The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Burmese government can’t get peace talks started, because they disagree on how the process should unfold.
The KIO said it is willing to talk, but not under the terms wanted by the government peace delegation. The two sides met in Ruili, China, on Thursday for about two hours before talks were temporarily halted.
“President Thein Sein said that they would have final discussions [on peace] in the Parliament. That is opposite to the way the ethnic people want,” La Nang, a KIO spokesman, told Mizzima.
La Nang indicated that President Thein Sein’s “three steps to peacemaking” differ greatly from the way the KIO believes peace talks should be undertaken.
President Thein Sein’s three steps are: to achieve a Kachin State-level cease-fire, to set up political parties and then to take ethnic political issues to Parliament where all parties could try to amend the Constitution in ways agreeable to all sides.
KIO Brigadier General Gun Maw, the KIO second commander-in-chief, said the KIO prefers its own three-step process.
“We submitted a proposal in January,” he said. “We were prepared to discuss thing based on that proposal.”
The KIO proposal said the first step would be an agreement on the distribution of troops and their locations; second would be an all-inclusive conference similar to the Panglong conference, which would include all ethnic leaders and the government working to solve long-standing political disagreements; the final stage would be to implement the agreement in whatever form is appropriate.
KIO Brigadier General Gun Maw said the two sides met from 12:45 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday at the Jing Chent Hotel in Ruili, China, but could not agree on how to proceed. Another session was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Friday.
The government peace delegation included government representatives Aung Thaung and Thein Zaw; the six-person KIO delegation was led by KIO education official Swan Ma Lut Gan.
KIO spokesman La Nang said the government had launched a military offensive against KIO troops in the area controlled by KIO Battalion No. 5, but the contact ended on Wednesday. The KIO has had a cease-fire agreement since 1994, but fighting resumed in June 2011.
