Lately, there was a hot controversial piece of news coming up from government quarters that United Wa State Army (UWSA) and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) or Mongla are now ready to accept the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA)-based peace process and even eventually being prepared to sign the NCA document, pending further deliberation.
The UWSA was irked by U Aung Soe of government Peace Commission (PC) when he on March 14 said: “Because of China’s help and unofficial discussion with the PC, both (UWSA and NDAA) have accepted the NCA. But in order to be able to sign more discussions will have to be carried out.”
Mongla’s spokesman Kyi Myint take pains explaining and stressed: “We are not against NCA but as it needs a bit more to be comprehensive, we must discuss it further,” according to the recent Democratic Voice of Burma report.
The UWSA-led seven-member Federal Political Negotiation Consultative Committee (FPNCC), also known as northern ethnic armies, while it was in Nay Pyi Taw at second 21st Century Panglong Conference (21CPC) last year in May, due to China’s shuttle diplomacy intervention, also took the similar position, although principally it rejects the NCA-based peace process plan as being incompetent to resolve the problem of ethnic conflict.
On March 16, the UWSA came up with a clarification statement saying that the National Ceasefire (NC) and NCA are two different matters. While it is committed to achieving the NC, it does not mean that it agrees to the NCA, which it has no hand in its drafting from the outset and also sees as being unacceptable.
It’s position, together with the FPNCC members are ceasefire agreement should come first, followed by political negotiations and eventual political settlement.
According to its proposal for nationwide ceasefire document titled: “Provincial and Federal Peace Agreement and National-Parliament-level Ceasefire Agreement by and between Republic Government of the Union of Myanmar and All Ethnic revolutionary Armed Forces”, made public during the second 21CPC, which includes details similar to international armistice agreement complete with demarcation, monitoring and arbitrary mechanism, should lead to the earnest political negotiation between the government and the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) within 90 days, of which the treaty will have no more effect upon expiration.
Regarding its political stance “The General Principles and Specific Proposition of Revolutionary Armed Organizations of all Nationalities upon the Political Negotiation” outlined 15 topics aimed at amendment or redrafting of the Military or Tatmadaw-drawn, 2008 constitution.
In a nutshell, it is more on the confederacy system rather than federalism with more decentralization along ethnic lines, suggesting that if an ethnic group has 100,000 it should be accorded with autonomous region; 200,00 autonomous prefecture; and 300,000 national state. It also suggested that the 25% parliamentary seats should also be allotted to the ethnic nationalities, which now is being given to the Tatmadaw.
Chief concern among the powers that be could be the proposition on topic of ethnic armies’ future. The position paper wrote: “The Myanmar ethnic issues are extremely complex. It is not easy to achieve the target of one country, one military, it will be a long process, even all of the ethnic group armies accept the adaptation.”
It further explained the problem of armistice and ethnic equality must be in place first and only after the two mentioned issues are legally resolved and being practiced for a long time will the ethnic armies issue be ripe for a final settlement. In other words, the demobilization of the ethnic armies won’t come into question for a long period of time, in contrast to the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing’s “standard army” advocacy, keeping the status quo Bamar supremacy within the military hierarchy in tact.
Given such circumstances, the government’s PC eagerness to shed positive light might be seen as a propaganda, which the Wa and the FPNCC see as eroding its alternative approach to the government endorsed NCA-based peace negotiation process and thus its political credibility among its members and all EAOs as a whole.
In short, wishful-thinking laced with propaganda motivation designed to have positive effect for the government might be having an opposite negative one in wooing the northern ethnic armies into the NCA fold.
