Narinjara News

 

 

Arakan National Council holds ceremony commemorating the fall of Arakan

 

 

Dhaka: January 2:  The 220th Anniversary of the fall of Arakan was commemorated by the Arakan National Council (ANC) in Dhaka, Bangladesh on the 31st of December.

 

Eighty, exiled Arakanese from Bangladesh attended the ceremony.  Theses attendees included monks, students and youths, representatives of women and labour organisations.

 

The current president of the ANC, the ANC’s secretary and Reverend U Sandaw Batha chaired the ceremony.  Representatives of Arakanese organizations delivered speeches.

 

The ANC also issued a statement, stressing the need for a federation of the independent peoples of Burma.  The statement underlines that Arakan was an independent country for more than 5,000 years. It was only in 1784 that the King Bodaw Maung Wine invaded Arakan. Since this illegal invasion, Arakan became a Burmese colony.  After 42 years of Burmese colonial rule, Arakan became part of the British Empire at the end of the first Anglo-Burmese war in 1826.

 

The Arakanese cooperated with people from other ethnic groups including Burman to gain independence from the British in 1948. However, the rise of the Burma ultra-nationalism and the military dictatorship saw the end of the chance for the genuine federalism and the Arakanese became a colonised people again by the Burman fundamentalist-nationalists.

 

In the statement, the ANC aimed to achieve (1) unity of the Arakanese people, (2) rid Arakan of the dictatorship from Burma, and (3) equality and self-determination for every ethnic nationality.

 

According to the statement issued by the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD), it demands for a genuine national solidarity between different ethnic groups and a federal union where equality and self-determination are part of everyday life.

 

The Bangladesh Branch of the All Burma Student League (ABSL) also sent a letter stressing the need to learn from the historical wrongs to establish a genuine and peaceful democratic country in future Burma.

 

The ceremony was concluded at 2 pm. #

 

 

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