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| Stalling constitutional amendment to uphold “disciplined democracy”? Posted: 20 Nov 2014 03:30 AM PST On the heels of military law makers rejection of Articles 59(f) and Article 436, including many other provisions in the 2008, military-drafted Constitution, Lower House Speaker Shwe Mann told a press conference on 10 November that any changes or amendment of it will have to wait until after next year's general elections. .jpg) Although this is hardly a surprise, the urgency in letting the cat out of the bag makes many wonder, if the USDP-Military regime from the outset has no intention, whatsoever, to share political decision-making power with anyone, in anyway. It seems the bad note given by President Obama on back-sliding or stalled reform process, which have particularly upset the military leadership, coupled with ending of Burma's ASEAN Presidency taken over by Malaysia, it is now free from responsibilities and stately manners, and could show its real nature and motive, on how it would like to dominate and run the country. And to drive home the message, military top brass have been recently maneuvring to expand the role of National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), a military-dominated 11-member body, which takes the leading role in a State of Emergency, wherein it exercises the powers of the legislature, executive, and judiciary before the Parliaments are again formed. Accordingly, the military representatives, during the recent parliamentary debate put forward the argument that NDSC should be given the right to dissolve the Parliament, if a third of the seats become vacant. With twenty five percent unelected military representatives sitting in the Parliament and the USDP members sure to at least secure some seats, even if it would not be able to secure a stark majority, in the forth-coming 2015 election, like it is now enjoying, the USDP and military factions would be able to create a situation of dissolving the Parliament, whenever they choose, leading to a State of Emergency rule, according to the constitution. It is a clear indication and intention to create a built-in safety device for the military-dominated government to be able to hold on to power, if things turn out to its disadvantage after the 2015 election. According to The Irrawaddy report of 19 November, Saw Than Myint, deputy chairman of the Federal Union Party, said : "It's like saying clearly that there is no situation in which the 2008 Constitution will be amended." The same report writes that Mya Aye of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, said: "If a few amendments are not made to this Constitution, there will be more doubts about how it will be possible to build a democratic federal union, which the non-Burman ethnic groups are expecting. This is the immediate impact." Nai Han Tha, Vice-President of the UNFC, said in an interview with The Irrawaddy that it could be the government-backed USDP would like to maintain its victory in 2015 election and also to ward off amendment within the armed forces, which the Burma Army has been reluctant to comply. He said the 2008 Constitution is not a real federal union, but just a charter to cloak the real nature of military dictatorship, which the people neither like or support. But he doesn't think that it would have an impact on the ceasefire talks for they haven't touched on the subject or reached the political dialogue phase as yet. The Irrawaddy report of 18 November also writes, Khu Oo Reh, General Secretary of the United Nationalities Federal Council, told The Irrawaddy that delaying constitutional amendments until 2016 will undermine the integrity of the next elections. "If none of articles of the 2008 Constitution can be amended and the 2015 election is held based on the current Constitution, it will be very hard to expect that the elections will be a free and fair one," he said. Indications are that the democratization and peace process have completely stalled, with the military determined to impose its "disciplined democracy" or military-dominated regime, at the expense of the opposition political parties and the non-Burman ethnic nationalities. Meanwhile, as if to show and buttress the Burmese military intention of playing hard ball against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the government military base at Hkarabum directed artillery shelling at a military cadet training school, in Laiza, killing 22 trainees and wounding 14, according to Eleven Media Group, on 20 November. According to the report, Lamai Goon Ja of Peace Creation Group (PCG) said: " The Burmese troops manning the artillery from the mountain top could see the cadet school clearly and when they saw the cadets were gathering, they fired the big guns." KIA spokesman, La Nan also said that the fighting is still ongoing in some areas and described the Laiza encounter as an "ambush", according to The Irrawaddy report. Given such circumstances, the issues of constitutional amendments will be put on ice at least for some time, leaving the military in control of running the country and the signing of Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) won't materialize anytime soon either, if the government and the military refuse to address the aspirations of ethnic equality in the form of a federal union and insist only upon "negotiated surrender". |
| Posted: 19 Nov 2014 10:17 PM PST Unlike many non-Burmans (or Bamars), many of whom SHAN has discussed with agree with U Aung Thaung, the ruling party MP, who proposed that names of states, where non-Burmans are the majority and they used to be territories independent from Burma Proper until independence from the British, should be geographical like Irrawaddy, Mandalay, Magwe, and so on. Not unlike Texas, California, and so on in the United States. The logic behind this is simple: when you say Shan State is Shan State, non-Shans might feel left out and their sense of belonging might be at a loss. On the contrary, geographical names may give one a sense of collective belonging. Each state will then be united. And if the states are united, the non-disintegration of the Union, one of the three holy missions of the ruling class, will be guaranteed. It's as simple as that. The discussants' only suggestion, based on the same logic, is why don't we change the name of the country from Burma/Myanmar to something else. Because, whatever our military leaders say, 'Myanmar' is synonymous with Burma or Bamar. As Indian is to Babuji, and Chinese is to Paukhpaw. The eminent Aung San Suu Kyi herself has acknowledged that. (At least the name Burma was adopted by the 1947 Constituent Assembly that was made up of both Burman and non-Burman states' representatives.) Actually this story is not new. During the 1993-2007 National Convention, ostensibly held to lay basic constitutional principles, a similar proposal was presented by military representatives. Critics against it said there were two reasons they were against it: • One, unlike American states, those in Burma have historically been known by the names of their ethnic majority in each state • Two, racial discrimination and racial assimilation have been an official policy of successive Burmese rulers. There has been little or no human rights, let alone indigenous rights, for these peoples. "The only thing that remains is our ethnic labels," one said. "And now they are even trying to erase it." Nonetheless, the discussants are certain that the non-Burmans won't have any objection to changing their states' names, if only our Burman/Bamar/Myanmar leaders are happy to do the same with the country's name. After all, it belongs not only to the Burman/Bamar/Myanmar people, but also to the non-Burmans as well. One way to do it is suggested by one of the discussants: That is, to combine all the first letters of each major ethnic group and form them into a word, an acronym. The result of the exercise is quite interesting-and hilarious. S - Shan M - Myanmar, Mon A - Arakan C - Chin K - Kachin, Karen and Karenni (Kayah) Accordingly, the country, for unity's sake, should therefore be re-named "Smack". Well, this is just an example and not one that is easy to get used to without getting some sort of smiles from our neighbors. We are sure there must be names that are better getting used to. If we just try. |
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