Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Kachin State Progressive Party led by Dr. Tuja would be blocked from forming as a political party under electoral laws because of his past links with the Kachin Independence Organisation, a junta minister reportedly told Kachin leaders and elders on Monday.
The delegation led by Minister of Industry No. 1 Aung Thaung and Communications Minister Thein Zaw met the Kachin Consultative Council for about an hour in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, and told them that the KSPP would be ineligible as it was infringing Chapter 2, section 4(e) of the Political Parties Registration Law, a Kachin leader who attended the meeting told Mizzima.
The council comprises around 30 Kachin political, religious and business leaders.
It was crystal clear that Aung Thaung was referring to the KIA (the Kachin Independence Organisation’s [KIO’s] armed wing) as an insurgent group, even though it was obeying a ceasefire deal with the junta, the Kachin leader said.
Chapter 2, Section 4 stipulates eligibility for people seeking to set up a political party and subsection (e) states: “A person who is not the member of an organisation that is waging war against the Union or the member and persons of an organisation that is declared by the Union as terror outfits, or a member of an organisation that has been declared as an unlawful association as provided by an existing law, or a person who is not having contact with said member of unlawful association directly or indirectly, or abetting said unlawful association.”
A Kachin elder said Aung Thaung reportedly told those at the meeting: “It [The KSPP] has no evidence to say Dr. Tuja, who served the KIO for more than 30 years and held such high office as vice-chairman, has resigned from this organisation. It infringed the law. If we allow him to form a political party, others will demand this right too”.
Junta ministers also reportedly said that the KSPP would be legally allowed to form if Dr. Tuja took the position of patron instead of vice-chairman.
Aung Thaung, reportedly a hard-line member of the junta’s cabinet, is also well known as one of junta chief Senior General Than Shwe’s closest aides.
The two ministers met the council, the member’s of which include chairwoman Khaun Lwan, principal of the Myitkyina Teachers’ Training Institute; secretary and religious leader, U Sin Wah; and seven other central committee members, at the Myitkyina offices of the junta’s nationalist vehicle, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), on Monday morning.
The council was formed in October 2002 and consists of the largest ethnic Kachin group, the KIO, businessmen and all sects of Kachin religious groups, for the purpose of resolving and negotiation all issues among the ethnic Kachin people.
Six top KIO leaders including dentist Dr. Tuja announced their resignations from the KIO last September. A few months later, he played a major part in forming the KSPP and accepted the position of chairman over the group, with the primary goal of contesting in Burma’s controversial upcoming general elections.
The KSPP submitted its application for party registration with the Union Election Commission on April 5, but the commission has yet to respond. Mizzima was unable to reach Dr. Tuja as he was on his way to the commission’s office in the ruling military junta’s secretive, purpose-built capital of Naypyidaw.
A KIO official decried the autocratic nature of the minister’s comments.
“What they are saying is basically an arbitrary statement,” he said.
Before meeting the Kachin council, the junta’s delegation met KIO delegates and discussed the issue of the KIA, a KIO source said, declining to give further details.
The Kachin group has reportedly responded to the junta’s calls for it to bring the KIA under the Burmese Army’s Border Guard Force (BGF) before the elections by saying it would transform its army “in its own way”.
The group was still collecting feedback from all Kachin people on the transformation of their army and would officially release its position on the issue next month, a high level KIO official said.
The KIO reached a ceasefire agreement with the junta in 1994 and Dr. Tuja led the Kachin delegation at the junta’s 14-year-long National Convention to formulate basic principles for the Burmese junta’s highly controversial constitution, a document rejected by the most popular party in the country’s last polls in 1990, the National League for Democracy led by Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Source:http://mizzima.com/news/election-2010/4106-kachin-party-ineligible-to-form-junta-minister-says.html
The delegation led by Minister of Industry No. 1 Aung Thaung and Communications Minister Thein Zaw met the Kachin Consultative Council for about an hour in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, and told them that the KSPP would be ineligible as it was infringing Chapter 2, section 4(e) of the Political Parties Registration Law, a Kachin leader who attended the meeting told Mizzima.
The council comprises around 30 Kachin political, religious and business leaders.
It was crystal clear that Aung Thaung was referring to the KIA (the Kachin Independence Organisation’s [KIO’s] armed wing) as an insurgent group, even though it was obeying a ceasefire deal with the junta, the Kachin leader said.
Chapter 2, Section 4 stipulates eligibility for people seeking to set up a political party and subsection (e) states: “A person who is not the member of an organisation that is waging war against the Union or the member and persons of an organisation that is declared by the Union as terror outfits, or a member of an organisation that has been declared as an unlawful association as provided by an existing law, or a person who is not having contact with said member of unlawful association directly or indirectly, or abetting said unlawful association.”
A Kachin elder said Aung Thaung reportedly told those at the meeting: “It [The KSPP] has no evidence to say Dr. Tuja, who served the KIO for more than 30 years and held such high office as vice-chairman, has resigned from this organisation. It infringed the law. If we allow him to form a political party, others will demand this right too”.
Junta ministers also reportedly said that the KSPP would be legally allowed to form if Dr. Tuja took the position of patron instead of vice-chairman.
Aung Thaung, reportedly a hard-line member of the junta’s cabinet, is also well known as one of junta chief Senior General Than Shwe’s closest aides.
The two ministers met the council, the member’s of which include chairwoman Khaun Lwan, principal of the Myitkyina Teachers’ Training Institute; secretary and religious leader, U Sin Wah; and seven other central committee members, at the Myitkyina offices of the junta’s nationalist vehicle, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), on Monday morning.
The council was formed in October 2002 and consists of the largest ethnic Kachin group, the KIO, businessmen and all sects of Kachin religious groups, for the purpose of resolving and negotiation all issues among the ethnic Kachin people.
Six top KIO leaders including dentist Dr. Tuja announced their resignations from the KIO last September. A few months later, he played a major part in forming the KSPP and accepted the position of chairman over the group, with the primary goal of contesting in Burma’s controversial upcoming general elections.
The KSPP submitted its application for party registration with the Union Election Commission on April 5, but the commission has yet to respond. Mizzima was unable to reach Dr. Tuja as he was on his way to the commission’s office in the ruling military junta’s secretive, purpose-built capital of Naypyidaw.
A KIO official decried the autocratic nature of the minister’s comments.
“What they are saying is basically an arbitrary statement,” he said.
Before meeting the Kachin council, the junta’s delegation met KIO delegates and discussed the issue of the KIA, a KIO source said, declining to give further details.
The Kachin group has reportedly responded to the junta’s calls for it to bring the KIA under the Burmese Army’s Border Guard Force (BGF) before the elections by saying it would transform its army “in its own way”.
The group was still collecting feedback from all Kachin people on the transformation of their army and would officially release its position on the issue next month, a high level KIO official said.
The KIO reached a ceasefire agreement with the junta in 1994 and Dr. Tuja led the Kachin delegation at the junta’s 14-year-long National Convention to formulate basic principles for the Burmese junta’s highly controversial constitution, a document rejected by the most popular party in the country’s last polls in 1990, the National League for Democracy led by Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Source:http://mizzima.com/news/election-2010/4106-kachin-party-ineligible-to-form-junta-minister-says.html
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