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Promises Turn into A Statue: Unsettled Disputes of General Aung San Statue in A Land with Untold History

April 20th, 2019  •  Author:   Athan – Freedom of Expression Activist Organization  •  1 minute read

Introduction

Union government of Myanmar and regional governments’ political bandwagon, General Aung San statue projects reached Loikaw Township, capital of Karenni State in 2018.

Ethnic residents, youth leaders and civil society organizations resisted the statue project after Kayah State/Karenni State government called for the suggestions. State government ignored the voices of Karenni residents and frequently tried to complete statue project. Finally, state government stubbornly erected the equestrian statue of General Aung San instead, triggering critical responses and denouncements from Karenni youth leaders who prefer the implementation of Aung San’s promises without delay, promoting Karenni literature, culture and history and building effigies of their own Karenni ethnic heroes to erection of General Aung San statue.

Karenni activists were repeatedly charged under contentious laws restricting freedom of expression, a universal and fundamental right which they exercised in protests that were also forcibly cracked down by the police. State government and Karenni leaders had an agreement after the public strongly defied but responsibility and accountability of State government is still doubtful.

Download full report in English HERE.

အစီရင္ခံစာကို ျမန္မာဘာသာျဖင့္ အျပည့္အစံုကို ဤေနရာတြင္ ရယူပါ။