Exiled Shans demand release of leaders

Politics

Exiled Shans demand release of leaders

Shans meeting on the Chiangmai border yesterday have called on Rangoon to release leaders arrested last week.

Condemning Burma's military leadership as violators of human rights and even of their own trademark slogans: Non-disintegration of the Union and Non-disintegration of the Nation Unity by arresting Hkun Htun Oo, Chairman of Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, Sao Hso Ten, Chairman of the Shan State Peace Council, and their associates last week, representatives from 14 groups that included members of Shan Democratic Union, Restoration Council of Shan State, Shan Women's Action Network and others demanded that "The military authorities must release the leaders of Shan State immediately and unconditionally."

"Our demand may well likely fall on deaf ears," said a representative from Shan Women's Action Network, who was proposing a draft resolution. "But we want the world to know all of us are one and the same with those unjustly imprisoned."

A participant from Shan Relief and Development Center that is active in Southern Shan State also expressed fear over the fate of those detained. "They had poisoned the Prince of Yawnghwe (Sao Shwe Thaike, Burma's first president) to death," he said. "Who can guarantee the same thing won't happen again?"

Sao Shwe Thaike, father to Brussels-based Euro-Burma Office's Harn Yawnghwe, died under mysterious circumstances in 1962, eight months after his imprisonment following Gen Ne Win's March coup.

Another participant from Fang-based Migrant Workers Center openly questioned whether the UN-supported call for Tripartite Dialogue (between military, democratic opposition and the ethnic opposition) was still feasible. The ensuing debate resulted in the consensus that a multi-pronged strategy should be employed in accordance with the late Chao Tzang Yawnghwe's tireless exhortation for 'Common Goals, Diverse Actions'.

"The arrests of our leaders will not spell the end of the Shan struggle," Wansai, General Secretary of the Shan Democratic Union, later told S.H.A.N..

Burma, Shan States, Chin Hills and the Kachin Hills agreed on 12 February 1947 to form today's Union of Burma on the basic principles of Full Autonomy, Human Rights and Democracy. The country has been at full blown war with itself since the 1962 coup and the abrogation of the 1947 union constitution.

Resolutions

Shan Community Exchange

(16 February 2005)

• The military authorities must release the leaders of Shan State immediately and unconditionally

• The Burma Army itself is the saboteur of the Union and National Unity

• The Shan community is totally against the Burma Army's violations of Human Rights

• The military authorities must accept full responsibly for all the unpleasant consequences arising from the imprisonment of Shan State leaders