The Department of Population, Ministry of Immigration and Population (DoP) announced last Friday, 11 March, that the ethnic people residing in Mong Woon village ofTar Moe Nye sub-township, Kutkhai township, in northern Shan State have been named as the latest addition to Bamar ethnic nationality.

The population of the “Mong Woon Bamar”, according to the statement, has more than 60,000 people.

With regards to this issue, Sai Saw Aung, the vice chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), said that this group have been living in Burma for many years. They had set up a militia force and their leader had a close and intimate relationship with the Burmese military. It was due to this fact that they were granted Burmese citizenship.

He also said that Mong Woon people have been granted permission from the Burmese government [under the Solidarity Peace and Development Council-SPDC] to set up their own culture and literary association in this area.

“Their language is Chinese and their culture is also Chinese,” he said. “They are in fact an ethnic Chinese group.”

In 1998, Senior General Than Shwe, then the leader of the ruling military junta in Burma from 1992 to 2011, was requested for the inhabitants in the Mong Woon village to be named as the latest Burmese ethnic group called “the Mong Woon Bamar” ethnic group.

According to the statement, in order that the Mong Woon people were able to cast their votes during the 2010 elections, they were designated as “Mong Woon Bamar” ethnicity on their ID cards.

Ah Hao, a resident in Mong Woon village, said it was due to his parents and grandparents being born in Burma, he is now a Burmese citizen.

Huen Kar Yang, Editor in Chief of Hsen Pai Journal, said, “In order to give a name to any nationality, we need to hold a referendum and ask the residents in that area.

It must proceed according to the legal process whether this group of people are indigenous people or not. The government should give them citizenship rather than name them as an ethnic group in the country.”

“It is clear that the military used their power to grant them ethnicity in the country,” he said. “They didn’t respect the law of the country.”

Khuensai Jaiyen, managing director of Pyidaungsu Institute for Peace and Dialogue (PI), said, “There have been many non-citizens who have been granted citizenship in the country.  With regards to the Mong Woon people, the question now is that since officially there are 135 ethnic groups in the country, will there be 136 groups from now on? In Kokang area, they named the residents as Kokang people who are not unlike the Mong Woon group. In the west of Burma, the Bengali people who migrated into Burma are now asking for their citizenship from the government.”