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