A second ethnic nationalities conference, a follow-up to last year’s, has been planned for August, according to Saw Htoo Htoo Lay a resource person for the Chiangmai-based Working Groups for Ethnic Coordination (WGEC).
Ethnic alliances: United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), United Nationalities League for Democracy (UNLD), Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC), National Democratic Front (NDF) and others will be invited to form a convening committee on 1-2 August. “This will be in line with the spirit of ‘Unity in Diversity’ instead of the outmoded spirit of ‘Unity in Uniformity’,” the ever-cheerful 67 year old Karen, said.
The first conference, held in Chiangmai, 14-16 September, had adopted a 5 phase roadmap proposed by the UNFC:
- To draft a framework for political dialogue
- To negotiate and reach agreement with the government on the framework
- To hold state-level conferences
- To hold inter-state conferences
- To hold a union conference for a union accord
The second Ethnic Nationalities, he said, would focus on the adoption of the draft framework and dialogue process.
Dialogue issues, as drafted by the WGEC, includes:
- Constitutional reforms
- Security reforms
- Judicial reforms
- Land issues
- Drug eradication
- IDP/refugee issues
- Education standards
- Non-discrimination, among others
