On February 27, the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA) made up of ethnic political parties and its allied organizations met at the Green Hill Hotel, Yangon, and came up with a bold statement initiative that the Tatmadaw or Myanmar Army should withdraw from the political arena or at least come up with a time-frame of its withdrawal so that the constitutional crisis could be overcome.

The UNA meeting with its allies was held from February 26 to 27 in Yangon which was attended by 20 organizations, of which the UNA 15 members were the core participants.

The gist of 9-point statement by the UNA and its allied organizations on its fourth consultative meeting is as follows:

Issues regarding federal union, peace and constitutional amendment are discussed.

1. Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA)-based peace process stagnation should be reviewed suggesting other approaches should also be opened.
2. Nationwide unilateral ceasefire should be realized together by the government, Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) and the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs).
3. Democratization, constitutional amendment and economic development have been affected by hardships and lack of progress in peace-making, which resulted in the lost of public confidence.
4. Besides peace-building and constitutional amendment hardships, Rohingya issue also burdened the country leading to the condemnation of human rights violations and international tension leading to problems of long term development of the country.
5. People are burdened with government’s inappropriate recent amendment of land law, labor law, environmental law, and freedom of expression law.
6. All these are due to the constitutional crisis.
7. Constitutional crisis has been there from independence up till today. After 1962 military coup, political settlement through political means was blocked and the country’s development derailed becoming one of the most poorest country in the world. Tatmadaw and government should understand this and urged the Tatmadaw to drawback from political arena.
8. Minimally at least the Tatmadaw should set the time-frame when it is going to withdraw.
9. For the sake of the country and people government, Tatmadaw and various political forces should cooperate sincerely and harmoniously.

Earlier on February 23 Gen Soe Naing Win, in a press conference held by the Tatmadaw on National League for Democracy (NLD)-led constitutional amendment deliberations and situation assessment during the two months period of its unilateral ceasefire announcement of the Tatmadaw, said that it would entertain the withdrawal of Tatmadaw from politics only when there is no more EAOs left on the ground.

This amounted to “which came first: the chicken or the egg?” Or catch-22, which is “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.”

This inevitably means the military-drafted 2008 constitution will not be amended that will dilute the Tatmadaw’s political supremacy in anyway. In other words, the Tatmadaw will uphold and protect the constitution by all means.

Echoing the statement the UNA general secretary Myo Kyaw said: “If we are going with this constitution peace cannot be achieved. I believe the country won’t be peaceful and the people will not be able to get out of troubles (they are in).”

He further said that the present constitution is written in such a way so that amendment is impossible and thus the recent deliberations within the parliament for constitutional amendment would not be successful. Apart from that he said: “(It is) drawn to defend a group of people or an organization. Additionally I see that as it is not the representative of the people this constitution cannot be amended.”

He emphasized the UNA leadership has always said that the military-drafted constitution must be newly rewritten from the beginning to the end.

Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) joint-secretary Sai Leik linked the present country woes to the constitutional crisis saying: “I assessed our country’s present problems and also the ones that have happened all along are because of constitutional problem root cause. That’s why if the constitution cannot be amended the root cause of the problems also cannot be resolved.”

“ But without the consent of the Tatmadaw writing it anew or amending it cannot be done.

(That is why) we are calling on the Tatmadaw to reduce its political participation and give time-frame for its withdrawal,” he added.

Meanwhile, the recent meeting between the government and the Northern Alliance came to naught, where the latter has proposed to sign a bilateral ceasefire in order to empower the stagnated NCA-based peace process, while the NCA-signatory EAOs recently meeting in Chiang Mai said the peace process has deviated from its original goals of achieving democracy and federal union through fairness and equality.

Given such condition and various other woes confronting the country, the Tatmadaw’s withdrawal from politics and going back to the barracks might be the only reasonable way to overcome the constitutional crisis so that peaceful reconciliation, cohabitation and development can be achieved, whether the top brass within the Tatmadaw likes it or not.