Junta Amends Historical Commission Law

By MIN LWIN

Burma’s military government has amended the Myanmar [Burmese] Historical Commission Law, transferring authority for historical research from the ministry of education to the ministry of culture, according to an announcement in the state-run New Light of Myanmar on September 25.

The paper said that Burmese top general Snr-Gen Than Shwe signed the amendment to the Myanmar Historical Commission Law, which was first instituted in 1985.

Burmese historians contacted by The Irrawaddy said that the Myanmar Historical Commission exists to provide Than Shwe with information about customs and rules of governance that prevailed under ancient Burmese kings.

A former history professor from Mandalay University said that Than Shwe regards himself as a king, requiring visitors to his home to sit lower than him.

“Than Shwe thinks of himself as a king,” he said. “That’s why he wants to know Burmese royal customs.”

Than Shwe has been the highest-ranking member of the Burmese junta since April 23, 1992.

Shortly after the regime seized power in 1988, it formed a historical committee to write a “true version” of Burmese history.

“Dictatorships try to lie about the country’s history and hide the true history,” said another Burmese historian. “They want to make the army a model for the country.”

The Myanmar Historical Commission was founded in 1955 by the government of U Nu, Burma’s first and only democratically elected prime minister. It consisted of prominent historians who sought to systematically compile data about the history of Burma from the earliest traceable date to the present. The Commission was placed directly under the charge of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Under the socialist government that ruled from 1962 to 1988, the commission was converted to the Directorate of Burmese Historical Research under the Ministry of Culture. In 1985, it was transferred to the Ministry of Education and its name was changed to the Universities Historical Research Department.

Sources from Rangoon University’s history department said that Burmese military government has fired at least 14 members of the Myanmar Historical Commission, including Sai Aung Tun, the retired rector of the University of Foreign Languages in Rangoon, former professor Tun Aung Chein, and Ni Ni Myint, wife of late Burmese dictator Ne Win, who formed the first military government in 1962.