The Future Goal of all Nationalities of Burma

Dictatorship in any form of civilian, military, communist or socialist system is basically the same, the greed for power monopoly. The monopoly of power is their common objective. Naturally, the vetoes of China and Russia at the UNSC are not surprising to us. They only look at power unilaterally. It is not Capitalist versus Socialist, but Democracy versus Dictatorship that is the battle we are facing today.

While democracy dominates the state power there can be no room for any dictator. The essence of these block countries defending each other is only for their common self-interests. China’s military aid and heavy arms-sales to Burma coupled with her economic infiltration through huge investments show us their strategy, the main objective being to cement the SPDC in power. However we cannot say the policies of China and Russia are unchangeable in the future. It mainly depends on oppositions’ effort.

Democracy versus Dictatorship

Democratic principle is based on people power. In democracy, power comes from the people, for the people, by the people. In dictatorship, it comes from guns. Dictators rule the country by force but democracy rules by the will of the people.

In dictatorial countries the people are oppressed, loosing fundamental human rights, freedom and justice. Actually people own the power of the state, not a small group of tyrants. Dictators are only a section of class who seize state power by force.

We, the human-rights campaigners and politicians for democracy, justice, equality and the right to self-determination of the peoples around the world, are and will be the advocates of those who are oppressed, for whom we are struggling to restore freedom and justice.

It is naturally our right to oppose the action of China and Russia using their veto, and to admonish South Africa’s actions against the US-UK submission on the Burma issue to the UNSC. We strongly condemn their lack of support for the victimized peoples of Burma, including all ethnic nationalities who have suffered for nearly five decades as state hostages under the military hijackers, the SPDC.

China and Russia denounced the US and UK interference in Burmese internal affairs, although it is an affirmation to the people of Burma. However their negative involvement in conjunction with the SPDC against the people’s rights is undeniably interfering in Burmese internal affairs. Therefore we can conclude that China and Russia, although using the excuse of non-interference, actually have another agenda for using their veto power.

In the meantime, we, both Democrats and Federal Nationalists, should fully comprehend the reality of our position in this struggle. We should thoroughly analyse our own situation. We must admit immediately that we all need to escalate building up our solidarity, and the vigorous struggle to reach our common goal. We must clearly realise our strengths and our limitations.

Forces of the Opposition Movement

We can analyse the whole movement’s position in general terminology. We can clearly define the three forces that make up our movement as: the decisive force, the driving force and the auxiliary force. In other words, we can evaluate that the people inside are the decisive force, the driving forces are the internal and external opposition groups, and the auxiliary force is our international allies. Victory, failure and the prolonging of our struggle depends on the pilots of the driving forces, i.e. the leadership of the opposition groups, both internally and externally. Our leaders have responsibility to drive the decisive forces of the people inside Burma, and also to guide the actions of the auxiliary force, our international allies.

As external driving forces we need to become far more dynamic in our strategy and efforts. We need to create an external driving force that equals the level of commitment demonstrated by the internal force. We must recognize, applaud and respond to the significant developments of the dauntless efforts made by the internal driving forces, which have used extremely efficient and creative techniques for our struggle to gain both national and international focus.

Externally we should exercise self-analysis and be honest with ourselves. Frankly we can say we need to become a lot more professional in our approach, as we have a serious responsibility to the driving force inside Burma. Although limited groups successfully carry out lobbying trips to the international community, the main trunk of this external force moves ahead at a snail’s pace. We need to increase both our moral and physical cohesion, making our external force both deeper and stronger by intensifying closer coordination and cooperation between the Democrats and the Federal Nationalists.

We must reorganise our external driving force to be more revolutionary with a stronger emphasis on unity. We should always be alert, exercising vigilance and political loyalty. Our strategy must be unchangeable and resolute, and we must employ benchmarks for each strategic point. For example, we need to give a specific and clear time limit for the completion of constitution drafting; for state based constitutions, and also for the completion of the federal constitution. We must be systematic in reaching each benchmark; however our tactics for strategic resolution can be flexible to a certain extent. To obtain our rights adequately we must resolutely generate ourselves to be competent co-leaders with Burmese democrats of the political scene in Burma today.

The Future Goal of all Nationalities of Burma

The organization-based NCUB of both Burman democrats and non-Burman ethnic organisations, and the non-Burman state-based political representatives of the ENC are the two major fronts in the external driving force (EDF).

Because the majority of our country is Burman, naturally the Burman democrats dominate our opposition movement. However in politics as in life, all men are equal. If we are being realistic about forming a Federal Union, Burmans must accept this concept not only in their words but in their actions and attitudes. On the other hand, the confidence of the non-Burman ethnic groups on our common stand of a Federal Union is not yet concrete. We all say we believe in the policies put forward for our Union, but in practice and in attitude sometimes we behave differently. We need to strengthen our alliances and constantly reaffirm our unity and our common goal. Coordination and communication between the groups, inside ENC as well as between NCUB and ENC, must increase substantially if we are to become totally confident in our common future.

Though there has been different backgrounds and concepts in our people’s history, the present nature of our own position coupled with changes in the world’s political scene and the ruthless grip of the SPDC regime, has forced all of us to stand on a common political platform of rebuilding our country in the form of a genuine Democratic Federal Union. This brings a guarantee of full equality and the right of self-determination to every component state.

The main dilemma between the mind-set of Burman Democrats and of Federal Nationalists was not being able to blend our respective political beliefs. The nature of federalism mechanically includes the democratic process; the democrats have put the federal or ethnic issue as subordinate. Both sides should be clear in their strategies, as they are equally important, and resolutely execute them both as parallel issues.

It is obvious that some popular Burman leaders are attempting to minimize ethnic affairs, and unilaterally focus only their democratic strategy. They are very unhappy with the UN General Assembly resolution of Tri-partite Dialogue to remove the root cause of ethnic crisis in Burma. The International Community and the UN have genuinely understood that the ethnic issue is the root cause of Burma’s crisis: we all understand that loss of democratic freedom in Burma has been as a consequence of political inequality among the component states.

To achieve our Victory and Long-lasting Internal Peace

Traditionally the intolerant mindset of some Burman democrats and the lack of a strongly determined and united effort of the Federal Nationalists inside the EDF are the causes of its development at such a low speed. We should find a way to speed up our development. It is an immediate task to erase these weaknesses from both sides and erect a united stand under the proposed Federal Constitution. A road map with time frame is needed to be drawn for united stand and action between these two camps.

If we can integrate NCUB and ENC under the proposed Democratic Federal Constitution drafted by their delegates, both Democrats and Federal Nationalists can stand together under one banner and implement our plan of action with complete unity. If we can introduce our democratic federal constitution as an alternative to the SPDC’s, these combined efforts will create a dramatic change in the EDF, and clarify the Burmese opposition movement internationally.

To format the ENC to be a more competent and energetic co-founder in rebuilding a proposed Democratic Federal Union of Burma, all our differences should be urgently neutralized and we must be completely committed to our united efforts within the ENC. As we are politicians, we must be working professionally and behave in a manner appropriate to politicians, constantly communicating with each other and accepting and constructively using each others strengths to achieve our goal. ENC should revitalize itself paying deep attention to its member organizations’ efficiency and development, thus we can achieve true unity and construct the Federal Union of Burma on a solid base that can create long lasting peace for all nationalities.

Khin Maung

NUPA
Member of ENC-SSC