Following the 6th meeting between Naypyitaw’s Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC) and the ethnic armies’ Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), Lt-Gen Myint Soe, head of the Burma Army’s Bureau of Special Operations (BSO) #2, reportedly told the media the long-awaited Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) could be signed by 1 August.

Perhaps not to be outdone, the NCCT’s Dr Lian Hmung Sakhong responded by saying it could be done earlier, probably by May.

Since then the two sides had met again from 5-8 April when they successfully worked out a single text document for the NCA. Dr Lian later said both found each other 50% in consensus.

However when the NCCT met again on 28-19 April in Chiangmai, they found too many wordings both were in disagreement (such as whether to designate the non-Burman armed opposition “Ethnic Armed Movements” or “Armed Ethnic Movements”) plus a few but serious differences in principles (such as disagreements between the two sides will be arbitrated by the government’s most powerful organ, National Defense and Security Council (NDSC)), popularly known as “Ka-Long”.

Simple people like the writer and the rest may scoff and say, “What’s in a name?” But for the NCCT, made up by members some of whom are well-versed in legal matters, words and names do matter. “We concluded that we would need to focus more on the concepts rather than the wordings themselves,” Dr Lian told SHAN. “If we find out that both sides share the same concepts, then a rose by any other names would smell just as sweet.”

The NCCT is reportedly holding a last minute meeting in the Kachin resistance capital of Laiza to finalize its proposals to the planned 8th UPWC-NCCT meeting on 19-20 May, which has been postponed to 21-22 May.  It is not known whether the UPWC is having its own meeting in the meantime.

But judging from the situation, it is unlikely the NCA could be signed anytime soon unless and until, as Naypyitaw’s chief negotiator U Aung Min said, both sides are ready to meet halfway with each other.

Part of that halfway should preferably be to push most of the political issues (such as adherence to federalism and the 2008 constitution) to where they should be i.e. the next stages: negotiations for framework for political dialogue and most particularly the political dialogue itself. That would save a lot of space and time for the NCA.

Another important point is that the two sides, instead of meeting once or twice a month, should meet every day to work out the NCA together. That will at least help ease well-founded fears that either each is or both sides are deliberately trying to forestall the much-anticipated political dialogue.

Now we all wait for the upcoming meeting in Rangoon on Wednesday, 21 May, in suspense.