Upto 1784, Arakan stood on the world map of 18th century, as a powerful independent and sovereign country bringing along with its thousands years of glorious and prosperous heritage in the history of south East Asia. In the past, boundary of sovereign and Independent Arakan then extended its area, up to Feni River of present Bangldesh in the west, up to eastern bank of Irrawady River in the east, up to Assam in the North and in the South, the Bay of Bangal.
But, in 1666, Arakan lost its western past of its Chittagong area to the then Mogul empire of India, and in 1784,its eastern part including present Arakan was occupied by the Burmese king Bodaw Maung Wine, and since then , people of Arakan came to realize that loss of sovereignty meaned loss of everything. They lost their own King, Queen, Palace, their beloved country Arakan ,and at last their most sacred Buddha statute of Mahamuni, which was presently rehoused at Mandalay, the old capital city of Burma.
During the battles of both in defense of independence and their sovereignty and also for regaining it, there were brutal massacre of hundreds of thousands of Arakanese people, including innocent men, and women, children, even babies and Buddhist monks by the invading forces.Consequently, greatest exodus of Arakanese refugees to the neighboring Chittagong area of then British Bengal also took place in the history. The strongest Arakansese rebellion led by Bo kyaw Thwee and Bo Chin Byan ( King Barang) with its noble goal to restore its independence lastly brought about a historical first war between then English and Burmese forces. Arakan was handed over to the new colonizer, the English, the victor by the old one,the Burmese.
The bitterness suffered from those wars for restoring of Arakanese independence and sovereignty still can not fade away from the memory of entire people of Arakan which is still not freed from the chains of the most brutal form of current Burmese military colonialism.Particularly, during the forty five years of the military rule, the people of Arakan descended into extreme poverty, and all of the civil and political rights of the people are totally abolished. ALD ( Arakan League for Democracy), the winner party in Arakan in 1990 general election was unlawfully banned. In recent people protests led by Buddhist monks too, Arakansese monks took outstandingly leading role but protests were at last brutally quelled and silenced under the guns by the ruler and many leading monks are put into jail.
The current democracy struggle, a continuance of the original struggle for Arakan sovereignty is still going on. Meanwhile, most importantly, in the absence of Arakan sovereignty, the fact that selling out of all Arakanese natural resources including Arakan natural gas and oil by the current illegal military junta of present Burma without any consent of Arakanese people, the sole legitimate owner of Arakan, is totally unacceptable to the entire people of Arakan. Besides, all those dealings are only helpful to prolong the rule of the brutal military junta and rather deepen the sufferings of the people of Arakan and Burma. Finally on this most tragic day of the Arakansese history, it is our important and immediate message to all of the buyer nations of Arakanese gas and oil, including China, Korean, India and all other countries that all of their present dealings with the present outlawed military junta of Burma will naturally fall into the illegitimate ones when the democratically elected government come to exist in Arakan and Burma in near future simply because the seller, the junta himself is illegitimate and criminal one.At the same time, we call for all out collaboration of international community with the present struggle of entire people of Arakan and Burma to root out the ruthless rule of military dictatorship in Arakan and Burma and bring back democracy and people’s sovereignty to our beloved land in the earliest time.
A man without Freedom and Sovereignty becomes a slave.A nation without Freedom and Sovereignty becomes a enslaved-colony. Fighting for Freedom and Sovereignty is a legitimate right of every colonized nation