Hundreds of Yangon residents gathered in downtown Yangon’s Maha Bandoola Park last night for a peace rally aimed at raising enthusiasm for the upcoming session of the 21st Century Panglong Conference.
The peace conference will be held later this month, though the date has not yet been announced.
The rally’s organizers called for the upcoming peace conference to welcome all of Myanmar’s ethnic groups, to end the country’s civil wars, to raise the socio-economic status of ethnic minorities, to institute equal rights and to establish a federal Union.
The rally was attended by Yangon Mayor Maung Maung Soe, YCDC officials and regional MPs.
A similar rally was held on August 28, 2016, just before the first session of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference in early September.
“Peace is being built both by organizations and on an individual level. This event illustrates the public desire for peace. It is a good sign for peace,” said Mayor Maung Maung Soe at the rally.
The rally featured musical performances and dramatic reenactments of the horrors of war. There was also an eight-second silence for war victims.
The Yangon mayor and other officials released a flock of white doves.
Last night’s rally was the culmination of a weekend full of peace demonstrations around Myanmar.
Wars have raged in Myanmar since the first peace conference was held in September 2016. Clearance operations by the Myanmar military in Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine State since October have forced as many as 70,000 people to flee to Bangladesh and caused hundreds of civilian deaths, according to the UN.
Thousands have also been displaced by devastating conflict in Shan and Kachin states since the NLD-led peace process began.
