The Constitutional Crisis

After the end of the Second World War, the leaders of the various ethnic nationalities met in 1946 in Panglong to deliberate the possibility of a future together after the proposed withdrawal of British protection. General Aung San, the Burman leader of the independence struggle in Ministerial Burma participated in the 2^nd Panglong Conference in February 1947. He proposed that the separate ethnic homelands in the Frontier Areas be joined to Ministerial Burma as equal partners in a ‘Union of Burma’ to hasten the process of achieving independence from Britain.

The Panglong Agreement, which recognized the equality, voluntary participation, and self-determination, of the constituent states, formed the basis for the Republic of the Union of Burma.

But after General Aung San was assassinated in July 1947, the Union Constitution was rushed through to completion without reflecting the spirit of Panglong. The ethnic homelands were recognized as constituent states but all power was concentrated in the central government. In spite of these set backs, the ethnic nationalities leaders continued to support the government of U Nu who had succeeded Aung San, even when the Communist Party of Burma started their armed revolution; when the war veterans of the People’s Volunteer Organization went underground; and when Burman units of the Burma Army mutinied. In fact, army units made up of ethnic nationalities helped restore order and ensured the survival of the government of U Nu.

In 1958, the right of the Shan and Karenni people to disassociate from the Union after 10 years, guaranteed in the 1947 Union Constitution, was denied them. As a precaution, U Nu invited the Commander-in-Chief, General Ne Win, to form a ‘Caretaker’ government to restore law and order for a period of 2 years as young people took to the jungles to claim their rights.

In 1960, the ethnic nationalities leaders tried to return to the spirit of Panglong by proposing to amend the 1947 Constitution as a means of preventing the nation from disintegrating.

But General Ne Win launched a coup d’etat in 1962 ‘to save the nation from disintegration’ and suspended the 1947 Constitution. From the ethnic nationalities’ point of view, this act abolished the legal instrument that bound their homelands to the Union. As such, they consider themselves to be independent entities held by force in subjugation by an invading army.

In 1974, General Ne Win’s Burmese Socialist Programme Party adopted a new constitution but this had no status in law as far as the ethnic nationalities were concerned. In any case, the 1974 Constitution was suspended by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in 1988.

In 1993, SLORC and now the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) convened a new National Convention to draft a constitution that will guarantee a leading political role for the military in a future Burma. After nearly 9 years, the process is still stalled.

The ENSCC, therefore, considers that it is of the utmost importance for the constitutional crisis in Burma to be resolved if the nation is to be rebuilt.