In Praise Of The Fallen Hero U Ko Ni: The lawyer with a vision
U
Ko Ni, a National League for Democracy (NLD) legal adviser, who was also a patron of the recently formed Myanmar
Muslim Lawyers Association, was shot and killed at
the Yangon airport on January 29 yesterday upon his return from Indonesia,
where he was part of a delegation attending a senior leadership meeting in
Jakarta. He was waiting at the taxi station at the airport at around 4:30pm
when he was shot in the head and killed.
I have always been a
sympathizer, adorer and vivid follower of U Ko Ni's political speeches and
statements as his views were innovative, articulate and practically aimed at
resolving problems, his assassination news stuck me like a lighting and makes
me feel sad and angry, even though it is clear from the outset that there was a
possibility that he could be harmed by radical nationalist rightist group or
hardliner elements that could not tolerate his clipped and clear way out
suggestions in which Burma is now lost, as if being in a labyrinth, and how one
could navigate to free itself from the situation it is in.
Apart from that being a
Muslim in the ultra-Buddhist-nationalist sea, he was openly vulnerable,
although he would have met such a faith have never come to mind until it
happened.
I have been following U
Ko Ni's activities, since he came up with a proposal on how to circumvent the
75% approval clause in amendments or rewriting of the constitution, so that it
is possible to overcome the hurdles impacted by the Military-drafted
Constitution of 2008.
He said in order to
circumvent it, a simple majority motion on the need to amendment the
constitution should be tabled citing unconstitutionality of the 2008
Constitution, where 50% or more votes could be easily achieved given the NLD
majority and ethnic political parties votes that would support such a bill,
which the military won't be able to block.
For the
time being, even though the NLD now controls the government and both houses of
parliament, the military still retains 25 percent of seats, giving it a veto
over any change.
Since 2013, U Ko Ni had
been airing and lobbying that the 2008 Constitution is not going to lead
to democracy or a genuine federalism and
rewriting is the only way.
According to SHAN report
of 23 September 2013, U Ko Ni, who is a lawyer pointed out, during his speech
at the Shan-Kayah-Mon Trust-building for Peace forum held in Taunggyi, whether
the 2008 constitution is democratic or not can be determined by answering two
following questions:
·
The extent of the
participation of the people
·
To whom power was
transferred to
To
the first question, his answer was that it was clear the people’s wishes and
participation was never taken into consideration:
·
The National Convention,
held in 1993 to lay down the basic principles of the constitution, was
organized by the military with its handpicked delegates
·
In 1996, a law was issued
threatening people with imprisonment engaging in constitutional discussions
outside the National Convention
·
During the 2008
referendum, many had chosen not to cast votes while several others voted
against the draft. It was nevertheless ratified by the military saying more
than 92% had voted in favor.
As
for the second question, the constitution says sovereign powers belong to the
people. However, it was negated by other articles:
·
25% of military appointed
representatives at all levels of the legislature
·
The Executive does not
have any say in the appointment of defense, home and border affairs ministers
·
The military also
conducts its independent judiciary
·
No matter how many people
want to amend the constitution, it must be approved by “more than 75%” of the
Union Assembly representatives
Moreover,
although the constitution stipulates that the country is a Union, the Chief
Minister of each state is appointed by the President and state governments are
run by the home ministry. “Chapters 4, 5 and 6 need to be amended to straighten
out things,” he said.
According to The Myanmar
Times report of April 22, 2016: “The NLD has tried
twice to amend the constitution within parliament but both times it failed. So
I think the NLD will not choose the same way again. They will consider writing
a new one instead of wasting time trying to amend [the constitution],” U Ko Ni
said.
“If the
military still focuses on protecting its interests, it will be impossible to
change any part of the constitution within parliament. That’s why writing a new
one is the best way to pursue a democratic constitution.”
Another outstanding
performance of his unwavering loyalty to his party, that was not necessary
politically correct, is the NLD use of Presidential power to name State and
Regional Ministers without having to yield to the choice of the State citizens'
concern or political parties that might have more seats than the NLD.
The point to be noted
here is not the inappropriate move of the NLD, which it should have given in to
the demand of endorsing State Chief Ministers from the Arakan National Party
(ANP) and Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) ethnic political
parties in Arakan and Shan States respectively, but his loyalty to the NLD as a
staunch party soldier.
The onerous here is that
the NLD should show solidarity to the ethnic parties as long time allied during
its opposition days under military rule and let go the 2008 constitutional
privilege to name Chief State Minsters.
In a Democratic Voice of
Burma (DVB) debate program a few months earlier, when asked to explain the NLD
move on Chief State Ministers' appointment of its party members and not the
ones from ethnic parties, he was trying to defend the NLD by pointing out that
it was legally in order to make use of the Presidential power to install the
two NLD State Ministers, with a dead face, although he was visibly embarrassed
when the moderator cracked a joke saying: "So it means although the 2008
Constitution is bad and need to be amended, NLD would make use of the clause
that benefit the party,” or something to that affect.
Whatever the case, U Ko
Ni would be remembered as a brave true democrat, brilliant lawyer and
politician that had done his part without reservation until his last days and
for this all of us should be really thankful.
When U Win Htein recently
told The Myanmar Times, “It is a very sorrowful
thing for Myanmar, and a very big loss for the country, I have to say," we
all could only agree to it and should try to carry on his unfinished job of
democratization and building an agreeable federal union for everyone, to repay for what he had sacrificed and done
for all of us.
May U Ko
Ni's soul rest in peace.
Tags: Opinion
