"Burma is a multi racial country. Several ethnic indigenous groups have lived throughout history in Burma and the Burmans call us ethnic minority groups. We are not minorities, we are the indigenous.”
“We are the indigenous. By addressing the ethnic groups as minorities, they are limiting and restricting our rights. We, the indigenous, must not allow others to label us as minorities.”
“From the SPDC, we are not demanding our rights because we already have them, but we are abused and our rights have been taken away from us. So now we are asking them to give these rights back to us.”
Dr. Sui Khar
Leading member of Chin National Front (CNF) and Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC)
“As you may probably know that Burma is facing not only ideology-crisis but also institutional crisis, what i think and predict is the federal political system can not be installed again in Burma because the federal spirit has been abolished by the Burman ethnicity group and till now most of Burman people do not clearly realize and accept the essence of federal ideology. Another thing, on the other hand, is that history tells us a dead political system cannot be reborn.”
“Moreover, what I want to emphasize here is while the Burman group have no clear vision, we (Arakanese) will need to set up our own vision that our fellow people can follow. I mean our revolution and national political movement should not always rely on the guideline of what Burman people have lobbied. So, to nurture new generations is the first priority of us, focusing on education and knowledge investments.”
Nyi Nyi Htwe
Co-Founder of RaKhaRoMa, the Arakanese Online Journal
Source: Group Emails of ENC and the Arakanese Society
Picture: http://blogs.sun.com/ChinaExperience/resource/evolution.jpg
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