Although the possibility exists that a nationwide ceasefire agreement may be signed soon, the process of officially drafting and signing the agreement will take one year, according to the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT).
On 2nd December the NCCT and the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) met for an informal meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where agreement was reached on several points, which may facilitate the signing of a ceasefire agreement in the near future, according to leaders that participated in the meeting.
According to Colonel Khun Okkar of the NCCT, as the group was able to obtain positive results from the informal meeting, the NCCT has agreed to continue taking part in official ceasefire talks, and has sent specific points to the MPC to respond to. It will take at least one week for the MPC to respond.
He said: “We negotiated about a single text. At this meeting, we had already discussed the minimum of points that had to be accomplished; but it seems as if none of those points have been agreed upon. Our side is not too sure when the next formal meeting will be held."
Colonel Khun Okkar continued that it would take at least one year to officially endorse any ceasefire agreement draft, which can only be done after both the government and ethnic negotiating groups agree upon and sign a ceasefire agreement.
U Hla Maung Shwe, a senior advisor of the MPC said: “I think the next [ceasefire talk] meeting will be before Christmas Day. At that meeting, we hope to finalize any points that have been problematic in previous talks. The signing of the ceasefire can take place next year if the talks have to be postponed for some reason."
During September’s sixth round of ceasefire talks, held between the NCCT and the Union Peace-making Working Committee (UPWC), neither side could agree to finalize the draft single text ceasefire agreement and the talks ended without reaching agreements on several points.
The Federal Union Army (FUA) of the United Nationalities Federation Council (UNFC) released a statement on 1st December questioning the government’s commitment to reaching a nationwide ceasefire, as well as condemning the government’s recent offensives in ethnic areas.
The FUA statement said that the government's UPWC tried to force through points that the NCCT disagreed with.
The statement also condemned: the government's attack on the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) military training academy which killed more than 20 cadets; the government's seizure of the Shan State Progressive Party/Shan State Army's (SSP/SSA) Ta Phar Hsawng Base; government offensives in Ta’ang National Liberation Army areas; major deployments of government troops; government attacks on the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the Chin National Front (CNF) and other ethnic armed groups despite having signed preliminary ceasefire agreements with these groups.
It says that the government's actions show that they want to destroy the ceasefire agreement and challenge Burma's ethnic armed groups.
Edited for BNI by Mark Inkey
