Kachin Perform Manau Dance in Japan
The event was held to raise international awareness and funds for internally displaced Kachin in Burma.
By NETWORK MEDIA GROUP (NMG)
Monday, August 27, 2018
Members of the Kachin community performed the traditional Manau dance in Mie Prefecture, Japan, this weekend to raise international awareness and funds for internally displaced Kachin in Burma.
The event was held on Saturday and Sunday in Matsusaka town and included Kachin peace activists based in Japan, local Japanese people, and Kachin living elsewhere abroad. There were around 300 participants in total.
“All donations we got from this Manau dance event will be sent to Kachin refugee camps,” a participant told NMG, adding that this was not the first Manau commemorated in Japan, but the first in Mie Ken, which is located in the Kansai region.
There are an estimated 100,000 internally displaced people in more than 100 camps in Kachin and northern Shan states. They have been forced from their homes since 2011, when a 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army and the Burmese military broke down.
Attending the event was Masaharu Nakagawa, a minister in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet.
