Non

Non-Shans entitled to self-rule

Politics

According to a document received by S.H.A.N. on 1 November at the Shan State Constitution Drafting Commission's 26th meeting, Shans are in favor of autonomy arrangement for non-Shans. 

The report quoted the townships in Shan State designated by the military-sponsored National Convention before its suspension in 1996. 

They are Wa with 5 townships: Pangyang, Marnhpang, Nahparn, Pangwai and Mongmai; 

• Pa-O with 3 townships: Hsihseng, Hopong and Panglawng; 

• Danu with 2 townships: Pangtara and Ywa-ngan; 

• Palaung with 2 townships: Namhsan and Mantong; 

• Kokang with 2 townships: Laokai and Kawngzarng. 

"They can be called either states or sub-states," says the document. 

The SS-CDC was formed on 8 September 2000 at a conference participated by 18 exile groups "with the support of the people at home," according to a previous report. The Commission was empowered to "incorporate a federal structure with a democratic decentralized administrative system" to the Shan State draft constitution. 

The report has yet to consider "equal aspirations" by two other main ethnic groups in Shan State: Kachin and Lahu for an autonomous homeland for each. 

"For one thing, there wasn't any formal request from either group," said a Commission member. "For another, the decision is to be left to the people in each area concerned." 

"The Commission operates on the bottom-up principle," insists Sao Sengsuk, Chairman of the SS-CDC. 

Rangoon had rejected calls from the Kachins to grant an autonomous area in Shan State by saying they had already had a state, a rationale that was applied also to an application from Shans in Kachin State for the same purpose. 

It had also turned down the Lahu demand, on the principle that a group that wanted an autonomous homeland must be the majority in at least two townships whose borders are contiguous.