Federalism, ethnic conflict and the politics of national reconciliation - general studies and sources

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Websites/Multiple Documents

Description: Contains a number of Burma law-related documents including the BLC journal of "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" (English) and "Journal of Constitutional Affairs" (Burmese) as well as texts in English and/or Burmese of laws/decrees, constitutions and associated documents. The BLC site is down at the moment (permanently?) but the BLC archive is acessible to 2011 in Archive.org via the primary link here.
Source/publisher: Burma Lawyers? Council (BLC)
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, Burmese
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Description: "...The Shan resistance was born on May 21, 1958. On April 25, 1960 the Shan State Independence Army (SSIA) was formed in Loi La, Mong Yawn, Kengtung state with Hkun Maha as chairman and Sao Hso Hkarn as secretary general. On April 24, 1964 Shan resistance forces formed the Shan State Army (SSA) with Sao Nang Hearn Kham (Mahadevi of Yawnghwe) as chairman. In 1971, the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP) was established and its first congress was held on August 16, 1971. The SSPP signed a ceasefi re agreement with Myanmar government in 1989. Burma army gave a pressure on the SSPP to transform into BGF in 2010. The SSPP/SSA brigade 3 and 7 transformed into BGF in the following year but brigade 1 led by Col. Pang Fa (now Lt. Gen) rejuvenated the SSPP/SSA and have kept the ceasefire agreement even though the Shan army has been some clashes with Burma army...."
Creator/author: SSPP
Source/publisher: ssppssa.org
00-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-11
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
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Description: "...Tai Freedom website is from Information Department of Restoration Council of the Shan State and Shan State Army. Our website is publishing general news from Shan State, RCSS/SSA statement and activities. Especially news about human right abuse from any arms groups in Shan State..."
Creator/author: Tai Freedom
Source/publisher: Tai Freedom website
00-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-11
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
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Description: "The Forum of Federations, ?an international network on federalism”, seeks to strengthen democratic governance by promoting dialogue on and understanding of the values, practices, principles, and possibilities of federalism..." Includes a link to the International Conference on Federalism, St Gallen, Switzerland, August 2002.
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Description: "The persistent conflicts plaguing Myanmar since its independence in 1948 remain unresolved as it fails to address the root cause of the issue. The result has been an enduring struggle for ethnic rights, leading to the world’s longest-running civil war. Despite the constitution’s proclamation in September 1947, genuine union and equality as promised have not been realized. Ethnic nationalities, notably the Shan and others, have not experienced the equality envisaged in the constitution. The military regime’s exclusion and marginalization of non-Bamar ethnicities, coupled with a policy of Burmanization, have suppressed the cultural, linguistic, historical, and ethnic expressions of other nationalities. The military government’s inability to meet ethnic nationalities’ demands has prompted uprisings by Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) seeking increased autonomy or independence. Even officially recognized ethnic nationalities face challenges in enjoying full civil and cultural rights. For example, many Shan Saophas and politicians attempted to establish a federal system in 1958-1961, however they were met with repression. This led many to take up arms against the military regime. The military regime’s unitary system has been marred by inequalities and imbalances, perpetuated through a perceived correlation between population size, political legitimacy, and entitlements. It divides the 135 ethnic groups and restricts legislative representation to those with suitable population sizes. In addition, the 2008 Constitution, one of the world’s lengthiest, further entrenched these disparities. These divisive tactics aimed to prolong its dictatorship. It only gives self-administered areas for some groups such as the Danu, Kokang, Naga, Palaung, Pa-O, and Wa. Consequently, the ongoing conflict in Myanmar is not merely a problem among ethnic minorities but stems from the country’s governance structure. The absence of a federal system, where every nationality enjoys equal rights, exacerbates the situation. To achieve peace and unity in Myanmar, a shift in the system, rather than a mere regime change, is imperative. All nationalities within the country must collaboratively build and reform a system that paves the way for a genuine federal and democratic union..."
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Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Chiang Mai)
2024-01-07
Date of entry/update: 2024-01-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "၁။ ယနေ့ အချိန်အခါသမယသည် ပြည်ထောင်စုတိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးအားလုံး၏ စည်းလုံး ညီညွတ်မှုအင်အားဖြင့် ပင်လုံစာချုပ်အား သဘောတူညီချုပ်ဆိုနိုင်ခဲ့သည့် မိမိတို့နိုင်ငံ၏ သမိုင်းဝင်နေ့ထူးနေ့မြတ်ဖြစ်ပြီး ယနေ့ဆိုလျှင် (၇၆)နှစ် တိုင်ခဲ့ပြီ ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝှမ်း တောင်တန်းမြေပြန့်ဒေသများရှိ ပြည်ထောင်စုတိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးအားလုံးက ရည်ရွယ်ကြိုးပမ်း နေသည့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းသာယာဝပြောသော ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံတော်သစ် တည်ဆောက်နိုင် ရေး ရည်မှန်းချက်အား စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်သော ပင်လုံစိတ်ဓာတ်ဖြင့် အမြန်ဆုံး အကောင်အထည် ဖော်ဆောင်နိုင်ပါစေကြောင်း ဆန္ဒပြုအပ်ပါသည်။ ၂။ ပြည်ထောင်စုအတွင်းရှိ တိုင်းရင်းသားညီအစ်ကိုမောင်နှမများ၏ သွေးစည်းညီညွတ်မှု ဖြင့် သာတူညီမျှမှုရှိပြီး အ‌ရောင်အသွေးစုံလင်သည့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းသော နိုင်ငံတော်သစ်ကို တည်ဆောက်သွားရန် မိမိတို့ခေါင်းဆောင်ကြီးများက ယင်းပင်လုံစာချုပ်ကို ချုပ်ဆိုနိုင်ရန် အခက်အခဲများကြားမှပင် ကြိုးပမ်းခဲ့ကြခြင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ သို့သော် စစ်အာဏာရှင်များက ၎င်းတို့ အာဏာဆုပ်ကိုင်ထားနိုင်ရေးရှေးရှု၍ တိုင်းပြည်၏ အာဏာကို လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် လက်ဝါး ကြီးအုပ်ထားနိုင်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းနေခြင်းကြောင့် တန်းတူအခွင့်အရေး၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးနှင့် ကိုယ်ပိုင်ပြဋ္ဌာန်းခွင့် အပြည့်အဝရရှိရေးတို့သည် ယနေ့အချိန်အထိ အကောင်အထည်ဖော် ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ခဲ့ခြင်း မရှိခဲ့ပေ။ ၃။ ယနေ့အချိန်တွင်လည်း ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များက ဒီမိုကရေစီနည်းကျ ရွေးကောက်တင်မြှောက်ခံထားရသည့် နိုင်ငံတော်အစိုးရထံမှ လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် ဥပဒေမဲ့ အာဏာသိမ်းယူပြီး ပြည်သူလူထုအပေါ် လူမဆန်သော အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များကို ကျူးလွန် လျက် အာဏာဆုပ်ကိုင်ထားနိုင်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းနေသော်လည်း တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူအားလုံးက အရှုံးမပေးဘဲ ခုခံတွန်းလှန်နေခြင်းကြောင့် ယခု နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးသည် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် ကို မြန်မာ့မြေပေါ်မှ အပြီးတိုင် တိုက်ထုတ်ပြီး တိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးအားလုံးအတွက် ဖက်ဒရယ် ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံတော်သစ်အား တည်ဆောက်သွားနိုင်လိမ့်မည်ဟု ယုံကြည်ပါသည်။ ၄။ သို့ပါ၍ မိမိတို့ လူငယ်မျိုးဆက်သစ်တို့၏ အမြော်အမြင်ရှိမှု၊ ဆန်းသစ်တီထွင်မှုနှင့် အတူ တော်လှန်ရေးအင်အားစုအားလုံးက ယခုထက် ပိုမို စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်ခြင်းဖြင့် ခိုင်မာသော ယုံကြည်မှုတို့ တည်ဆောက်ကာ တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူအားလုံးအတွက် အေးအတူပူအမျှ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ အတူယှဥ်တွဲနေထိုင်နိုင်မည့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စုကြီး အမြန်ဆုံး တည်ဆောက်သွားနိုင်ရေးအတွက် “စည်းလုံးညီညာအောင်ကြောင်းဖြာ” ဟူသော ထုံးကိုနှလုံးမူ လျက် ရေပက်မဝင်စည်းလုံးခြင်းဖြင့် အတူတကွရှေ့ဆက်ကြပါစို့ဟု တိုက်တွန်းရင်း ပင်လုံစာချုပ် ချုပ်ဆိုခြင်း(၇၆)နှစ်မြောက်နေ့တွင် ဤသဝဏ်လွှာအား လေးစားဂုဏ်ယူစွာ ပေးပို့အပ်ပါသည်။ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ..."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw
2023-02-14
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "၂-၂-၂၀၂၃ ရက်နေ့၊ ၁၀၀၀ နာရီတွင် ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည့် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော် ပဉ္စမ အကြိမ်အစည်းအဝေး၊ တတိယနေ့၌ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်သို့ ဖတ်ကြားတင်သွင်းခဲ့သည့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ရေးရာကော်မတီ၏ အစီရင်ခံစာအား မိဘပြည်သူများ ဖတ်ရှုနိုင်ရန် အောက်ပါအတိုင်း လေးစားစွာ အသိပေးထုတ်ပြန်အပ်သည်။..."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw
2023-02-02
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "Federalism is being presented by many activists as the best option for a future democratic Myanmar – and with good reason. The formal sharing of power between a national government and regional administrations has worked well for some of the world’s most successful democracies, including Germany and Australia. It has also – and perhaps less successfully – been adopted where there is an acute division - religious, linguistic, cultural or ethnic - which needs to be addressed politically for the nation to survive. Belgium, Bosnia and Nigeria could be seen as examples. Britain is not federal, indeed its largest constituent, England, remains one of the most highly centralised of major democracies. But it’s been heading down the devolution path in recent decades, establishing parliaments or assemblies for Scotland and Wales (and also reforming Northern Ireland’s assembly, though for different reasons). Some see that as a drift towards a federal system, which could also eventually encompass more autonomy for the poorer, largely post-industrial, English midlands and north. But a huge row over the rights of people who are trans-gender has put into question just how sincere and effective is Britain’s decentralisation of political power. One of the main purposes of introducing regional decision making is to enable large and complex nations to accommodate diversity and so blunt separatist sentiment. That’s how it has worked in the world’s two major democracies. Indian federalism has been a conspicuous success and an important factor in allowing a geographically, culturally and linguistically hugely diverse nation to prosper. That’s not an endorsement of the way India is governed, but a reflection of the manner in which power is divided between the Centre and the country’s constituent states. Separatist sentiment in the Kashmir Valley and in some parts of India’s north-east has led to insurgencies and brutal security crackdowns, and Delhi has been strongly criticised for failing to seek a political solution particularly in Kashmir. But broadly, federalism has kept India together. The United States is a different story. Its political system is shaped by the legacy of a ruinous civil war in the 1860s to prevent secession by pro-slavery southern states. And it has one signal success: there is no secessionist movement of any political consequence anywhere in the US (except perhaps on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, which is US-ruled but whose citizens have no elected representatives in Congress). Britain’s awkward embrace of devolution is more recent. In 1997, when Labour’s Tony Blair headed a reforming national government, the British Parliament agreed there should be referenda in Scotland and Wales to decide on whether to set up devolved assemblies there. Voters in both regions endorsed the idea and a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly (the difference in terms is important – the Welsh elected body was given less power than Scotland’s) were established the following year. The broad political consensus is that, in practical terms, devolution has worked fairly well. Tony Blair’s devolution reforms were in part a response to increased nationalist sentiment in Scotland and Wales, and in part an attempt to forestall the growth of a powerful breakaway movement. In Scotland, that aim has failed. For the past fifteen years, Scotland’s First Minister has been a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), a constitutional left-wing party which seeks an independent Scotland. The SNP is now by far the most popular political party in Scotland getting almost half the total vote. And it wants a referendum on independence (there was one in 2014, in which the people of Scotland voted by 55% to 45% against breaking away, but the pro-Europe SNP says Britain’s departure from the European Union requires a fresh vote). But there’s a catch. A second referendum can only be authorised by the government and Parliament in Westminster – and there’s no prospect of that. So, there’s an uneasy stalemate between London and the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. The political temperature is now approaching boiling point because of a row about trans rights. The Scottish Parliament has passed legislation – applicable only in Scotland – to make it easier for people who are trans-gender to get formal legal recognition of their new gender identity. The governing Conservative party in London disagrees with these reforms and argues that it conflicts with legislation passed by the Britain-wide Westminster Parliament. And for the first time since devolution was introduced a quarter of a century ago, the British government is using its reserve powers to block Scotland’s new law. The Scottish nationalists argue that failing to respect a decision of the Edinburgh Parliament in an area where it has devolved authority is anti-democratic. The British Conservatives say that far from tearing up the devolution arrangement, London is simply exercising powers it was given under that dispensation. What started as a difference of opinion about trans rights is becoming a big constitutional bust-up. The instinct to decentralise power and ensure that smaller regions enjoy real autonomy feels right. England has ten times the population of Scotland and almost twenty times that of Wales, and that overwhelming dominance made both smaller nations feel marginalised and ignored. But getting the balance right between centre and region is a difficult judgment. And there is the even trickier issue of how to respond when regional sentiment becomes a demand for complete separation. This doesn’t mean that devolving power is wrong – just that it takes a lot of careful planning and even more political wisdom to make it work..."
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Source/publisher: "Mizzima"
2023-01-23
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Towards a future federal democratic system where working people can flourish
Description: "This primer is about ‘the 5Rs’ and land and natural resource politics. The 5Rs is a set of five principles: Recognition, Restitution, Redistribution, Regeneration, and Representation/Resistance. The primer briefly explores the idea of a working people’s program on land and natural resources in Myanmar based on these five principles in the context of a future federal democratic system. Each of these principles alone is supported by international human rights law (links to the most relevant UN documents can be found in Annex 1). But here we outline a working people’s land and natural resource program for deep social change based on the 5Rs taken together. By 'working people' we mean ordinary people who have to work in order to ‘make ends meet’. The work that many people do to survive nowadays involves both waged labor and unwaged labor. A lot of unwaged work that is essential to survival is done at home, such as cooking and cleaning, child raising, health care, and elderly care. It is the kind of work that makes it possible for some members of the household to go outside the home and undertake waged work. In rural villages a lot of household work is related to producing goods for own consumption and for selling -- such as farming, artisanal fishing, animal keeping, and other artisanal and ‘cottage industry’ (like handicraft making). This work often relies on the unwaged labour of household members (including children). Sometimes, and if there is money, a household may hire other villagers or someone from outside the village to help them with some of these labors. Over the past four decades, many important structural changes in the way the economy and governance are organized have occurred all over the world. These processes have not been smooth nor have they unfolded in exactly the same manner everywhere. They have been marked by profound disagree- ment and conflict over the most basic matters in society -- such as who owns what, who does what, who gets what, what should happen to the wealth that is created in a society, and, who gets to decide. Ordinary people have been hugely affected in fundamental ways. There has been an explosion in the number of people who are neither full-time farmer nor full-time waged worker. They struggle to survive and ‘make ends meet’ by piecing together whatever low-paying, part-time jobs they can find wherever it may be. This is a common situation in many countries today: households reducing or minimizing their own consumption and foregoing formal schooling and health care, with some family members coming and going, piecing together different bits of low-waged labor in nearby towns or distant cities or abroad. Those who stay home tend to farms and gardens if they have land, raise animals or make handicrafts to sell, and raise the children and care for the sick and infirm or the elderly who can no longer work. In using the term 'working people' in this primer, we hope to capture this kind of situation and the dynamics that propel so many people into it. In the context of Myanmar and its long history of ethnic conflict, this stress on working people may seem to be missing the mark or leaving out a lot. But bringing into focus working people is not intended to deny or ignore ethnic and other social differences. Rather, it is also and at the same time to make visible what so many people despite other differences have in common -- the struggle to live a life filled with social and economic precarity and hardship and bereft of social insurance or social protections. Ultimately, at the heart of a truly federal democratic system is a difficult balancing act -- a strategic balancing of socioeconomic class issues and social-political identity issues. Both sets of concerns are complex on their own. Yet both are important. All over the world today (not just in Myanmar), there is deep injustice and rightful struggle around both. Staggering economic inequalities are fueling working people’s struggles for egalitarian distribution of wealth. Non-recognition or mis-recognition of certain ethnic, religious and sexual groups and of racial and gender differences is fueling ‘identity’-framed struggles for recognition. The two kinds of struggle often seem opposed to each other; we may feel pressure to choose between them. But the 5Rs starts from the belief that nei- ther struggle alone is sufficient for achieving deep social change. Advocating only for working people’s economic class interests without regard to ethnic identity concerns or advocating only for ethnic identity recognition without regard for the class position of working people within ethnic communities -- each ignores strategic issues. Class and ethnicity (along with other aspects of identity) are both integral parts of a single pillar; one without the other cannot constitute a pillar. Both types of injustice shape exploitation and subordination; and both types of struggles have emancipatory aspects. The 5R approach assumes that it is possible and necessary to integrate the emancipatory aspects of both struggles into a single frame. If we don’t, we risk impeding construction of a future federal democracy with equal rights and opportunities for all. Applying the five principles to the ‘land problem’ is necessary to defend against elitist efforts to thwart democratization of access and control of land and related natural resources. Even well-intentioned responses to Myanmar’s land problem can be undermined if they approach the problem with only one or two of the 5 Rs, or any combination less than all 5 Rs. It would be like trying to make a whole puzzle with a hundred pieces of the same shape. Deliberately linking all 5Rs together has the best chance of handling the complexities of the land problem in Myanmar today. It is designed to detect and address the multidimensional character of land-based injustice. Failure to do so will contribute to the process of loss of land and of the right to land for millions of working people all across Myanmar. It risks to exacerbate old and create new grievances, especially among ethnic nationality communities practicing customary tenure systems, thereby further contributing to and prolonging ethnic conflict and war. The stakes are thus very high. Rich country, poor people -- that is what Myanmar has been. It is rich in natural resources, but the proceeds from access to these resources remain in the hands of a very few -- most of whom are military or military-connected. This must change. Natural resources are essential for human life and the health of the planetary ecosystem. For decades, rural working people across Myanmar have been losing access to land and natural resources because of various processes of enclosure and dispossession -- commonly called ‘land grabbing’ -- and because of the socially differentiating currents of free market relations in the rural areas. This trend encompasses aquatic resources, forest resources, and land resources. Enclosures and dispossession have been facilitated by many laws that span diverse policy areas and ministries -- economic, investment, mining, forest, fisheries, agriculture, environment, conservation, land and natural resources. Shrinking access to land for working people is especially alarming because land is an entry point for accessing forest and aquatic resources too, and because working people need a range of access to an array of natural resources for their economic production and social reproduction activities. Yet people are resisting land grabbing. Civil society organizations (CSOs) across the country have studied and rejected laws and policies that facilitate dispossession and displacement. For example, the nationwide network called Land In Our Hands (LIOH or Doe Myay) has produced numerous analyses of existing laws and policies -- such as the government’s National Land Use Policy (2014 Draft); the 2012 Farmland Law and the amendments to this law proposed in 2017. In 2018, LIOH spearheaded a nationwide grassroots campaign against the government’s Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Land Management Law. More recently, in defense of customary land systems and practices including shifting cultivation, LIOH has shown how existing laws undermine these and offered recommendations on what is needed to support and promote them instead. CSOs have formulated pro-people alternatives that not only reflect realities and customs on the ground, but also internationally respected principles that they felt are relevant for them. In one notable example, CSOs from numerous ethnic groups across Shan State joined forces to research and document customary land systems and eventually to produce a joint report with their findings and recommendations. Similarly, a number of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) have taken part in developing land policies that value inclusion, equity and an ecologically healthy future for all. One CSO network -- the Burma Environmental Working Group (BEWG) -- developed a ‘roadmap for resource federalism’. These are all building blocks for a comprehensive national 5R program. Myanmar is now at a new crossroads. The February 2021 coup has made the need to forge new social foundations for a future multi-ethnic federal democratic system of government painfully clear. Now is the time to go deeper into imagining the substantive and inclusive agenda of that future -- e.g., providing deeper substance to a federal democratic system with a clear pro- working people agenda that is gender- and generation-sensitive. We assume that a core value of any positive future would be recognition that each and every person -- regardless of any differences between us -- is born with equal dignity and equal right to access the material, ecological, social and political conditions needed to live a flourishing life. Diverse kinds of access to an array of land and natural resources is part of what rural working people need to flourish. A 5R land and natural resource program can inspire different people affected differently by land and natural resource injustices to find common cause, and develop alternative land and natural resource policies that protect, support and promote the rights and needs of all the people of Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute ( Amsterdam)
2021-07-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 2.18 MB (48 pages)
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Sub-title: Federal Democracy Charter - ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပဋိညာဉ်
Description: "ကြေညာချက် အမှတ် ( ၁၉/၂၀၂၁ ) ၁၃၈၂ ခုနှစ်၊ တပေါင်းလပြည့်ကျော် ၄ ရက် မတ်လ (၃၁)ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ်။ ================ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပဋိညာဉ် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခြင်း ၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုအတွင်း ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့သည့် ပဋိပက္ခများ၊ အရင်းခံပြဿနာများကို အပြီးသတ်ချုပ်ငြိမ်းစေရန်၊ တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူ တစ်ရပ်လုံး ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင်လက်တွဲနိုင်ရန်၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ကို ကျင့်သုံးပြီး တန်းတူရေးနှင့် ကိုယ်ပိုင်ပြဋ္ဌာန်းခွင့်တို့ကို အာမခံသော ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စုကို တည်ထောင်ရန်၊ ပြည်ထောင်စု၏ လူမျိုးများအားလုံး၊ နိုင်ငံသားများအားလုံး လွတ်လပ်ခြင်း၊ တန်းတူညီမျှခြင်း၊ တရားမျှတခြင်းတို့ကို အခြေခံကာ အပြန်အလှန်အသိအမှတ်ပြုလေးစားမှု ချစ်ကြည်ရိုင်းပင်းမှု၊ သွေးစည်းညီညွတ်မှုတို့ဖြင့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ အေးအတူ ပူအမျှ အတူတကွယှဉ်တွဲနေထိုင်နိုင်ရန် ခိုင်မာသော သန္နိဋ္ဌာန်ချမှတ်လျက် ဤ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပဋိညာဉ် (Federal Democracy Charter ) ကို ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီက ယနေ့ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ မတ်လ ၃၁ ရက် ရက်စွဲဖြင့် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။ ၂။ ခေတ္တ ဒုတိယသမ္မတမန်းဝင်းခိုင်သန်း ဦးဆောင်လျက် ခေတ္တ ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးများ ပါဝင်သော ပြည်သူ့အစိုးရအဖွဲ့သည် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ မဖွဲ့စည်းမီ ကာလတွင် နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးတာဝန် များကို ဆက်လက် ထမ်းဆောင်သွားမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၃။ ၂၀၂၀ ခုနှစ် ပါတီစုံအထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲတွင် ပြည်သူက ဒီမိုကရေစီနည်းကျ အပ်နှင်းလိုက်သော အာဏာကို ကိုင်စွဲလျက် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဧပြီလ ပထမပတ်အတွင်း အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရကို ဖွဲ့စည်းပြီး ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီအင်အားစု အားလုံးနှင့် လက်တွဲကာ ဤ ပဋိညာဉ်ပါ ဦးတည်ချက်၊ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်များနှင့် နိုင်ငံရေးလမ်းပြမြေပုံ အဆင့်ဆင့်အား စုပေါင်းခေါင်းဆောင်မှု စုပေါင်းအင်အားဖြင့် လက်တွေ့အကောင်အထည် ဖော် ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည် ဖြစ်ပါကြောင်း အသိပေးကြေညာအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
2021-03-31
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 6.49 MB (22 pages)
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Topic: Health, Protection and Human Rights
Topic: Health, Protection and Human Rights
Description: "Move by the National Union Government towards a Federal Union Army will see a more formal conflict develop. OVERVIEW Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), established by opponents of army rule, declared on 05 May that it would establish a “People’s Defence Force” as protection against government violent attacks towards its members. The statement noted that this was a prelude to establishing a Federal Union Army “in order to terminate the 70-year-long civil war.” The Tatmadaw also responded with heavy weapons after reports that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) shot down a military helicopter in the vicinity of Konelaw village, Moemauk Township, Kachin State on 4 May. The risk of deterioration within Myanmar was highlighted by Zhang Jun, the Chinese Ambassador to the UN, in one of China’s strongest statements yet, when he warned that further violence in Myanmar could lead to “civil war”. ANALYSIS We predicted in our previous alert (27 Apr: Myanmar Border Area Clashes) that any further violence either along the Thai border area or between the Tatmadaw and the militia units (in this instance the Karen National Union - KNU) would likely escalate. Violent episodes are intensifying: on 4 May bomb blasts were reported in Myaing Township on 4 May, as were further clashes in Chin state, near the border with India, between the Chinland Defence Force (CDF) and Myanmar troops. The move by the NUG towards a Federal Union Army is highly likely in response to these clashes and would build a coordinated force against the Tatmadaw. Indeed, local sources have reported that units have been training “in the jungle” for several months and that militias have been using illegal arms traders to build up supplies of weapons. PREDICTION The move by the NGU to establish a Federal Union Army, along with the intensifying number of incidents, and the UN Chinese Ambassador’s comments points to the high probability that a more formal civil war phase is imminent. Cross border illicit arms trading will see a major increase, whilst the Tatmadaw will likely receive more military support from China, and possibly India; both have geopolitical interests in supporting the Myanmar government. Both militia units and the “People’s Defence Force/Federal Union Army” are likely to receive illicit aid from countries opposed to either India or China. The numbers of IDPs within the country, and refugees seeking shelter on the Thai/Indian border is likely to increase, leading to the possibility of further spread of COVID-19 within the country and region – as Myanmar appears to heading into a third wave of the virus, with no effective vaccine deployment in place. MITIGATION Organisations should carefully consider whether to deploy staff within 10 miles of the border areas – especially the China/Myanmar border region. Vary routes into and out of projects as often as possible. All staff should remove themselves from social media (if internet still available), remove satellite dishes from homes (if outside of main cities), and where possible, organisations should ensure that staff have a removable hard drive, and emphasize strict IT safeguarding protocols. Reinforce use of PPE and checking in protocols..."
Source/publisher: Insecurity Insight via "Reliefweb" (New York)
2021-05-05
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 299.32 KB
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Description: "Thank you all so much for showing unwavering support to people of Myanmar and the National Unity Government! As you all know, Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) has perpetrated the worst possible crime in entire history of our country by waging the total war against the whole population of Myanmar. People from all walks of life in Myanmar are facing the atrocities of the military every day. These atrocities comprise killing innocent civilians, including children, using live ammunitions, heavy weaponry; arbitrarily arresting people, kidnapping people at night and sending the dead bodies to families next morning, beating people at the military camps and raiding private spaces of the people and confiscating the properties. These atrocities are unimaginable for all humanity. Not only does the military target the NLD party members, but the military also detains religious leaders, journalists, activists, doctors, nurses, teachers, workers, students, actors, and actresses and even underaged teenagers. The military is destroying the backbone of our society. The internet communications have been cut off and the people of Myanmar are now in the darkness without any information from outside world. Amidst the enormous challenges imposed by the COVID-19, the people of Myanmar are suffering from the atrocities of the military which promotes its own vested interests, not the interests of the people and the country. In order to safeguard democracy and protect the country from falling under total authoritarian rule, the National Unity Government (NUG) was formed on April 16, 2021, by the mandate of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) in accordance with guiding principles of Federal Democracy Charter (FDC) enacted on March 31, 2021. All these arrangements are historic as well as momentous because they represent the united voices of the people from all sectors of society. The strength of unity we have now must be preserved and further enhanced via meaningful cooperation. The sole duty of the National Unity Government is to end structural violence committed by the military over decades and establish federal democratic union. At the same time, the NUG aims to conduct security sector reform, as the current security apparatus of Myanmar are the fundamental part of the decade-long structural violence, ensuring that federal security system is established in accordance with federal democratic principles. The supports of Myanmar communities all over the world are precious for our efforts. Both NUG and CRPH would like to invite Myanmar communities all over the world to advocate the respective host governments and relevant stakeholders to achieve our goals. This is a rare opportunity to end military dictatorship once and for all not only for us but also for our future generations. Of course, our struggle will not be an easy journey. We will have to face challenges on all fronts. But what we have is legitimacy derived from the democratic will of the people. More importantly, millions of people across Myanmar are chanting “We want democracy" , singing the songs of struggle with hopes and aspirations to establish genuine federal democratic union which preserves and protects freedom, justice, and equality for all. This is the cause worth fighting for. The supports of each and everyone of you are critical for our struggle. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi once said " use your freedom to promote ours" . In this way, you can all join our struggle, our fight, and our cause. We are by no means atone in this world; we all are together in this. In solidarity, Zin Mar Aung Minister of Foreign Affairs National Unity Government Republic of the Union of Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: CRPH_International Relations Office
2021-04-24
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 42.03 KB
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Description: "Announcement of Min Ko Naing, on behalf of the National Unity Consultative Council on formation of the National Unity Government. (With English Subtitles.)..."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
2021-04-16
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar New Year's Opening Speech by Vice President Duwa Lashi Lawith..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2021-04-17
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: announce, cabinet, CRPH, Ethnic groups, Ethnicities, Federal Democracy Charter, federal union, National Unity Government, unveil, Who’s Who
Topic: announce, cabinet, CRPH, Ethnic groups, Ethnicities, Federal Democracy Charter, federal union, National Unity Government, unveil, Who’s Who
Description: "Myanmar’s ousted lawmakers formed a parallel government on Friday in an attempt to defy and discredit the country’s ruling military regime, restore civilian rule and establish a federal union. The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), established by ousted lawmakers in the wake of the military coup in February, said in a statement that it had formed a National Unity Government (NUG) based on the mandate bestowed on it by the people in the 2020 general election, which the National League for Democracy won by a landslide. Despite being outlawed by the regime, the CRPH enjoys popular support at home and abroad. The new government is a coalition of democratic forces in Myanmar, including stakeholders from the country’s ethnic groups, formed under the terms of the Federal Democracy Charter, which the CRPH made public in March. The charter guarantees the formation of a federal union, something the country’s ethnicities have long sought. In the new government, Mahn Win Khaing Than, an ethnic Karen and former House Speaker under the NLD government, is the country’s prime minister, while President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who were ousted by the coup and have been detained since February, retain their positions. The vice president is lawyer Duwa Lashi La, president of the Kachin National Consultative Assembly, politically the most authoritative body in Kachin State. For the time being the 15-member cabinet will be led by the vice president and prime minister. The CRPH has created three new ministries: the ministries of the Prime Minister; Federal Union Affairs; and Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs. Six of the federal ministers are ethnic Kachin, Karen or Chin, while no representatives of other ethnic nationalities have yet been appointed. However, with important ministries like Agriculture, Transport, and Energy yet to be filled, they will likely be added soon. In the NUG’s cabinet, four elected NLD lawmakers—Daw Zin Mar Aung, U Lwin Ko Latt, U Yee Mon and U Tin Tun Naing—have been appointed as the ministers for foreign affairs; home affairs and immigration; defense; and planning, finance and investment, respectively. U Yee Mon is somewhat of a surprise appointment as defense minister and brings some unusual qualifications to the portfolio, being a poet. Dr. Sa Sa, an ethnic Chin and the international envoy for the CRPH, has been appointed international cooperation minister. He will also serve as the NUG’s spokesperson. Dr. Win Myat Aye, who served as social welfare, relief and resettlement minister under the NLD government until the coup, will serve as minister of humanitarian affairs and disaster management in the new government. Another ethnic Chin minister in the new government is Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong. With a mandate from the Chin Consultative Assembly, a politically authoritative umbrella organization among Chin ethnic people, the vice chair of the Chin National Front (CNF), a Chin armed group that has been lobbying for autonomy and federalism in Chin State, is now federal union affairs minister. Dr. Tu Hkawng, an ethnic Kachin with a postgraduate degree in social science and community development, is natural resources and environmental conservation minister in the NUG, while elected NLD lawmaker Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, an ethnic Karen, is the minister for women, youth and children’s affairs. Another new face in the cabinet is Dr. Zaw Wai Soe. The orthopedic surgeon, who earned renown for his COVID-19 containment strategies in Yangon before the coup, as well as for his involvement in the Civil Disobedience Movement against the junta, has been named minister for both education and, unsurprisingly, health. In his statement on the formation of the NUG, spokesperson Dr. Sa Sa said the government members will serve the people of Myanmar regardless of their race, religion, community of origin or walk of life. “All will have a vitally important role to play in the great cause of liberating our nation from the scourge of this murderous military junta, and all will have equal rights as citizens of Myanmar,” he said. The spokesperson added that the NUG will bring all ethnic nationalities on board “so that it represents the great diversity and strength of this great nation of Myanmar.” The NUG also appointed 12 deputy ministers, six of whom are ethnic Kachin, Karen, Mon, Kayan, Karenni and Ta’ang. Many of them are young, politically active and well-educated. The announcement of the NUG’s formation was heartily welcomed by Myanmar’s people on Friday. On the CRPH’s Facebook page, the announcement earned 149,000 shares within two hours. One supporter simply said: “Our legitimate government and we support NUG!” Unsurprisingly, most of the other comments expressed similar sentiments. On Friday, the NUG’s Foreign Minister Daw Zin Mar Aung wrote in The New York Times that the people of Myanmar are ready to take great risks and pay a great price for their rights and freedom. “We ask the international community to support them, with coordinated political, financial and security measures,” she said..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2021-04-16
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 341.9 KB
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Sub-title: "Special Issue"
Description: "Contents: Earnest Request to our readers, The shan national flag, Excerpts from T.R.C president's speech, Excerpts from Gen. Khun Sa's speech, Quotes, U.S and U.N accept and help the Burmese government to eliminate that mong Tai (Shan State) people under the cover of drug suppression, Joint communique, A speech given by the representative from, Mong Karn at the 19th graduation ceremony, our nationalism, on leadership, behind the scenes (or) the real M.X, letters to the editor, our aspirations in polictis......"
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1988-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 15.11 MB
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Description: "Khun Sa is the seventh generation descendant of his ancestors who immigrated in the 18th century fro Nawng- sae (Talifu), and ancient Shan principality in China. One ot them won chieftainship (Zao- Maung in Shan) of the Loimaw territory in Hsenwi Principality through meritorious service to the princedom. Khun S, also know as Chang Si - Fu, was born in Hpa - perng Village, Loimaw Ward, Tang Yan Township, Lashio Proviince on 17th February 1934......"
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1989-08-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 6.18 MB
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Description: "Shan history was written in Thai Language. The contents included what is Tai or Shan, history of Shan revolution such as The Shan United Front, Shan State Army...."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1986-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 8.67 MB
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Description: "The contents included RCSS objectives and aims, governance, rights, RCSS's policy on opium issues, and policy on environmental issues...."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
00-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF pdf
Size: 339.67 MB 339.67 KB
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Description: "The contents included army recruitment policy, education, health, religion, social and culture policies....."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1986-03-15
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 2.75 MB
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Description: "This book was written about Panglong agreement; the contents included first Panglong conference in 1946 also know as Saophas or Chaofa meeting, Pang Long agreement, and after independents from British ....."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1985-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 19.06 MB
Local URL:
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Sub-title: His Life and His Speeches
Description: "Sao Korn Jerng also know as Moe Heaing the founder of Shan State United Patriotic Council (SSUPC) and this book is about his life in the arm group...."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1990-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 8.73 MB
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Description: "The populace of Shan State comprises of multi ethnic group who have lived harmoniously through together period of hardship and prosperity in the past up until the present time....."
Source/publisher: Kham Koo Website
1986-05-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 2.93 MB
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Description: "This Policy Paper focuses on sequencing peace agreements and constitutional arrangements within the broader political settlement processes in fragile and conflictaffected settings. Political settlements comprise the underlying agreed understandings about how power is to be held and exercised. It is often assumed that there is a specific sequence to reach a political settlement: typically, a ceasefire or peace agreement that includes (or is followed by) transitional political arrangements or an interim constitution that culminates in some form of long-term constitutional arrangement. According to this assumption, the political settlement is understood to develop as part of the peace and constitution-building process. In practice, matters are likely to be much more complicated. Peace agreements and constitutional arrangements often fail to reflect a broadly shared political settlement, and require further negotiations to resolve conflict and start building sustainable peace. Political settlements can be understood, on the one hand, as distinct from peace agreements and constitutional arrangements, but on the other hand as part of the same jigsaw puzzle, which may be arranged in different ways that often depart from the linear model. For instance, while both peace agreements and constitutional arrangements may reflect an underlying political understanding between the parties at the negotiating table, the connection between these documents and any shared political settlement can vary significantly. While peace agreements primarily aim to end a conflict, and are the result of negotiations between most (if not all) parties to the conflict, they can take different forms, including (a) ceasefires or other pre-negotiation agreements; (b) framework peace agreements that also address the core issues of the conflict; and (c) implementation agreements. Transitional political arrangements, interim constitutions and final constitutions will often be intermingled with ceasefire or peace agreements in complex sequences. Whether or not the process starts with a ceasefire/peace agreement, the parties often reach some form of transitional political arrangement that sets the stage for how power is to be held and exercised for a limited time. Transitional political arrangements only provide an attenuated legal framework, either working outside the former legal structures or within the arrangements of the pre-existing constitution. Interim constitutions can form an additional step towards a final constitution by providing a clearer constitutional structure with legal supremacy, sometimes enabling elections, and providing a roadmap for negotiating and drafting a final constitution. Since 1990, a total of 23 political settlement processes in fragile and conflict-affected settings have concluded in a ‘final’ constitution (see Chapter 3). Based on an analysis of these processes, this paper identifies four broad sequencing patterns..."
Creator/author: Christine Bell, Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher
Source/publisher: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
2016-11-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
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Description: "ဤမူဝါဒစာတမ်းတွင် ထိလွယ်ရှလွယ် အခြေအနေများနှင့် ပဋိပက္ခသက်ရောက်မှုရှိသည့် နယ်မြေများ၌ ပိုမိုကျယ်ပြန့်သော နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက် လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်များအတွင်း ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး သဘောတူညီချက်များနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေဆိုင်ရာအစီအမံများကို ရှေ့နောက်စီစဉ်ခြင်း အကြောင်း အဓိကတင်ပြထားပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်ဆိုသည်မှာ လုပ်ပိုင်ခွင့်အာဏာ လက်ဝယ်ထားရှိပုံနှင့် ကျင့်သုံးပုံဆိုင်ရာ အခြေခံ နားလည်သဘောပေါက်မှုများကို သဘော တူညီထားခြင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေး ဖြေရှင်းချက်ရရှိရေး လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်မှာ လုပ်ဆောင်ရမည့် လုပ်ငန်းများ ရှေ့နောက်အစီအစဉ် အတိအကျရှိသည်ဟု ယူဆကြလေ့ ရှိပါသည်။ များသော အားဖြင့် အပစ်အခတ်ရပ်စဲရေး သဘောတူညီချက် သို့မဟုတ် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးသဘောတူညီချက်ကို ဦးစွာ ရယူပါသည်။ ယင်းသဘောတူညီချက်တွင် အကူးအပြောင်းကာလ နိုင်ငံရေးအစီအမံများ သို့မဟုတ် ကြားဖြတ် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ တစ်ပါတည်း ပါဝင်သည်လည်း ရှိပါသည်၊ ယင်း သဘောတူညီချက် ရရှိပြီးနောက်မှ ဆက်လက်၍ စီမံသည်လည်း ရှိပါသည်။ နောက်ဆုံးတွင် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေဖြင့် အုပ်ချုပ်မည့် ကာလရှည်အစီအမံ တစ်မျိုးမျိုး ပေါ်ပေါက်လာစေရန် အပြီးသတ် လုပ်ဆောင်ပါသည်။ ဤယူဆချက်အရ နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်သည် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ တည်ဆောက်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းစဉ်၏ တစ်စိတ်တစ်ဒေသအဖြစ် ပေါ်ထွက်လာ သည်ဟု နားလည်ထားကြပါသည်။ လက်တွေ့တွင် ထို့ထက်ပိုလွန်၍ များစွာရှုပ်ထွေးမှု ရှိနိုင် ပါသည်။ ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးသဘောတူညီချက်များနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေဆိုင်ရာ အစီအမံများသည် ကျယ်ပြန့်စွာ လက်ခံထားသော နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်ကို ထင်ဟပ်လျက် စီစဉ်ဆောင်ရွက်ထားခြင်း များမဟုတ်ဘဲ ပဋိပက္ခကို ဖြေရှင်းရန်နှင့် ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲမည့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးကို စတင်တည် ဆောက်နိုင်ရန် နောက်ထပ်ဆွေးနွေးညှိနှိုင်းမှုများ လိုအပ်နေတတ်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်များသည် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးသဘောတူညီချက်များ၊ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ အစီအမံများနှင့် မတူညီဘဲ သီးခြားစီဖြစ်သည်ဟု ယူဆမည်ဆိုက ယူဆနိုင်သော်လည်း ဖြစ်စဉ် တစ်ခုတည်း၏ အစိတ်အပိုင်းများအဖြစ် ရှေ့နောက်အစီအစဉ် တစ်မျိုးတည်းမဟုတ်ဘဲ အမျိုးမျိုး လုပ်ဆောင်နိုင်သော ဆက်စပ်လုပ်ငန်းများဟုလည်း ယူဆနိုင်ပါသည်။ ဥပမာ ဆွေးနွေးပွဲတွင် ပါဝင်ဆွေးနွေးခဲ့ကြသော အစုအဖွဲ့ အသီးသီးအကြား အခြေခံနိုင်ငံရေး နားလည်မှုကို အခြေခံ လျက် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး သဘောတူညီချက်များချုပ်ဆိုပြီး ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ အစီအမံများ လုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်း ဖြစ်နိုင်သော်လည်း ယင်းတို့နှင့် နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်အကြား ဆက်စပ်ပုံမှာ များစွာ ကွဲပြားခြားနားနိုင်ပါသည်။..."
Creator/author: Christine Bell, Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher
Source/publisher: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
2019-05-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: "This Policy Paper focuses on sequencing peace agreements and constitutional arrangements within the broader political settlement processes in fragile and conflictaffected settings. Political settlements comprise the underlying agreed understandings about how power is to be held and exercised. It is often assumed that there is a specific sequence to reach a political settlement: typically, a ceasefire or peace agreement that includes (or is followed by) transitional political arrangements or an interim constitution that culminates in some form of long-term constitutional arrangement. According to this assumption, the political settlement is understood to develop as part of the peace and constitution-building process. In practice, matters are likely to be much more complicated. Peace agreements and constitutional arrangements often fail to reflect a broadly shared political settlement, and require further negotiations to resolve conflict and start building sustainable peace. Political settlements can be understood, on the one hand, as distinct from peace agreements and constitutional arrangements, but on the other hand as part of the same jigsaw puzzle, which may be arranged in different ways that often depart from the linear model. For instance, while both peace agreements and constitutional arrangements may reflect an underlying political understanding between the parties at the negotiating table, the connection between these documents and any shared political settlement can vary significantly. While peace agreements primarily aim to end a conflict, and are the result of negotiations between most (if not all) parties to the conflict, they can take different forms, including (a) ceasefires or other pre-negotiation agreements; (b) framework peace agreements that also address the core issues of the conflict; and (c) implementation agreements. Transitional political arrangements, interim constitutions and final constitutions will often be intermingled with ceasefire or peace agreements in complex sequences. Whether or not the process starts with a ceasefire/peace agreement, the parties often reach some form of transitional political arrangement that sets the stage for how power is to be held and exercised for a limited time. Transitional political arrangements only provide an attenuated legal framework, either working outside the former legal structures or within the arrangements of the pre-existing constitution. Interim constitutions can form an additional step towards a final constitution by providing a clearer constitutional structure with legal supremacy, sometimes enabling elections, and providing a roadmap for negotiating and drafting a final constitution. Since 1990, a total of 23 political settlement processes in fragile and conflict-affected settings have concluded in a ‘final’ constitution (see Chapter 3). Based on an analysis of these processes, this paper identifies four broad sequencing patterns..." "ဤမူဝါဒစာတမ်းတွင် ထိလွယ်ရှလွယ် အခြေအနေများနှင့် ပဋိပက္ခသက်ရောက်မှုရှိသည့် နယ်မြေများ၌ ပိုမိုကျယ်ပြန့်သော နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက် လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်များအတွင်း ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး သဘောတူညီချက်များနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေဆိုင်ရာအစီအမံများကို ရှေ့နောက်စီစဉ်ခြင်း အကြောင်း အဓိကတင်ပြထားပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်ဆိုသည်မှာ လုပ်ပိုင်ခွင့်အာဏာ လက်ဝယ်ထားရှိပုံနှင့် ကျင့်သုံးပုံဆိုင်ရာ အခြေခံ နားလည်သဘောပေါက်မှုများကို သဘော တူညီထားခြင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေး ဖြေရှင်းချက်ရရှိရေး လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်မှာ လုပ်ဆောင်ရမည့် လုပ်ငန်းများ ရှေ့နောက်အစီအစဉ် အတိအကျရှိသည်ဟု ယူဆကြလေ့ ရှိပါသည်။ များသော အားဖြင့် အပစ်အခတ်ရပ်စဲရေး သဘောတူညီချက် သို့မဟုတ် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးသဘောတူညီချက်ကို ဦးစွာ ရယူပါသည်။ ယင်းသဘောတူညီချက်တွင် အကူးအပြောင်းကာလ နိုင်ငံရေးအစီအမံများ သို့မဟုတ် ကြားဖြတ် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ တစ်ပါတည်း ပါဝင်သည်လည်း ရှိပါသည်၊ ယင်း သဘောတူညီချက် ရရှိပြီးနောက်မှ ဆက်လက်၍ စီမံသည်လည်း ရှိပါသည်။ နောက်ဆုံးတွင် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေဖြင့် အုပ်ချုပ်မည့် ကာလရှည်အစီအမံ တစ်မျိုးမျိုး ပေါ်ပေါက်လာစေရန် အပြီးသတ် လုပ်ဆောင်ပါသည်။ ဤယူဆချက်အရ နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်သည် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ တည်ဆောက်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းစဉ်၏ တစ်စိတ်တစ်ဒေသအဖြစ် ပေါ်ထွက်လာ သည်ဟု နားလည်ထားကြပါသည်။ လက်တွေ့တွင် ထို့ထက်ပိုလွန်၍ များစွာရှုပ်ထွေးမှု ရှိနိုင် ပါသည်။ ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးသဘောတူညီချက်များနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေဆိုင်ရာ အစီအမံများသည် ကျယ်ပြန့်စွာ လက်ခံထားသော နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်ကို ထင်ဟပ်လျက် စီစဉ်ဆောင်ရွက်ထားခြင်း များမဟုတ်ဘဲ ပဋိပက္ခကို ဖြေရှင်းရန်နှင့် ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲမည့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးကို စတင်တည် ဆောက်နိုင်ရန် နောက်ထပ်ဆွေးနွေးညှိနှိုင်းမှုများ လိုအပ်နေတတ်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်များသည် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးသဘောတူညီချက်များ၊ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ အစီအမံများနှင့် မတူညီဘဲ သီးခြားစီဖြစ်သည်ဟု ယူဆမည်ဆိုက ယူဆနိုင်သော်လည်း ဖြစ်စဉ် တစ်ခုတည်း၏ အစိတ်အပိုင်းများအဖြစ် ရှေ့နောက်အစီအစဉ် တစ်မျိုးတည်းမဟုတ်ဘဲ အမျိုးမျိုး လုပ်ဆောင်နိုင်သော ဆက်စပ်လုပ်ငန်းများဟုလည်း ယူဆနိုင်ပါသည်။ ဥပမာ ဆွေးနွေးပွဲတွင် ပါဝင်ဆွေးနွေးခဲ့ကြသော အစုအဖွဲ့ အသီးသီးအကြား အခြေခံနိုင်ငံရေး နားလည်မှုကို အခြေခံ လျက် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး သဘောတူညီချက်များချုပ်ဆိုပြီး ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ အစီအမံများ လုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်း ဖြစ်နိုင်သော်လည်း ယင်းတို့နှင့် နိုင်ငံရေးဖြေရှင်းချက်အကြား ဆက်စပ်ပုံမှာ များစွာ ကွဲပြားခြားနားနိုင်ပါသည်။..."
Creator/author: Christine Bell, Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher
Source/publisher: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
2016-11-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 247.48 KB 2.1 MB
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Description: Document containing proposals For the REVISION of the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNION OF BURMA submitted by THE SHAN STATE, translated by Sao Singha. This document was ratified by the Convention, attended by delegates from the entire Shan State, which was held in Taunggyi on Saturday, 25th of February, 1961.
Creator/author: Trans. Sao Singha
Source/publisher: Shan State Steering Committee
1961-02-25
Date of entry/update: 2017-05-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 506.26 KB
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Description: "The Burma Centre for Ethnic Studies (BCES) is an independent think tank and study centre founded in 2012 to generate ideas on democracy, human rights and federalism as an effective vehicle for ?Peace and Reconciliation” in the Union of Burma. The root cause of sixty years of ethnic armed conflict in Burma is a constitutional problem due to the failure of implementing a federal system as it was envisaged when the Union of Burma was founded at the Panglong Conference in 1947. After the military coup in 1962, the constitutional crisis was compounded by the lack of democracy and violation of human rights in the country. The Burma Centre for Ethnic Studies therefore views the promotion of democracy, human rights and a federal system as essential for ending ethnic armed confl icts and building peace in Burma..."
Source/publisher: Burma Centre for Ethnic Studies Peace and Reconcilition (BCES)
2014-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.75 MB
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Description: Introduction: "This paper aims to conceptualize Myanmar?s current political system in federalism context by viewing relevant typologies, and models. It also intends to produce a new federalism typology/model that can be applicable to analyzing and predicting Myanmar?s political architecture. The paper argues that transitional Myanmar is considered as a presidential-devolutionary federation with hybrid characteristics, combining various unitary and federal elements. More specifically and in dimensions relating to democratization and ethnic conflict management, which are significant in viewing the country?s current politics, Myanmar is an oscillating state, pivoting on two different extreme poles (strong unity and strong autonomy or highly centralized unitarianism and highly decentralized federalism); thus making the state dependent much on uncertain-unstable circumstances and the country?s federalization tends to be closely related to the fluctuation of power negotiations/competitions between two dominant stakeholders, composing of central government and ethnic opposition groups...".....Paper delivered at the International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies: Burma/Myanmar in Transition: Connectivity, Changes and Challenges: University Academic Service Centre (UNISERV), Chiang Mai University, Thailand, 24-­26 July 2015.
Creator/author: Dulyapak Preecharush
Source/publisher: International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies: Burma/Myanmar in Transition: Connectivity, Changes and Challenges: University Academic Service Centre (UNISERV), Chiang Mai University, Thailand, 24-­26 July 2015
2015-07-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
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Description: Abstract: "The effects of the 1947 Panglong Agreement on Burma?s ethnic minority groups can still be seen today in calls for a return to the spirit of Panglong, but there are conficting versions of this event and its legacy. In order to grasp the prospects for ethnic unity in Burma, it is necessary to deconstruct the various ?myths? of Panglong..." Keywords: Burma, Myanmar, Panglong, ethnic, confict
Creator/author: Matthew J. Walton
Source/publisher: Asian Survey: Vol. XLVIII, No. 6, November /December 2008
2008-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-07-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Political Studies, the University of Auckland, 2009....Abstract: "This study evaluates whether the adoption of an ethnic-based federal system in Burma, as proposed by core opposition groups, could lead to a sustainable peace after the end of the military dictatorship. This is approached through a comparison with Ethiopia. Ethiopia was chosen because it is the only recent example of an attempt to establish a fully ethnic-based federal system after a civil war. A critical examination of Ethiopian and Burmese histories highlights key problems arising from competing narratives of state and nation, which question the basis of the two countries. An inability to address this crisis of state identity and history is a key factor in sustaining separatist conflict in Ethiopia, despite the remaking of the state into a multination federation that provides constitutional guarantees for ethnic self-determination. A similar problem seems likely arise in Burma during and after a democratic transition if questions of history and state identity are not addressed. Another key lesson from the Ethiopian experience is the possibility of territorial federalism contributing to a further ethnicisation of conflicts over land and resources, a problem that might be alleviated through non-territorial autonomy. Multination federalism may offer an alternative solution to the problem of protection for minority groups in countries like Burma and Ethiopia that have already experienced the trauma of failed nation-building projects. But lessons from the failings of Ethiopian federalism suggest the need for further measures to prevent violent disintegration in Burma if this direction is pursued there."
Creator/author: David Fisher Gilbert
Source/publisher: University of Auckland
2009-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.15 MB
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Description: Federalism in Burma: "This paper deals with the absence or the non-existence of a functional relation between the state in Burma and broader society which is also made up of non-Burman 1 ethnic segments that inhabit the historical-territorial units comprising the Union of Burma. 2 Introduction: Putting the Country Back Together Again The paper looks into the problems related to the task, as yet to be accomplished, of "putting the country back together again", in contrast to the claim of the military and its state is "keeping the country together". It is here argued that although the military has, in a manner of speaking, "kept the country together", it has also distorted the relation between the state in Burma and broader society by monopolizing power and excluding societal elements and forces from the sphere of the state and from the political arena. The military?s centralist, unitary impulse, informed by it ethnocentric (Burmanization) national unity formula, has contributed to a dysfunctional state-society relation, that has in turn brought about the present crisis of decay and general breakdown, making Burma a failed state..."
Creator/author: Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-07-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 35.76 KB
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Creator/author: Lian H. Sakhong
Source/publisher: Chiang Mai: Wadina Press
2008-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-04-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese
Format : pdf
Size: 1.3 MB
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Description: A remote republic within Russia provides a lesson to Burma on how not to federate along ethnic lines... "Of the many oddities that Russia inherited from the erstwhile Soviet Union, this must be the most peculiar: the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan. Located in a remote corner of the Russian Far East, it?s as far from the Land of Canaan as one could possibly get, but there it is, wedged between the Chinese border and the mountains of Khabarovsky Territory. And strange as it may seem, there may be a distant parallel with Burma?s ethnic minority situation..."
Creator/author: Bertil Lintner
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 14, No. 6
2006-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2006-12-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "As the recent arrest of key Shan figures casts a cloud over the National Convention?s attempts at national integration, ethnic minority in-fighting continues to play into Rangoon?s hands Shan leaders gathered in Taunggyi on February 7 (Shan State Day) to discuss the formation of a united Burma, a ?genuine federal union? in which all ethnic groups would enjoy equal rights. Also attending the meeting were prominent Burmese and Shan politicians, together with members of various quasi-political bodies including ceasefire groups. SNLD members at the National Convention in 1993 Long suspicious of Shan breakaway movements and anxious not to distract from the constitution-drafting National Convention?s reconvening on February 17, the military government moved in and over the next few days arrested several key figures. Among those taken into custody were 82-year-old leading Shan politician Shwe Ohn, Sao Hso Ten, president of Shan State Peace Council, and Hkun Htun Oo and Sai Nyunt Lwin, chairman and secretary respectively of the Shan National League for Democracy, the second largest vote getter in the 1990 election..."
Creator/author: Nandar Chann
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 13, No. 4
2005-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2006-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Die Initiative ethnischer Oppositionspolitiker von 1999 zielt auf die verstärkte Zusammenarbeit von bewaffneten und politischen Minderheitenorganisationen in Burma ab. Die Autorin fragt, ob sie die Chance hat, dem Ver-söhnungsprozess eine neue Qualität zu geben. National Reconciliation Programme, co-operation between ceasefire, non-ceasefire groups and political parties
Creator/author: Ulrike Bey
Source/publisher: südostasien Jg. 2005, Nr. 1, Asienhaus
2005-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2005-06-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Deutsch, German
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Description: It is maintained that Burma?s ‘ethnic conflict? is not per se ethnic, nor that of the kind faced by indigenous peoples of, for example, North America, but a conflict rooted in politics. Following the collapse of Burma?s General Ne Win?s military-socialist regime in 1988, the issue of ethnic conflict has attracted the attention from both observers and protagonists. This attention became heightened following the unraveling of the socialist bloc and the emergence of ethnic wars in those hitherto (presumed) stable socialist nation-states.
Creator/author: Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 10 (Burma Lawyers' Council)
2001-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2004-08-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm pdf
Size: 28.67 KB 558.64 KB
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Description: Drafting a constitution in Burma. "Federalism is not quite understood in Burma. In fact, it would not be wrong to say it is grossly misunderstood by -- among many others -- the Burman population segment, or at least by its armed elites (or elites in uniform). To armed Burman elites, Federalism is synonomous with the destruction or the disintegration of the Union. The Burman-dominated military led by General Ne Win introduced and entrenched this idea when they usurped power in 1962..."
Creator/author: Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe
Source/publisher: Legal Issues on Burma Journal No. 3 (Burma Lawyers' Council)
1999-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2004-08-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 9.08 KB
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Description: Federalism in Burma: "...Has Burma really been on the brink of fragmentation since independence? Are the ethnic nationalities and the politics of ethnicity the root cause of the problem? Was General Ne Win correct when he claimed in 1962 that he had to seize state power to prevent Burma from disintegration? The current State Peace and Development Council also claims that there are 135 languages and 8 major races in Burma requiring a strong centralized military to keep the country together. Is this true? ..."
Creator/author: Harn Yawnghwe, B. K. Sen
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
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Description: "Recognizing Burma?s diversity is the first step to achieving real unity. "I have always wanted to see unity," declared Burma?s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a recent interview with The Irrawaddy shortly after her release from house arrest. She was addressing the notion of unity among opposition groups within and outside the country, which in her eyes, are in disarray. Certainly, the current fragmentation among opposition groups does not bode well for democracy in Burma..."
Creator/author: Aung Naing Oo
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 10, No. 4, May 2002
2002-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Federalism in Burma: "From January 4, 1948, the day the Union of Burma came into existence as an independent nation, the people and their leaders have been divided over how to achieve national unity and structure their state. Until 1988, it was federal in name and theory, but unitary in practice. After five decades of political discussion, peaceful movements for secession or autonomy and warfare, the majority Burmans and most of the ethnic minorities remain disunited. From time to time efforts have been made by the Government of Burma and the minorities, either alone or in groups, to end revolt and disunity, but none have succeeded. Today, the basic problem is the same as the one the nation?s founding fathers faced fifty years ago: how to construct a political system wherein diverse peoples feel free and equal, able to govern themselves in their own areas, protect and preserve their languages, cultures and traditions, while at the same time give their political loyalty to the nationstate..."
Creator/author: Josef Silverstein
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
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Description: "Despite the fact that Burma has a highly centralized unitary government system, the issue of federalism has been a major source of debate for decades. Ever since the formation of the independence movement, the various ethnic groups in Burma have wanted to transform the country into a federal union based on equality. The Panglong Agreement1 provided the basic foundation for this, but post-independence Burma did not become a federal union in spite of the urgent need for this. The non-Burman 2 ethnic groups in Burma have not given up their demands for federalism. Most of them are still engaged in insurgency movements against the central government,3 which has been dominated by Burmans since 1948. The ethnic insurgency movements emerged as a result of the government?s failure to deal with the demand for federalism peacefully. The non-Burman movement for federalism and political equality (the ‘Federal Movement?) has consistently tried to resolve the issue peacefully. The non-Burman ethnic groups even participated in the 1990 elections, with federalism as their main motive. In the elections, the UNLD (United Nationalities? League for Democracy, the alliance of ethnic parties in Burma) occupied the second largest number of seats after the NLD (National League for Democracy). However, federalism does not mean anything to the non-Burman groups unless the right to self-determination, including the right to secession, is part of it..."
Creator/author: Khin Maung Win
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 9 (Burma Lawyers' Council)
2001-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm pdf
Size: 14.39 KB 570.58 KB
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Description: Federalism in Burma: "Federalism has, for many decades now, been seen an answer to the challenges posed by multi-ethnic societies the world over. In some cases, the idea has worked, while in others it manifestly has not. Where it has failed, the reasons have often lain as much with human deficiencies as with systemic shortcomings..."
Creator/author: Venkat Iyer
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
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Description: "...federalism offers the best hope of creating a more stable and harmonious polity, especially in societies such as Burma that are deeply divided along ethnic lines. The architects of a new democratic Burma would do well to embrace this concept - with all its promise and all its challenges - but they need to work very hard to ensure that any future Burmese federation lives up to the high expectations of the Burmese peoples. Not only will the balance between unity and diversity have to be struck with a great deal of pragmatism, but every effort will have to be made to secure the widest possible consensus on the terms of the new federal settlement. More importantly still, no one should be left in any doubt as to the continuing price that every man, woman and child across the land would have to pay - in terms of patience, vigilance, tolerance and co-operation - to make federalism a success..."
Creator/author: Dr. Venkat Iyer
Source/publisher: Legal Issues on Burma Journal No. 4 (Burma Lawyers' Council)
1999-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
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Description: Federalism in Burma: "The author of the article "The Panglong Spirit Lives On" (Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe in The Irrawaddy, July 2001) argued that the guiding principle of the Panglong Accord is "unity in diversity". He raised the question as to whether there is a formula for ending Burma?s decades of ethnic strife, and answered it himself with "Yes, and it is none other than the political vision that brought modern Burma into existence half a century ago". This is begging the question: what is this political vision, which is abstract in terms of people?s understanding? The meaning of terminology such as "unity in diversity" is academically attractive, but in the understanding of the activists it helps little. However, Yawnghwe retrieved much of the ground lost in the struggle evolving a viable concept for the establishment of a stable Burma by stating that the major goal is the establishment of a democratic, federal Union of Burma, to be composed of self-determining states living together in equality and peace. It is argued that core issues must be addressed, and the debate has to be brought to a fruitful end..."
Creator/author: B. K. Sen
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Federalism in Burma: "International Community can help via systematic study and consideration of the world?s federations, in pursuit of an understanding of what federalism can achieve when presented with a range of entrenched political and/ or ethnic problems. The international community thus provides and becomes the backdrop, and the actor/ participants can research, inform, educate, and consider whether and in what ways federalism can provide some solutions to the crisis of governance in which they flounder. Burma has never progressed past the polarised and prevailing view of federalism, yet for so long an aspiration of many of Burma?s leaders, notably the National Democratic Front (NDF) since its formation in 1976, and still today. 1 The United Nationalities League for Democracy (UNLD) an umbrella political organisation of non-Burman nationalities that formed in 1989 likewise embraces federalism as a path to political, therefore constitutional settlement, that will bring peace and prosperity. 2 Until the political actors in and of Burma have this debate, its ability to resolve its political differences by political means to effect a constitutional settlement will elude them. National reconciliation will remain a catch cry..."
Creator/author: Janelle Saffin
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
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Description: "...Federalism has made democracy more viable by providing a way for ethnic, religious, racial and linguistic communities to benefit from political and economic union while retaining considerable autonomy, self-government and communal identity.1 Our history has proven that a unitary or quasi-federal system is inefficient in bringing about peace and prosperity. Genuine federalism is the best option to bring about national reconciliation and pave the way for rebuilding Burma as a modern nation..."
Creator/author: Dr. Thaung Htun
Source/publisher: Legal Issues on Burma Journal No. 4 (Burma Lawyers' Council)
1999-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 26.68 KB
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Description: Federalism in Burma: "Constitution can be a strong foundation for every country to be established as a just, free, peaceful and developed society. Burma is in the process of producing a new constitution. By amalgamating lessons from previous historical experiences and current practical situation of the country, it is hoped that a proper constitution for future Burma might be produced. Major concern is that without finding ways and means to resolve the underlying issues of a country, production of constitution superficially is meaningless and constitution might not be effective from positive aspect in our future society. In this account, the constitution making process or the way, how a constitution will be produced, is of paramount importance. In attempting to produce a constitution, onesided or unproper guidance to the people should be avoided. In a genuine constitution making process, the people, regardless of race, social origin, gender and etc, should be allowed to uncover their sufferings frankly, propose possible solutions positively, and express their will to restructure the society freely thereby leading the process to be more and more participatory. Any kind of discrimination should not be exercised within a genuine constitution making process whether be it federal or state constitution making processes..."
Creator/author: Aung Htoo
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 48.41 KB
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Description: Federalism in Burma: (Sao Seng Suk is the Chairman of the Shan State Constitution Drafting Committee. Following is a literal transcript of the interview he had with U Aung Htoo and B. K. Sen). "Do you consider the constitution to be the core issue in a peaceful political settlement in Burma?" Sao Seng Suk: "Yes, I certainly do. Because all problems arose since Pyidaungzu was established in 1947 from the then constitution. If all accept democratic constitution, historical problems can be settled peacefully and the country rebuilt according to constitution, as there will be many kinds of freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of activities, etc." "What type of Constitution will be viable?" Sao Seng Suk: "Federal type constitution, federal is suitable for us..."
Creator/author: U Aung Htoo, B. K. Sen
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 11 (Burma Lawyers? Council)
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
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Description: "This paper seeks to provide an introduction to the concept of self-determination, and to suggest the importance of this concept in Burma. A comprehensive analysis of either topic is beyond the scope of this paper, which is aimed at readers without great familiarity with either area. Suggestions for further reading may be found in the references. The paper begins by discussing the concept of self-determination, and its varied meanings. A brief history of the development of the concept follows, in which the meaning of self-determination beyond decolonisation is touched upon. The situation of minorities within a state is then considered. The second section of the paper is a discussion of the particular case of Burma..."
Creator/author: Louise Southalan
Source/publisher: Legal Issues on Burma Journal No. 5 (Burma Lawyers' Council)
2000-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm
Size: 57.7 KB
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Description: "The word 'secession' has originated from the concept of 'self-determination'. Apart from its historical context, 'self-determination' can also be seen in its plain meaning. The Oxford Dictionary defines 'self-determination as, 'The right of a nation or people to decide what form of government it will have or whether it will be independent of another country or not'. The second part of this definition is easy to understand. A nation or people has the right to be independent of another country when under subjugation of that country. But sometimes it is difficult to determine whether a nation striving for selfdetermination is actually a nation..."
Creator/author: B.K. Sen
Source/publisher: "Legal Issues on Burma Journal" No. 10 (Burma Lawyers' Council)
2001-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm pdf
Size: 34.13 KB 558.64 KB
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