By LAWI WENG
: The Moulmein State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has ordered the deletion of a paragraph from the speech meant to commemorate the 64th anniversary of Mon National Day. The paragraph in question is one that references a federal union in Burma.A senior member of the MNDC, Dr. Min Soe Lin, explained that the authorities ordered the MNDC to delete this paragraph yesterday.
“They told us to delete the paragraph. We had to do it because they hold power over us,” he said.
The aforementioned paragraph stated that since Burma gained independence, the country’s constitution has not allowed equal power sharing between the central government and the state governments.
General Aung San, father of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, helped write the 1947 constitution which instated a genuine federal union in Burma.
Yet, after he was assassinated, the constitution disappeared, and the country gradually became embroiled in a bloody civil war between armed ethnic groups and the Burmese regime.
The speech stated that if the government cannot solve the issue of power sharing between the central and state governments, Burma will continue to be poor and the bloody civil war will continue, as evident by the border fighting since November.
Due to the deletion of the paragraph, Dr.Min Soe Lin complained, “This speech is not good. The sentences don’t link together. If we could write what we want, our speech would be good.”
MNDC members have already re-written the speech, and it was sent today to the Military Southeast Command Region in Moulmein for approval.
The MNDC is a committee that plans the commemoration of Mon National Day.
The 64th anniversary of Mon National Day will be held on February 19th, with the main ceremony in Thanphyuzayart Township.
There are about 3 million Mon people in Mon State, in the southern part of Burma. Mon National Day will be celebrated in Moulmein, Mudon, Thanphyuzayart and Ye townships. National Day commemorates the day the first Mon kingdom, Hongsawadee, was established in 1116 of the Buddhist Era, or 573 CE.
