Ethnic Leaders to Call for 'Panglong-type' Conference

A group of ethnic leaders and politicians opposed to the Nov. 7 will meet in Chin State on Sunday and call for a Panglong-like conference to seek national reconciliation.

Aung San, center, with ethnic delegates to the Panglong Conference in 1947

The meeting will coincide with the 22nd anniversary of the Zomi National Congress.

According to informed sources, the meeting will issue a statement urging “help in building a federal democratic system based on quality and democracy” and calling for a “meeting like the Panglong Convention.”

The Panglong conference was held in the eponymous town in southern Shan State on February 12, 1947, and produced an agreement signed by ethnic Shan, Chin and Kachin leaders and Burma’s independence hero, Gen Aung San, leading to Burma's independence from Britain.

Aye Thar Aung, chairman of the Arakan League for Democracy, said the 2008 Constitution could not lead to national reconciliation and needed to be reviewed.

“We need to review a new constitution based on the Panglong agreement,” said Aye That Aung, who is also general secretary of the Committee Representing the People's Parliament.

Sai Sheng Murng, deputy spokesman of the Shan State Army-South, supported the call for a Panglong-type conference. He welcomed the decision to meet on Sunday and said if his group had a chance to participate it would study the agenda.

Sources said the statement expected on Sunday would express support for leading members of the National League for Democracy Tin Oo and Win Tin; Pu Cin Sian Thang, chairman of the Zomi National Congress, an ethnic Chin political party; Naing Ngwe Thein of the Mon National Democratic Font, and other Kachin and Shan ethnic leaders and politicians.

Despite leading to Burma's independence in 1947, ethnic groups represented at the Panglong conference complained that the constitution it produced failed to guarantee equal rights, autonomy and self-determination, as agreed upon at the meeting. It was one of the factors that led many ethnic groups to launch military operations against the central government.

In February 2005, several Shan leaders, including Hkun Htun Oo, chairman of the Shan National League for Democracy (SNLD), Sai Nyunt Lwin, Sai Hla Aung and Hso Ten were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment after attending a meeting of opposition and ethnic groups in Shan State.

Source:http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19805