Ethnic political parties want news in their language

A group of six ethnic political parties from Burma – the Nationalities Brotherhood Forum, released a statement to announce that they want newsletters and journals published in ethnic languages as they cannot rely on the government to do so.

The statement released during the NBF’s quarterly meeting was also attended by representatives from ethnic political parties.

Sa Be Kyin Oo, the general secretary of the Plone-Swor Democratic Party explained to Karen News that the aim is now to promote ethnic languages as the government only allowed the teaching of these languages outside school hours.

“We want to see our ethnic languages used in a broader context. The government won’t be publishing newspapers or journals in ethnic languages, so we decided to do it ourselves. It is to be confirmed when we will start publishing.”

A statement released by the NBF urged the government to gathered correct ethnicity information during the coming census – names, ethnicity and religion. The NBF also demanded the Burma Army to stop its military operations in ethnic areas and to obey President U Thein Sein’s order to work for peace nationwide.

The six ethnic party alliance – the Nationalities Brotherhood Forum – recommended in their statement that the government should allocate jobs, promotions and departmental positions to people from the ethnic minorities.

The six parties that make up the Nationalities Brotherhood Forum consists are the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, the All Mon Region Democratic Party, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, the Plone-Swor Democratic Party, the Chin National Party and Kayan Nationlities Party.