Burmese to Celebrate Union Day

By SAW YAN NAING

The 62nd anniversary of Union Day will be celebrated on Thursday by many Burmese inside and outside the country, even though many youth are not familiar with the history of the Panglong Agreement, which had the aim of achieving a federal system of government.

A Karen teacher, Tabora, who works in the Thailand-based Karen Education Department, said very few Karen students in refugee camps on the Thailand-Burma border know about the history of the Panglong Agreement.

The Panglong Agreement was signed between the Burmese central government and several ethnic groups with the aim of achieving a federal democratic system of government in Burma after the country gained independence from Britain in 1947.

The Panglong Agreement was singed by the government led by Burma’s independence hero, Gen Aung San, father of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the signatories included ethnic Shan, Chin and Kachin groups in Panglong town in Shan State on February 12, 1947. The event is recognized annually as Union Day of Burma.

According to many ethnic group leaders, sixty years after the Panglong Agreement, the true spirit of Union Day has never been honored by the central government, in terms of its guarantees of ethno-political equality and self-determination of ethnic nationalities.

The ethnic groups involved in the Panglong Agreement say the constitution, written in 1948, failed to guarantee equal rights, autonomy and self-determination as agreed upon at the conference. It was one of the factors that led many ethnic groups to launch military operations against the central government.

Since then, some groups have reached ceasefire agreements with the Burmese military government while others have fought for autonomy for decades.

As long as the leaders of Burma fail to recognize the principles of the Panglong Agreement, the true spirit of Union Day will never be realized, say ethnic politicians.

Eh Ku Paw, a former Karen teacher in the Mae La Oo refugee camp, said she learned about the history of the Panglong Agreement, but it was a superficial understanding of the event.

She said the average Karen refugee camp student doesn’t know about the agreement.
Naw La, a Kachin youth in Chiang Mai, said only Burmese youth with an interest in politics have an understanding of the agreement.