Politics of NCUB (National Council of the Union of Burma)

General Secretary of NCUB anticipated that ‘Credential Challenge’ campaign would surely be successful as he already put other leaders of NCUB under his control and got their support. Nevertheless, he got it completely wrong as the campaign did not produce any good outcomes as in Yadanar Gas pipeline campaign.

In fact, he discussed with Dr. Sein Win (PM of exiled government NCGUB) whether the NCGUB (National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma) could lead the campaign (Credential Challenge) prior to the actual campaign launch. Dr Sein Win, however, ruled out the idea that NCGUB could lead the campaign because of potential setbacks. Anyhow, Dr Sein Win agreed that any other organisations or groupings could carry on the campaign. U Maung Maung, General Secretary of NCUB, was not happy with Dr Sein Win’s response and asked the Chairman of NCUB to send the official letter to Dr Sein Win whether NCGUB actually could not agree to lead the campaign. Eventually, Dr Sein Win replied officially to NCUB that exiled government could not lead the campaign.

Nonetheless, U Maung Maung claimed that ‘Credential Challenge’ would definitely be successful as dozens of legal experts and lawyers around the world have been discussed on the campaign. The NCUB leaders also believed that U Maung Maung brought the ‘Grand Strategy’ which nobody could think of. Finally, the NCUB issued the statement that everyone should support the campaign as the junta would be kicked out of the UN under the NCUB initiated credential challenge.

However, the NCUB’s campaign could not even reach the doorstep of UN General Assembly.

Only the lawyers and legal experts got some profits and nobody knew how much funds NCUB spent for the campaign. The expenses for hiring international legal experts, travel expenses for the journeys from Thailand to United States, global campaign trips, and local travel expenses within the States and living costs for the campaign groups in the States would have been cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We would like to call for the NCUB to reveal the expenditures frankly and honestly.

Although NCUB could not lead the campaign, they encouraged the MPU (Members of Parliament Union) to lead the campaign and claimed that the campaign would definitely be successful. Further, they claimed that NCGUB would be humiliated if the campaign got success when MPU led the campaign. They also guaranteed their support for MPU to form a new exiled government. After the MPU achieved such a support from the NCUB, Daw San San, Vice-President of MPU signed for the Credential Challenge and U Thein Oo was appointed as the UN Ambassador. Nonetheless, the credential challenge never reached to the UN Credentials Committee and U Thein Oo could not grab a chance of being UN ambassador for not even a minute.

U Maung Maung later on claimed that he would take care of all the expenses for holding MPU Summit in the United States and Daw San San and U Thein Oo asked all the MPs abroad to schedule the summit in the States. And everyone knows that U Maung Maung, Daw San San, U Thein Oo and some leaders spoke that Credential Challenge was the strategic campaign for 2010 and also a national duty to carry on. They claimed that as it was a campaign to go on whether they win or not and called for the people to bring a government which could lead the campaign but to kick out the government which could not. What they have done created cracks within NCGUB, MPU and among MPs.

There were two underlying causes regarding Credential Challenge CC. Firstly, they claimed that they would go on whether the campaign success or not, as they could not yet produce any statistics for the expenditures. Secondly, as Dr Sein win made it clear that he would not sign for the CC, the one who was looking forward to be new PM wanted to be different from Dr Sein Win and so to keep up CC agenda. The cracks within NCGUB, MPU and among MPs could create impacts on the whole process of democratisation. Eventually, the regime would be happy to see such scenarios. However, this controversy could only be solved by the MPs and they should be honoured for designating to hold the summit in Ireland  rather than in the United States.

The NCUB responded the MPs’ decision on choosing Ireland to hold the summit by issuing a New Year statement which underlined their plan for establishing a new exiled government, NUG (National Unity Government). It was obviously an attack on the MPU and all the MPs and it was just an insult that they tried to show that all other coalition forces, ethnic forces and the democratic campaign are in their pockets. In fact, everybody knows that all the pro-democracy forces could not be treated as private armies. And the politicians, organisations and especially the ethnic national leaders should aware this.

When U Myint Thein could not give any satisfactory answers on their New Year Statement, Dr Sein Win (PM of NCGUB) replied that the NCUB never discussed with them regarding the formation of new exiled government. Still, Khun Myint Htun tried to explain that it would just be reshuffling and extending of NCGUB with ethnic members, while Khun Marko Ban, Vice-President of NCUB-CEC, claimed that the New Year Statement was issued by a few members of the organisation without discussing him. After looking at these scenarios, if everyone supports the NUG (National Unity Government) campaign, the whole process of democratisation would be fallen apart.

Therefore, we would like to suggest with our sincere wishes that MPs should accomplish the summit as honourable and accountable representatives of the people and follow up the principle of extending the NCGUB with ethnic members. Then, the controversies of Credential Challenge and National Unity Government would be resolved.

_ by Voters of 1990 General Election