Representatives from Myanmar’s armed resistance movements (ARM’s) are scheduled to hold a meeting on 15 May in Myitkyina rather than in Mongla as originally planned. The meeting will occur one day after talks are finalized between the Kachin Independence Organization/Kachin Independence Army (KIO/KIA) and the government’s Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC), according to resistance sources.
The ARM’s held their first meeting in Laiza from 30 October-02 November 2013 and their second meeting in Law Khee Lar from 20-25 January 2014. However, both the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and its ally the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) refused to attend the first two ARM meetings at the last minute, citing their “incomprehension of the aim and objectives” of the meetings, according to the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT).
The NCCT was recently formed to represent ARM’s and other ethnic groups and is partly designed to increase the bargaining leverage of ethnic groups in their negotiations with the UPWC. The upcoming ARM meeting in Myitkyina will focus on the “single-text” Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement that is currently being negotiated between the UPWC and the NCCT.
After the ARM meeting is held in Myitkyina on 15 May, those ARM representatives who are also members of the NCCT will meet the UPWC from 19-20 May in Rangoon, where the two sides will attempt to reach an agreement on a “single-text” Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement.
The “single-text” document will combine proposals from both sides and contains a total of 23 pages. Those parts of the document both sides agree upon will be typed in black, while those parts proposed by the NCCT for consideration by the UPWC will be red-colored. Finally, parts of the document that have been proposed by the UPWC for consideration by the NCCT will be typed in blue.
However, there are some differences in the wording used by the two sides in their respective versions of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, such as whether to describe the ARM’s as “Ethnic Armed Movements” (as proposed by the NCCT) or “Armed Ethnic Movements” (as proposed by the UPWC). In addition, the NCCT prefers to describe Myanmar as a “Federal Democratic Union,” whereas the UPWC insists on describing Myanmar as a “Democratic Nation.”
Another fundamental difference between the two sides’ positions on the “single-text” National Ceasefire Agreement is that the UPWC’s version states that “Any violation of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement by either side shall be subject to the decision of the Union Peacemaking Central Committee (UPCC).” From the NCCT’s perspective, the UPCC is merely a re-incarnation of the “Ka-long” (i.e. the National Defense and Security Council), which is currently considered the most powerful organ in the country.
The National Defense and Security Council is made up of 11 people: the President; 2 Vice-Presidents; the lower house speaker; the upper house speaker; the Commander-in-Chief of armed forces; the Home Minister; the Defense Minister; the Border Affairs Minister; the Attorney General; and the Secretary of the President’s Office. The only difference between the current “Ka-long” and the government’s proposed UPCC is that the latter includes the military’s Deputy Commander-in-Chief and the Foreign Minister in place of the Attorney General and the Secretary of the President’s Office.
“One reason it has taken so much time to finalize the NCA [i.e. Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement] is that both sides have been spending so much time wrangling with each other over political issues, which are better discussed after the NCA,” said a prominent NCCT member.
If the two sides are able to conclude a “single-text” Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, the next step will be to negotiate a “Framework for Political Dialogue” and then engage in political dialogue based on the framework.
