Category: Opinions and Commentary

Opinions and Commentary

Why we should support the U.S policy of Conditional Engagement

The U.S policy of Sanction against Burma: Why we should support the U.S policy of Conditional Engagement

24 October 2010: In line with its democratic beliefs, the United States has unequivocally supported the democratization effort in Burma. Since the people of Burma took to the street twenty two years ago to protest the military dictatorship and to demand the democratic rule, Burma’s democratic movement has received the unyielding support of the United States.

Opinions and Commentary

A Burmese Perspective: What Happens in China?

17 October 201: As China is turning the Pacific Ocean into the Chinese lake, Beijing is lashing out at the West over human rights, the environment, and the valuation of its currency, leading many to argue that China’s rise is finally beginning to have the destabilizing impact so long predicted by some leading international relations scholars and pundits. But many observers are missing another important driver of Beijing’s recent assertiveness: China’s foreign policy is not in the hands of its diplomats.

Opinions and Commentary

Attempt to Smother Truth & News

02 October 2010: Dictators of the world, almost without exception, are always attempting to smother “Truth & News”. They are especially afraid of the internet news which in split second reaches its thousands of destinations. The raison d’être of the dictators to smother or block off the truth and news is that it tarnishes their image gravely.

Opinions and Commentary

China’s Burma Strategy: Elections, Ethnic Politics and Economics

A Burmese Perspective

China’s Burma Strategy

Elections, Ethnic Politics and Economics

28 September 2010: Burma’s 2010 elections present challenges and opportunities for China’s relationship with its south-western neighbour. Despite widespread international opinion that elections will be neither free nor fair, China is likely to accept any poll result that does not involve major instability. Beijing was caught off-guard by the Myanmar military’s offensive into Kokang in August 2009 that sent more than 30,000 refugees into Yunnan province.

Opinions and Commentary

The Future Of Indo-Burma Relation: An Ethnic Perspective

24 August 2010 [CG Note: The following is a complete copy of a paper presented by Dr. Lian H. Sakhong at the 9th International Conference on Burma held at University de Provence, Marseilles, France on 6-10 July 2010.

Winner of 2007 Martin Luther King Peace Prize, Dr. Lian H. Sakhong is Chairman of the “Chin National Council” (CNC), Vice-Chairman of the “Ethnic Nationalities Council – Union of Burma” (ENC), and General Secretary of United Nationalities League for Democracy-Liberated Areas (UNLD-LA). He is one of the main drafters of Federal Constitution of the Union of Burma, and Secretary of Federal Constitution Drafting and Coordinating Committee (FCDCC), and Coordinator of State Constitutions Drafting Process since 2001.

Opinions and Commentary

Kuki Chief-ship: Look East or West?

Background: The issue merits a heated debate till the sun goes cold. To the Kukis, chief-ship is age-old. Long before democracy replaced monarchy in India, in the Kuki-inhabited regions of the sub-continent’s north-eastern states and its military-ruled neighbour, Myanmar’s north-western frontiers, an unique method of hill-village governance evolved out of environmental compulsions. Good or bad, the situation in the tribal settlements demanded a semblance of self-rule in the near-total absence of proper connectivity to better-civilized societies. That’s how every Kuki village had a chief in the helm of administrative affairs, and the forest-land a chief and his villagers could possibly lay their hands upon came under a particular chief-ship. Attachment to it was purely voluntary.