THE JOINT STATEMENT OF THE WORLDWIDE MON COMMUNITES ON THE 56th ANNIVERSARY OF THE MON NATIONAL DAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2003
Mon National Day falls on the first waning of Maigh, the ninth month in the Mon lunar calendar. Over fourteen hundred years ago, on this very day, the Hongsawatoi Mon kingdom was born. As such, our benevolent Mon leaders meaningfully organized for the benefit of all Mon people. The worldwide celebration of Mon National Day began in 1947 and it honors the founding of the peaceful Hongsawatoi, established in 1116 of the Buddhist Era or 573 AD Common Era, located in the south-eastern parts of Myanmar.
Wherever we may be in this world, on this day we join hands together to commemorate our people's history, our cultural lineage and tradition. Serving as a reminder of our ancient cultural lineage, Mon National Day reunites our people, rekindles their spirits, and preserves their original traditions of, dress, dance, food, and conduct. In essence, the celebration of Mon National Day intends to reawaken cultural and political awareness, ceremoniously, in memory of Hongsawatoi.
The downfall of Hongsawatoi arrived in May of 1757, when violently oppressive military leaders occupied and attacked, directly inflicting horrifying atrocities against innocent people without any regard for life or for what the Mon people had given, in terms of both social and economic contribution. This great loss of precious human life and culture was nothing short of genocide. The shattering end of the Mon nation signified the end of a thriving, peaceful, and wonderful culture, in Southeast Asia. The scarcely remaining Mon people, without any rights to neither speak their indigenous language nor acknowledge their own history and cultural lineage, live in fear for their lives, and live under the discrimination of the masses of people and are under a violent, racist, classist, merciless military dictatorship.
It is a matter of genocide, and one of public knowledge, that U Thant, a former secretary general of the United Nations, said, "the last Mon is dead." This event happened in a United Nations conference on the minority's issues in Myanmar in 1970; Myanmar's Central government denies the recognition of Mon people's political rights on the premise that there are "no differences between Mon and the Burmese people". Since 1757, oppression and violence against the Mon people has not ceased. Mon ancestors, striving resolutely, vigorously fought, in self-defense, against the Myanmar central government from 1948 to the present time.
Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in the world as a direct result of the decisions and overriding policies of its military dictatorship government. In the face of the fact that Myanmar's government and private sector are extremely wealthy, the public remains under tyrannical toil and in disease and poverty. In order to maintain its position of power, and to control and deteriorate Myanmar people's strengths and unity even further, the government intentionally prevents the development of democratic institutions or movements; such social-progress is a direct threat to the relevant social and economic elites. With precise and deliberate calculating inactions and actions, on the part of the government, the political reality of utter oppression and tyranny, in Myanmar, increasingly and continuously worsens.
The military rule of Myanmar's State Peace & Development Council (SPDC) has systematically dismantled the democratic forces and divided ethnic nationalities with conniving meticulousness. The SPDC abolished The Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF), which took part in the 1990 general election and won a substantial amount of seats in the area. The SPDC sentenced our leaders, Nai Ngwe Thein, Dr. Min Soe Lin, and Dr. Min Kyi Win to long terms in prison without any regard to their poor worsening health condition.
Although the continued slaughter, torture, rape, forced labor, arrests, in Monland, having merited basic news coverage, certainly are matters of public knowledge, regrettably the majority of the global populace is not aware of these atrocities. The SPDC has conducted land confiscations of approximately five thousand acres of Mon people's land for the purpose expanding ethnic-cleansing military bases and for other purposes. The Myanmar government has plundered entirely the most fundamental human rights to freedom and self-determination; manipulating and stealing by fraud and by force anything and everything that they wanted; therefore, ensuring that the restoration of social, political, and economical, justice for people in Myanmar remains hopeless and far out of reach.
On each Mon National Day, we dedicate our energy and time to the Mon struggle, anticipating a peaceful life and the exercise of our rights as human beings and as Mon. Our objective is to stop those responsible for the crimes against humanity in Myanmar and to bring them to justice internationally.
For the purpose of working toward and achieving the goals stated below, we request that the international community come together in support and in solidarity for:
* The release of Mon leaders and all political prisoners in Myanmar and the immediate halting of military-regime land confiscations in Mon State;
* The holding of a tripartite dialogue, comprised of democratic groups, of ethnic nationality groups, and of the military regime itself;
* The withdrawal of the Burmese army from the ethnic nationality areas and halting of forced labor and forced portering and relocation and the granting of unrestricted access for the International community to all detention centers and ethnic areas in Myanmar or anywhere crimes against humanity are reported;
* The institution of global public awareness of the discrimination of Mon native people in both Thailand and Myanmar the end to aggressive harassment and violence that Mon people are subjected to, by racist people both in Myanmar and Thailand, who intend to the restrain, insult, and bring under control the Mon native tongue, its dialectical features, accents, and colloquialisms;
* The institutions of Mon people's rights to assemble, organize, and protest peacefully and the allowance to practice Mon literacy, Mon traditional and cultural activities in Myanmar and in Thailand.
Committees and organizations
1. Association of Finn-Mon Community, Finland
2. Australia Mon Community, Sydney, Australia
3. Mon cultural society, Calgary, Canada
4. Mon Health Community, Monland
5. Mon National Council, Canberra, Australia
6. Mon National Day Celebrating Committee, Australia
7. Mon National Day Celebrating Committee, Netherlands
8. Mon Unity League, Thailand
9. Mon Workers Union, Malaysia
10. Mon Workers Union, Thailand
11. Mon-Canadian Association, Toronto, Canada
12. Monland Restoration Council (MRC), USA
13. Overseas Mon National Students Organization, North America
14. Overseas Mon Organization, Denmark
15. Overseas Mon Organization, Scandinavia
16. The Steering Committee of the Mon National Day, Ohio, USA
17. Mon Youth Liberty Organization (MYLO)
18. Mon Migrant Women Network
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ABOUT US Kao-Wao Newsgroup is committed to social justice, peace, and democracy in Burma. We hope to be able to provide more of an in-depth analysis that will help to promote lasting peace and change within Burma. Editors, reporters, writers, and overseas volunteers are dedicated members of the Mon activist community based in Thailand. Our motto is working together for lasting peace and change.