ANP, ALP split over attending Union Day ceremony

By DMG 11 Feb 2022

DMG Newsroom
11 February 2022, Sittwe 

The Arakan National Party (ANP) will not attend this year’s Union Day celebrations on February 12, but the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) ethnic armed group will send representatives to the event. 

The Myanmar junta has invited ethnic armed organisations and political parties to attend the 75^th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee Union Day ceremony, to be held in Naypyidaw on Saturday. 

U Thar Tun Hla, chairman of the ANP, told DMG that the party would not attend the event because Myanmar had not had a “meaningful Union Day” since independence. 

“I think it needs to be a meaningful Union Day. Union Day has been celebrated in Myanmar for many years, but to this day, a meaningful Union Day has not been commemorated yet,” he said. 

The ANP is one of the most powerful political parties in Arakan State, but has struggled to navigate the political terrain of post-coup Myanmar.  

In the weeks following the February 1 military coup, the ANP was criticised over its decision to work with the junta, with one of the party’s senior members taking a seat on the junta’s State Administration Council (SAC). Multiple party members tendered their resignations in protest of its cooperation with the military government, which the party eventually walked back.  

The ALP, meanwhile, says it will attend Saturday’s ceremony.  

“The emergence of Union Day marks the beginning of a day when all ethnic groups living in the Union are entitled to self-determination and equal rights,” ALP vice chairwoman Saw Mra Rarzar Linn told DMG. “Therefore, we recognise Union Day and believe that we should attend this ceremony.” 

She added, however, that it was necessary to discuss the merits of future Union Day commemorations. 

“It is necessary for all responsible persons to work for the fulfilment of all the characteristics of the Union, not just the name ‘Union’,” she said. 

The ALP is a signatory to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), which was signed by eight ethnic armed groups in 2015 under the quasi-civilian government led by ex-President U Thein Sein. Two more groups signed the agreement under the successor National League for Democracy (NLD) administration.