“I’m sure we will be able to sort out our differences and make it up there,” he told SHAN.

The NCCT is made up of 12 UNFC members and 4 non-UNFC members. The KNU, a co-founder of the UNFC, announced it was suspending its UNFC membership on August 31st following a disagreement over the alliance’s structure.

The KNU had originally proposed that a “quasi-federal” structure should replace what it calls the UNFC’s “top down” structure which some KNU members think is merely a copy of the Burmese army’s “one blood, one voice, one command” philosophy that armed ethnic groups have been fighting against since 1949. “Only the Karen people can determine our own destiny [i.e. not a dictatorial alliance like the UNFC],” the KNU chairman declared upon suspending the KNU’s membership in the UNFC. The KNU’s staunchly independent spirit is partly a legacy of the four basic principles laid down by KNU’s revered founder, Saw Ba Oo Gyi.

The KNU also complained that a highly prominent UNFC leader had intimated on August 31st that the KNU could be an agent provocateur sent by the government to infiltrate and destroy its unity.

However, the UNFC leader has denied making such an accusation, and in response the UNFC said: “That wasn’t what was actually said. What he was [actually] saying was that Naypyidaw had long adopted the policy of using political parties to fight against political parties, media to fight against media, and ethnic armed movements to fight against ethnic armed movements. The KNU leaders must have misinterpreted what he said.”

On the question of the UNFC’s structure, a UNFC leader explained that the alliance’s leadership had proposed that a constitution amendment committee should be formed.

“The constitution approved by the First UNFC Congress (held from August 25th-September 2nd) isn’t carved in stone,” he said. “It is open to amendment.”