The Voice editorial: trust-building

This post contains a March 2009 editorial from The Voice newspaper entitled "Trust-Building" that was reprinted in The Voice, August 9 - 15, 2010, p. 7.

Vocabulary:

မြွက်ကြား ။ address an audience; give a speech
အကဲ ။ quality
ထွန်း ။ be prominent
ကွဲပြားခြားနားမှု ။ diversity
အလျဉ်းသင့် ။ be opportune; be appropriate
ရည်ညွှန်း ။ refer to; make a reference to
ချေမှုန်း ။ destroy or wipe out completely; annihilate; crush
ကျင့်သုံး ။ practise; observe or act (in accordance with tradition or accepted rules)
ရင့်ကျက် ။ experienced; mature
တန်း ။ stretch sth out or lay out in a straight line; head straight for
အားဆေး ။ tonic
ယန္တရား ။ machine
ဖြေဖျောက် ။ forget, "let it go"
အသီးသီး ။ separately; respectively; each; each and every
ပျောက်ဆုံး ။ be lost forever


Translation:

Trust-Building

In the speech that the State Peace and Development Council Chairperson, Tatmadaw Defence Leader Senior General Than Shwe gave in the Tatmadaw Military Presentation Hall on Armed Forces day that was celebrated on the 27th of March 2009 three special points can be seen.

The first special point is that amongst the speeches that he has given from 1992 to the present on the country's greatness, qualities and state of affairs, the present speech was the shortest.

The second special point was the Tatmadaw's request to new political parties that will emerge and be prominent. The statement "I would like to request that political parties be appropriately united within diversity" referred to the basic understanding of democracy which is to 'Agree to disagree'. In the military's mindset there being just two types: 'enemy' and 'friend', those who are different are all enemies and there is a view that if they are truly enemies they must be annihilated. In the mindset of democracy there being unity in diversity, in the present speech it was a request for the mindset of democracy.

The third point was that the government will protect those who are truly mature politicians and adhere to the constitution. For all organisations that accept the work of being able to establish in politics the Senior General's speech was a glass of tonic, and a guarantee. In the bureaucracy system, from the standpoint of those having relations with political organisations, it was a request about accepting the instructions of the present speech [and] helping to let go of the fear of those from civil society organisation who are involved in politics.

In that way, the adherence by each and every official organisation to the instructions of the the Armed Forces Day speech of the person who is the government's greatness and quality will be the start of a route to practically rebuilding the trust that has been lost amongst the Myanmar people and heading towards a democractic system.

Editor (29-3-2009)

(reprint of the editorial that was published in The Voice Weekly Vol.5, No.24)