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| In this photo taken on Feb. 12, 201, Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, right, greets members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) during a cerebration to mark the 64th Union Day at its headquarters in Rangoon. (Photo: AP)In this photo taken on Feb. 12, 201, Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, right, greets members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) during a cerebration to mark the 64th Union Day at its headquarters in Rangoon. (Photo: AP) |
Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has asked Burmese and foreign activists and experts to submit papers on the topic of federalism for what she earlier described as “an ethnic conference in conformity with the 21st century.”
Those who Suu Kyi asked to write papers on the topic include distinguished foreign experts whose names are not yet available. A seminar will be held to read out the papers a few months from now, according to Win Tin, a senior member of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
“We want to issue a concrete policy statement on this topic after hearing all the different views and suggestions from people at home and abroad,” he said. “We also wish to compile those papers, and publish them in a book.”
Many observers have referred to the proposed conference as a “Second Panglong”—referring to a meeting of ethnic leaders and other relevant stakeholders along the lines of the 1947 Panglong Conference, which not only provided a basis for a federal state but also guaranteed the ethnic minorities a right to secede from the Union 10 years after Burma won independence from Britain.
The agreement never materialized but was followed by a civil war that still rages today.
A Burmese political activist in Rangoon who spoke to The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity, said he was personally asked by Suu Kyi in February to write a paper titled, “Federalism and the Spirit of the Union,” and is now working on it.
“The successive military regimes in our country have distorted federalism as something akin to national disintegration. I think Daw Suu wants to change that misconception,” he said. “Daw Suu wants people to understand that federalism would unite different ethnicities and even strengthen the Union.”
He added that Suu Kyi had not given him a deadline for the paper, but told him that he would be informed of it in a timely manner.
Aye Thar Aung, an Arakan politician in Rangoon, said that the paper-reading seminar on the Second Panglong will not take the form of a confrontation with the authorities as some people worry, but it will rather be a brainstorming event where findings will enable the opposition to issue a consensual policy statement.
On Tuesday, Suu Kyi, 65, said that she has seen no meaningful changes in the country since general elections were held in November. Her party, the NLD, has been dissolved for boycotting the elections and has no representation in the newly elected parliament and government.
"Until political prisoners have been released, and until we are all allowed to take part in the political process in the country, I do not think we can call it real change," Suu Kyi said in a phone interview with German broadcaster DW-TV.
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