NLD Marks Union Day with Petition Calling for Release of Prisoners

By MIN LWIN

Several hundred people who gathered today at the Rangoon headquarters of the National League for Democracy (NLD) to commemorate Burma’s 62nd Union Day marked the occasion by signing a petition calling for the release of political prisoners.

“As many as 500 people signed the petition at the NLD’s headquarters,” said an opposition politician who attended the party’s ceremony to mark an historic agreement reached by Burma’s ethnic groups on the eve of the country’s independence.

The politician, who was elected in a 1990 vote that the country’s ruling junta refused to honor, said that members of various ethnic groups signed the petition, which was launched as part of a new campaign to free more than 2,000 political prisoners, including NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

People living near the NLD’s headquarters reported seeing many plainclothes riot police and members of the junta’s Swan Arr Shin militia deployed in the area from early morning.

“There have been many Swan Arr Shin people on the streets and in trucks since early this morning,” said a local resident, adding that some of the security forces could be seen filming and photographing people attending the NLD’s ceremony. However, no arrests were reported.

Meanwhile, the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP), an opposition umbrella group, cancelled plans to mark Union Day after it came under pressure from the authorities.

“CRPP will not release a statement or hold a celebration because U Aung Shwe and U Aye Tha Aung were pressured last year by the police chief for releasing a Union Day statement,” said Thawng Kho Thang, a member of the committee.

Aung Shwe is chairman of the NLD and Aye Tha Aung is the leader of the Arakan National League for Democracy. Both are leading members of the CRPP.

Although the CRPP did not release a statement, an NLD central executive member, Thakin Soe Myint, speaking on behalf of party chairman Aung Shwe, issued a press release calling on the military government to convene parliament with members elected in 1990. He further proposed the formation of a constitutional review committee, consisting of elected MPs and representatives of the military, ethnic nationalities and “peace groups,” as well as experts on constitutional law.

In a Union Day message published in the state-run New Light of Myanmar, the head of Burma’s ruling junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, used the occasion to urge the Burmese people to “make endeavors for building of a new modern developed discipline-flourishing democratic nation.”

Union Day commemorates the signing of the historic Panglong Agreement by independence leader Gen Aung San and leaders of various ethnic groups on February 12, 1947. The agreement set the stage for Burma’s independence from British colonial rule the following year.