SNLD Survives- But For How Long?:

[shan@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

15 March 1999 

SNLD Survives- But For How Long? 

The Shan party that won elections in 1990 is in a precarious position,
reported the S.H.A.N. source from the Shan States. 

Known popularly as "Tiger Head", for its party emblem, and officially as
Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, the SNLD, emerged as the second
biggest party in the whole country during the short-lived "Rangoon Spring"
(1988 - 90). It won 23 out of 56 seats in the Shan States with staunch
allies in the rest of the seats making it the party to represent and govern
the biggest state in the whole of the "Union of Burma". 

Though a lesser political clout internationally, it appears to be more
powerful in the fact that all the armed Shan groups i.e. the Shan State
Army, the Shan State National Army and the Shan States Army (Southern) and
the Shan Democratic Union, the umbrella organization of Shan expatriates,
have declared their support for it. 

Late in 1998, the party's president, Khun Htoon Oo, was reportedly summoned
to the Rangoon Military Intelligence Center, headed by Gen Khin Nyunt. He
was told to issue a statement denouncing the NLD and its leader, Aung San
Suu Kyi, for setting up the Committee Representing the People's Parliament
(CRPP) or known popularly as "Committee of Ten". To which the Shan leader
replied he could not do it without approval from the party's executive
committee. The MI reportedly agreed that he should call a meeting first. 

When the executive members of the party met later, they resolved a neutral
position-neither to denounce or applaud the CRPP. If the resolution was not
accepted, they should declared the dissolution of the party. 

The MI reportedly received the news of the outcome of the meeting "rather
in a subdued manner, to the surprise of some observers. 

One says, "The reason is quite clear. The junta needs the SNLD which is
fast becoming the symbol of not only Shans but of all non-Burmans in the
so-called National Convention. Since they could not claim to speak for the
Burmans anymore with the boycotting and subsequent expulsion of the NLD
from the NC, they thought they might still need the SNLD's participation
there at least to show the non-Burmans are still on their side. But if the
SNLD is also expelled and its members persecuted, the NC will no more enjoy

any remaining credibility of representing, either Burman or non-Burman. Any
constitution adopted by the NC will also become completely meaningless. So
will the elections held afterwards. That is why the SNLD is still enjoying
the junta's grace despite its refusal to toe the line". 

"But how long the SNLD can survive?", he muses. "Once the pagoda is built,
the scaffold is gone, so goes the Burmese saying. And once the constitution
is adopted, either with or without the consent of the SNLD, its usefulness
shall be  gone too". 

"The SNLD is in real danger now", says another watcher. "I hope the foreign
observers of Burma also pay more attention on the SNLD and its members just
like they do it to the NLD". 


/// END \\\
S.H.A.N. 
Shan Herald Agency for News.