KIO accuses Tatmadaw of trying to force a ceasefire
By Ye Mon | Friday, 02 October 2015
The Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), one of the most powerful ethnic armed groups, has accused the Tatmadaw of stepping up its offensives to put pressure on the group to join a proposed nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government.
But in an interview yesterday with The Myanmar Times, General Gun Maw, the vice chief of staff of the group’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army, confirmed that the group would boycott a meeting to be held in Yangon tomorrow between the government negotiators and leaders of armed ethnic groups who have been negotiating the ceasefire pact for nearly two years.
At a summit of leaders of 19 armed ethnic groups in Chiang Mai this week, only seven declared they were ready to sign the “nationwide ceasefire agreement”. The Myanmar Peace Center, which is facilitating the peace process, hopes that tomorrow’s meeting will fix a date for a formal signing, possibly on October 15.
Gen Gun Maw said the KIO was not ready to sign the NCA. It was among the10 groups in Chiang Mai that declared they would not sign, although three of those groups had been excluded by the government itself.
“We don’t want to sign the NCA in the current situation because the government does not allow all groups to be included in the signing. If they are allowed today, we would sign immediately. If not we will still wait for that,” the Kachin general said.
He accused the government and the Tatmadaw of launching offensive sagainst some ethnic groups because of their resistance to signing the ceasefire pact.
“I think the commanders have no intention to stop the fighting. If they did, fighting would not be happening today,” he said.
Analysts say a so-called nationwide ceasefire rings hollow as none of the seven groups ready to sign the accord, including the Karen National Union, the largest force among them, are currently involved in ongoing fighting. Those shut out by the government, and most of their allies who are refusing to sign, are in the areas of active conflict across large swathes of territory in the north in Kachin State and to the east in Shan State.
Defending the partial agreement, aides to the government argue that other groups may join later and that it sets in motion a formal process leading to the next critical stage of political dialogue.
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of the three allied forces excluded by the government, said fighting was continuing in northern Shan State. The TNLA says it wants a ceasefire and has been told by the government that it is willing to enter into bilateral talks.
However, TNLA chair U Mai Aike Bone told The Myanmar Times on September 30 that the government has not yet communicated an actual offer to start peace talks with the group.
“We already formed the team to hold bilateral talks. But the government has not responded to that,” he said, noting that the TNLA had not committed itself to signing either a bilateral agreement or the NCA.
Although the ethnic leaders meeting in Chiang Mai could not resolve their differences over signing the ceasefire pact, they did jointly endorse the “framework” proposals drawn up by a committee of ethnic groups that is to lead to the next stage of political dialogue with the government.
They said they also agreed to dissolve the Senior Delegation of negotiators set up in June to replace the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) that had agreed a draft text of the ceasefire with the government on March 30.
Dissolution of the senior delegation is likely to be welcomed by the government’s chief negotiator, U Aung Min. Its establishment was accompanied by a more hard-line approach in demanding amendments to the ceasefire text and calling for the pact to be “all-inclusive”.
The ethnic groups willing to sign will be represented tomorrow by members of the NCCT, who will work out a date and to form a joint committee with the government to continue the peace process.
Deep divisions among the various ethnic groups surfaced at the Chiang Mai summit this week despite efforts to preserve a degree of unity.
Pu Cing Zung, general secretary of the Chin National Front and a member of the disbanded Senior Delegation, said the group of seven willing to sign the NCA would meet the 10 groups outside the pact after the ceasefire signing.
“We need to discuss how the two groups will go on together for the future peace process. Many meetings will come, but I can’t say when yet,” he said.
