Chin ask to postpone census dates in Burma
30 January 2014: The Chin National Action Committee on Census 2014 (CNACC) have made an appeal to the Central Census Commission of Burma to re-arrange the dates for the nationwide census taking.
The committee comprising 21 members from Chin political parties, civil society organizations and scholars requested that the census schedule be put off by at least 30 more days.
In a statement released on Monday, they indicated that the Chin, like other ethnic nationalities, needed more time to make enough preparation for the census collection planned for between 29 March to 10 April 2014.
Additionally, there has been confusion among ethnic nationalities over the list of tribal names collected and coded by the government for the upcoming census taking as its contents are inaccurate, wrongly categorized and misspelled.
The CNACC called on the government of Burma to organize a programme where the Chin public can get involved in determining their tribal groups.
They also urged the Chin people to select ‘Chin’ with the code 401 for ethnicity when filling up a census form and responsible authorities to make necessary corrections if any other tribal names are mistakenly entered in place of ethnic nationality.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Naga in Burma rejected the inclusion of their tribal name under the Chin ethnicity, and the Zomi Congress for Democracy (ZCD) said that the term ‘Zomi’ should be used in the 2014 census.#