The Irrawaddy reported on 21 February 2018 that "there is
still no timeframe for the release of long-withheld ethnic population data from the 2014 census". According to UCA News on 1 March 2018, Thein Swe, Union Minister of the Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population, said the government was unable to release the findings due to
ongoing disputes over who belonged to which ethnic group: "Taking the case of the Kachin, he said there could be between six and 12 sub-ethnicities depending on‚ who you listen to. Others dispute claims the Chin have 53 sub-ethnic groups."
Thomas Muller, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, explains: "The question of ethnic affiliation is one of the most complicated issues in Myanmar. However, it has been used by the army and government as a tool in their "˜divide and rule" strategy. If large ethnic groups are split up into their various smaller ethnicities, they pose less danger. This strategy may potentially backfire as ethnic groups are unlikely to trust the statistics, no matter how and when they are published. These doubts seem well justified. If ethnic affiliation is such a hotly debated and fraught issue, how would the people taking the census - often (Burmese) teachers - be able to record the true picture, even if they did their very best? As many of the ethnic minorities are predominantly Christian, this mistrust and unrest affects churches too, despite the fact that the government recently announced that action should be taken against "˜
unruly monks" using inflammatory rhetoric to incite hatred against minorities, as Radio Free Asia reported on 21 February 2018."
