The State Peace and Development Council’s (SPDC) transformation of ethnic minority ceasefire groups into Border Guard Forces (BGF) is not going to be a win-win approach to resolving strife between the Burmese government and ethnic minorities. Instead, this approach will ultimately create a new civil war in Burma that will burden the international community. Both sides cannot win in a civil war game, a truth that has been proven repeatedly since Burma attained independence from Britain over half a century ago. Ethnic minority leaders in particular want to avoid civil war, because their people, who largely live in Burma’s countryside, have bourn the brunt of Burma’s civil strife.
“The Burmese government gives them provisions and salaries, and then they have to change their [ethnic] battledress to the Burmese’s authorities’ uniforms,” the chairman of the largest Mon political party, the New Mon State Party (NMSP) chairman Nai Hongsa explained in IMNA newsgroup’s December 15th article.
“They have to obey orders given by the Burmese authorities. Before they worked for their ethnic groups, now they have to obey what the authorities say. On one hand, the authorities will give them food, and on the other hand, the authorities will give them orders. They don’t have the opportunity to make [their own] decisions. And also they lose their ethic rights.”
The SPDC has, in the past, accused Nai Hongsa of inciting violence between the Burmese government and the Mon people; the Burmese government views him as the first ethnic ceasefire group leader to strongly oppose the SPDC’s 2008 constitutional referendum and BGF plans. He rarely visits the country, because he does not support his party’s alliance with the SPDC. After becoming the general secretary of the NMSP in 2001, his party’s relationship with the SPDC has gone downhill. His chairman, General Htaw Mon, is also pessimistic regarding the border guard force plan.
If given a deadline for transforming their anti-BGF stances, ethnic ceasefire groups like the NMSP will likely attempt to align themselves with the existing non-ceasefire armed groups, such as the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Karen National People’s Party (KNPP), to fight back against the government in Nypyidaw for self-leadership. While a number of ethnic ceasefire groups, including the Karen Peace Force (KPF) and the Karen Independence Organization (KIO), will likely accept the SPDC’s deadline for transforming their armed wings into Border Guard Forces, several more ceasefire groups, such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the NMSP, have already decided not to accept the deadline set by the SPDC, or to change their anti-Border Guard Force political stances.
The SPDC has never granted the economic or cultural autonomy demanded by ethnic groups like the NMSP as part of their ceasefire agreements. Instead, it has forced the weak ceasefire groups to accept its plans for transforming them into Border Guard Forces.
Many ethnic armed groups want to create businesses to boost the prosperity of their people, and many of them have created their own local development projects during ceasefire periods. The Kokang ceasefire group, according to S.H.A.N new reports, has devoted the past two decades of its ceasefire agreement to constructing local businesses, which have been seized by the SPDC.
The NMSP has already endured similar economic sanctions, when their businesses were blocked and seized by the SPDC in the years after the ceasefire was reached in 1995. Its bank, “Hongsavatoi Bank”, and several other NMSP-backed companies were shut down for fear of their political influence on the Mon public. The NMSP then stopped all of its major economic functions after allying itself with the SPDC. The NMSP’s other major interest, the Mon National Education Committee, was also threatened by the SPDC’s administration in Mon State in 1998, when the Burmese government tried to close Mon National Schools. The NMSP had joined hands with the Mon public and built many Mon National Schools in lower Burma as soon as it reached the ceasefire agreement in 1995, and the SPDC viewed the action as a threat.
NMSP leaders have since then have lost confidence in the SPDC. Some Mon political observers on the border say that NMSP had begun to dream of renewing it’s fight for self-determination when it ended it participation in the SPDC-sponsored National Convention in 2002, and chose merely to send representatives to observe instead.
A few strong non-ceasefire ethnic political armed groups still haven’t reached ceasefire agreements with the government in Naypyidaw as a means of retaining their political autonomy. Most of these strong ethnic armed groups are not satisfied with cultural and economic autonomy, and transforming their armed wings into Border Guard Forces is too much of a concession to the SPDC for them to accept. For instance, the KNU has talked with the SPDC many times about the BGF issue, however, agreements cannot be reached. At the same time, the KNPP reached a ceasefire agreement with the SPDC for about three months in 1995, and the agreement stopped after the SPDC’s insincerity concerning it’s military stance became apparent.
Civil war will break out in the near future, if the ceasefire groups are forced to meet deadline to change their political stance for their self-determination.
According to a book titled Federal Constitutional System, written two decades ago by Burmese and ethnic minority exiles, most of ethnic armed groups want to have their own political statuses within the country’s federal system. The book suggests that a Burmese state, as well as several ethnic minority states, be formed in order to gain a stable state-level base for a federal government in Burma.
The SPDC can win its war game on small ethnic ceasefire groups, however, it will damage its image on the world’s political stage, for it cannot bring genuine peace to Burma. To bring peace to the country, self-leadership for ethnic groups is necessary. The majority of the country’s civil wars following Burma’s independence occurred were the result of strife between the Burmese government and ethnic minorities.
The tripartite dialogue introduced by the UN General Assembly in 1994 has been seen by ethnic minorities and exiled Burmese groups as the best way to solve the country’s problems. However, the junta did not agree with the international world’s decision, and instead introduced its own constitution without the interests of the country’s people, or Burma’s ethnic minorities, into account.
The NMSP’s delegation criticized the Burmese constitution for not leading to a genuine federal system, and refused to participate in the country’s constitution drafting process in 2008. And now the NMSP and other the ethnic ceasefire groups plan to not accept the SPDC’s deadline for transformation into BGF.
At the same time, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has also informed the SPDC that it will accept the BGF transformation, if the SPDC follows the Panlong agreement, in which ethnic leaders and Burmese leaders agreed to get Burma’s independence from Britain, and then introduce to the country to a genuine federal system. This suggestion angers the SPDC, who has been opposing to the Panglong Agreement and because it believes the agreement will lead to Burma’s political disintegration.
What the Burmese political observers understand about ethnic ceasefire groups is that half of them, with weak armies, hope to align with the SPDC and the other half of them, with more army troops, will oppose to the BGF plans. The strong ethnic armed groups cannot accept the idea of a Border Guard Force because the main objective of the BGF transformation is to ensure that there is only one army in the country, the Burmese Tadmadaw.
Burma has suffered from civil strife since WWII. For over half a century, civil war has broken out because of the lack of self-rule or self determination given to different ethnic groups, who live in over half of the country’s landmass, and who stand in united against the ruling Burmese junta.
Despite the fact that the world community sees the ethnic armed groups as being weak militarily, a military alliance between their forces could challenge the government in Napyidaw.
The weak ethnic arm groups who have invested time in the economy like the Kokang, and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), will easily fall into the trap set by the SPDC with the Border Guard Force deal. The economic incentives offered by the SPDC are only a new kind of trap to lure the ethnic arm groups to accept BGF plan.
The new idea of a BGF, according to Nai Hongsa to, is just a weapon created by the SPDC to crack down on ethnic armed groups.
Saw David Taw, of liaison officer of the KNU, also said in IMNA’s December 15th article that the SPDC is also using its BGF induction celebrations as a means of celebrating the differences between ethnic groups, yet another tactic to create divisions between the groups.
Inciting a civil war between the Burmese majority and the Burma’s ethnic minorities will not create a win-win situation. This has been proven for over half a century.
Is there no way for Burma to get out of the civil war circle? Can a positive future, positive thinking and future visions end this cycle? Can this cycle be ended while the Burmese military government remains in power?
