted around the time Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948––one of the longest running civil wars in modern times.
Zau Awng, a member of Kachin National Congress for Democracy, based in Kachin State capital Myitkyina, told The Irrawaddy: “We don't have equal rights. We feel we don't belong to the Union. The military owns this union. The Union we wanted is as far from coming together as the sky and the earth.
“In 1947, our Kachin leaders trusted Gen Aung San when he said: 'Burmans one kyat, Kachins one kyat.' [signifying equality]” he said. “However, after he was assassinated, the Panglong Agreement was not honored.”
Lao Seng, a spokesperson for the Shan State Army-South concurred. “There are no rights in the Union for ethnic people. The union has disappeared under the barrel of a gun.”
He said that if the Panglong Agreement had been honored, “our Shan people would not need to fight for their freedom today.”
"Our situation is worse now than it ever was before,” said Pu Cin Sian Thang, the chairman of the Zomi National Congress who is currently the spokesman for the United Nationalities Alliance. “There are absolutely no advantages for the people of Chin State.”
In January, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, the No 2 ranking general in Naypyidaw, said that Burma would “disintegrate” if the demands of the ethnic groups for a federal system of government were granted.
The chairman of the Mon National Democratic Front, Nai Ngwe Thein, disagreed. “We can live altogether in peace if we have a genuine federal union,” he said.
On Thursday, Burma's state-run newspapers carried a statement from junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe on their front pages urging the people of Burma to commemorate Union Day.
“The entire national people are duty-bound to preserve the already achieved national solidarity with Union Spirit so that the Union of Myanmar will be able to stand tall as long as the world exists,” the statement read in the New Light of Myanmar, which then mistakenly refered to Friday as the 60th anniversary of Union Day.
Several ethnic leaders said that they don't have faith in the new constitution and said it will not produce a genuine union in the future because the Burmese military will take 25 percent of all seats in parliament as per the 2008 Constitution.
Aye Thar Aung, the secretary of the Arakan National League for Democracy, told The Irrawaddy the future Union of Burma under the current constitution will not provide rights for the ethnic people of the country.
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