The 27th March 2001
27 March 2001 marks the 56th anniversary of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Day in Burma. On this day in 1945, according to the Burmese version of the history of Burma, the people of Burma rose against the Japanese fascists who were occupying the country in the name of protecting the independence of Burma.
In fact, the Anti-Fascist Resistance Movement in the then British-Burma was launched much earlier on January 1st, 1945, by the Arakanese people under the leadership of AFPFL (Arakan) and its armed wing, the Arakan Defence Army (ADA) headed by U Nyo Tun and Bogri Kra Hla Aung, which the chauvinistic Burman-dominated governments since the AFPFL parliamentary rule have never recognized. On this day, we want to remind everyone all about the evil motive of the Burmese military juntas including the present State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in celebrating the day as 'Tatmadaw Ne' or 'Armed Forces Day'. We believe that, the renaming of the day as 'Tatmadaw Ne' only belittles the role that the Burmese people played to rise in solidarity in support of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Movement. We also believe that, the move is meant only to seriously undermine the horrors of fascist rule during the World War II. For this reason we the Arakan Independence Alliance (AIA), comprised of National United Party of Arakan (NUPA) and Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO), strongly condemn the sinister design of the Burmese military regimes since 1962 who have been continuing to act as fascists and conducting atrocities all over their occupied area. We also condemn the wholesale Burmanization campaign enforced by the SPDC junta, making peoples to talk and use Burman language and purposefully making distortions of history and culture by leaving out the real history of the various non-Burman peoples from the print including educational textbooks. We should also be aware of the feudalistically racist attitude of these Burman-dominated juntas. Today, time has come for all the oppressed peoples under the SPDC regime to rise unitedly against and exter-minate them from the soil. Only then, we believe, can we be truly freed from the iron clutches of 'neo-fascism' and slavery under the racist SPDC juntas. All the oppressed peoples must unite!
Onto Victory through Unity!
Alliance Executive Committee
Arakan Independence Alliance (AIA)
Arakan.
Alliance Executive Committee
Arakan Independence Alliance (AIA)
Arakan.
Press & Publication Department, ARNO March 27, 2001