Before 11 A.D, many ethnic groups such as Burman, Rakhine, Mon, Shan, Karenni, Karen, Kachin, Chin, Pa-O, Palaung, Wa, Lahu and many other minorities had their own separated and independent monarchies or city states in which they enjoyed freedom and peaceful livelihoods. Some groups were relatively civilized societies even practicing proper religion and feudal polity while others exercising other types of social systems. Nevertheless, they were members of respective separate free lands ruled by their own tribal chief or king.

At the beginning of 11 century, Burman Kings’ powers started to rise and peak. At the time, King Anawrahta, a war-monger Burman King, invaded and conquered territories belonging to other ethnic races and established what historians called the Pagan Empire. This empire was also dubbed as First Myanmar Empire that finally came to an end in A.D 13.

During 15th century, Burmese King Bayint Naung pillaged and annexed other free states ruled by his rival Kings of other races by force, and established the Toungu Empire that was better known as Second Myanmar Empire that came to an end a few years after the death of its founder king.

Konbaung Empire or Third Myanmar Empire was instituted by King Alaung Phya in A.D. 17. But this last Myanmar Empire faced its end in 1885 after British occupied the whole Burma.

After ‘Burma’ was integrated into British Empire following the third Anglo-Burma war in 1885, British colonizer lumped all different territories of several ethnic groups such as Rakhine or Shan together into a one nation. That was where the term “Burma” was born for that colonized area in which were living different ethnic groups with different background history developments. From 1885 to 1948 when Burma got independence, the nation’s name ‘Burma’ came to be widely known and used during British rule.

On 12 February 1947, before Burma independence, Panglong treaty was signed between Burman leader Bogyoke Aung San and leaders of Shan, Chin, and Kachin races. The primary foundation of this agreement was to establish a genuine federal nation based on equality and equity, and voluntary secession or integration after 10 years of union was also guaranteed. During the talk to strike the historic Panglong Statue, Aung San was the first ever Burman leader to proclaim that “without independence given to ethnic races, their freedom of Burman alone is incomplete”. Such proclamation must serve as a national guiding light for us to follow in order to ensure the perpetuation of what is now known Myanmar on the basis of mutual respect, equality and equal participation.

All ethnic groups of Burma including Burman fought against British colonization and fascist Japan, sacrificing a great deal of lives, limbs and bloods. Such struggle that was also helped by other emerging factors then in the world won us the freedom and independence from Britain in 1948. It is ironic, however, that the role of other ethnic groups in independent struggle was belittle or not even given a favorable mention as deserved in modern history of Burma.

Successive governments in Burma even including U Nu’s after British left have comfortably ignored those principles enshrined in Panglong treaty to maintain a harmonized and friendly society among many ethnic minorities. Such failure eventually led to the state of a failed nation. Instead, they have resorted to a one way system – a single unitary state dominated by a single group – Burman. One can interpret their inappropriate attempts as striving to establish a “Fourth Myanmar Empire” in the footsteps of their past forefathers employing oppression, divide and rule policy and other evil tactics. Such devastating devices and methods only ensure the proliferation of the ingrained of discord among all ethnic stakeholders of Burma. If we want peace and human developments in our country, we need to promote the respect of universal human rights and to propagate the value of all inborn rights of ethnic groups – all that must be constitutionally guaranteed. The practice of dominance by one majority group over smaller one is outdated and thus cannot work in the long term. If we are to live in peace and happy life style similar to those in our neighboring relatively advance countries, we need to develop an environment in which all are of the same status in terms of their ethnicity rights, economic rights, political rights, cultural rights and among others. In addition, creation of civic mechanism is vital to let people voice their grievances and develop tools to redress their sufferings.