Burmese elder

Burmese elder: Union nonexistent

Politics

The existence of a union is still a fantasy despite Rangoon's much-vaunted Three Sacred Causes slogan, said Win Khet, 66, to exiled youths who were holding the 56th anniversary of the Union Day at a "liberated area". 

"The Panglong Agreement constituted the foundation of the union", he mused. "56 years after, it still remains as its foundation. However, the planned union structure never materialized." 

The military rulers' publicized three slogans: Non-disintegration of the union, Non-disintegration of national solidarity, and the perpetuation of national sovereignty, therefore, were empty words, he argued. "The people never had a chance to build a union; national unity has gone to pieces and the people were robbed of their national sovereignty by the military thugs." 

Wherefore he proposed a counter-slogan: the creation of the Union based on Panglong, the reestablishment of national unity and the restoration of national sovereignty to the people where it belonged. 

Win Khet, who is living in exile in Sydney, also counselled the upholding of truth in all their actions. "Truth is Aung San Suu Kyi's only weapon, apart from her concern for the people, in the struggle against the military," he reminded them. 

The Shan Democratic Union, the umbrella organization of Shan exiles, meanwhile issued a statement reiterating its stand that "the spirit and intent of Panglong," in other words, the formation of a "union of equal national states with no state subordinated to another, and no ethnic group superior or subordinated to others" "has as yet to be honored in full." 

It added the Panglong Agreement that promised "full autonomy" "democratic rights" and "financial autonomy" of each state remained the blueprint for a "prosperous, harmonious, united nation-state" and called upon all, including the ruling forces, to join hands and work together along "the path" beaten by "our founding fathers and U Aung San." 

All Shan groups, almost without exception, consider the Union has been legally non-existent and defunct, since the Union constitution of 1947 was dissolved by the military in 1962. 

Quotes from U Win Khet

Emulate the sole of the foot. It doesn't turns face up now and face down later like the palm. In contrast, it is always consistent. 

Also follow the way of the thumb. It is the only finger on your hand that stoops towards other fingers and in the process you are able to hold things together whereas other fingers, because each is so arrogant to turn its face towards others, will not be able to hold anything by themselves. 

Some of us believe the struggle will triumph only through Letyongyay (material prowess) i.e. arms, while others maintain it will be only through Hnalongyay (mental prowess) i.e. without arms. I consider both as extremist creeds.