Mai Ja Yang EAOs' Plenary Meeting: Successful but need time to iron out common positions
The controversial and much talked about Ethnic Armed Organizations'
(EAOs) Plenary Meeting in Mai Ja Yang, Kachin Independence Organization's (KIO)
controlled town near Chinese border, took place from 26 to 30 July, extending a
full day more than that was originally planned date of 29 July, due to the need
to cover all the agendas previously agreed upon.
The meeting was attended by 17 EAOs, minus the United Wa State Army
(UWSA), Kokang or Myanmar National Democratic Army (MNDAA), Ta'ang National
Liberation Army (TNLA) and National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang
(NSCN-K), making it the most comprehensive and exclusive meeting to determine
the common position of the EAOs. Also attending were representatives from two
umbrella, alliance organizations of ethnic nationalities political parties;
United Nationalities Alliance (UNA) and National Brotherhood Federation (NBF),
including the Women League of Burma (WLB), UN Secretary-General’s Special
Adviser Vijay Nambiar and Sun Guoxiang, Special Envoy of Asian Affairs of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.
This was the fifth EAOs gathering that followed the earlier four
meetings, twice in Laiza, KIO controlled largest town, and twice in Law Khee
Lar, the Karen National Union (KNU) administered area, during the last couple
of years since the former President Thein Sein started the peace process in
2011.
During the five‐day summit, delegates
discussed on the issues of approving the Panglong Handbook prepared by the
Kachin, Shan and Chin EAOs as the original signatories of the Panglong
Agreement in 1947 with the Burmese Interim Government; basic principles for the
constitution of a future federal democratic union; basic principles for
security and defence; and the amendment, fine-tuning of Framework for Political Dialogue (FPD).
While the Mai Ja Yang meeting was
endorsed by the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) that would help and
enable the EAOs to achieve a common position, complementing and supporting the
upcoming 21st Century Panglong Conference (21CPC) as preferred by
Aung San Suu Kyi or Union Peace Conference (UPC) dubbed by the previous regime,
the military (Tatmadaw) was against it saying that it could divide the EAOs
more than forging unity. But it also didn't hide its worry that they could use
the occasion to form military alliance among themselves and expand their
territorial control.
Whatever the case, let us look at the
outcomes on what has been discussed at the meeting.
Panglong Handbook
The EAOs Panglong Handbook endorsement
was in order, which emphasized the core
principles of rights of self-determination, equality and democracy to be
applicable in all their political bargaining process. Accordingly, only a final
touch on some wordings were needed.
The Panglong Handbook is a compilation of
historical facts, principles and guidelines for the Panglong agreement, with
the explanation of its spirit and pledges, which have failed to materialize
after nearly 70 years of its signing in 1947, in Panglong town of Shan State.
The treaty was signed between the then Burmese interim government, represented
by Aung San – the late father of Aung San Suu Kyi – and three ethnic
nationalities, the Chin, Kachin and Shan.
The Burmese interim government, which was
then known as Burma Proper or Ministerial Burma included all the territories
inhabited by the Karen, Mon and Arakan among others, while the Karenni state
was then considered by the British as an independent territory.
Federal Constitution
The meeting agreed on the 8 point
principles in drafting a federal union constitution, which included
sovereignty, equality, rights of self-determination, genuine federalism,
protecting the rights of minorities,
democratic rights, universal human rights and gender equality, and multi-party
system-based secular form of governance.
The EAOs' guidelines were based on
federal union constitution that was drafted in 2008 by Federal Constitution
Drafting and Coordinating Committee (FCDCC) and added proposals made by the
United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) in 2015.
The most outstanding point of discussion
in federal form of governance was the alteration proposal of “national” state
and “nationalities” state formation, rather than just accepting and going along
with the 14 States and Regions configuration under the present military-drafted
constitution. Hypothetically, for example, a Bamar State could be carved out
from Mandalay, Magway and Bago Regions, while Yangon (Rangoon), Ayeyarwady
(Irrawaddy), Tanintharyi (Tenasserim) and Sagaing Regions could become
nationalities states, for they are populated with various other ethnic groups,
besides Bamar ethnic.
Security and defence
The security sector reform (SSR)
deliberations the EAOs mainly focused on the formation of a federal union army,
which should be under the defence ministry and subordinated to the civilian
government, emphasizing that the country's president would be the
Commander-in-Chief of the military.
The military has tried all along to push
for the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR), which entertains
only the surrender of the EAOs without question or coming under the wings of
the Bamar-dominated Tatmadaw, while the EAOs were for the SSR that harbours
more on integration into the security apparatus either in form of state
security units, like state defence or border patrol police force, of their
concerned state, plus becoming part of the federal union army within a given
prescribed quota.
The Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Laing has
time and again said that the military is striving to become a standard army,
which could be construed as either trying to build a professional or union
army, leaving politics to the civilian government. But Min Aung Hlaing's
professed timeline of some 15 years for the military to go back to the barracks
starkly contrasted with the vague commitment of withdrawing from political
arena, which he is inclined to dole out publicly occasionally.
Framework for Political Dialogue
The amendment of the FPD that has been
drawn by the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), without the UNFC,
centred around the participation quota, which was agreed by all attending EAOs
to be a tripartite one endorsed by the United Nations for decades. The recent
FPD under the NCA setting now has seven groups, which the EAOs thought could
not lead to equitable and fair participation of the ethnic nationalities.
The EAOs' proposed tripartite includes
the government, the parliament and the military as one party; the EAOs as
another; and the other, all the registered political parties nationwide.
Common position still need to be ironed
out
With the end of the EAOs Plenary Meeting
coming to an end on 30 July, a statement issued said that the common position
on a variety of issues still have to be ironed out. Reportedly, there were a
number of open questions that needed further discussion.
General N'Ban La, vice chairman of the
KIO and UNFC chairman urged the meeting participants that it would be good to form a single
negotiation group together between the signatory and non-signatory EAOs, under
the UNFC, to talk to the government.
N'Ban La who was in an upbeat mood said:
“The ethnic nationalities' political rights discussion has enable us to achieve
a common position for future political negotiation process, which has
shown our most invaluable unity. I want
to thank all the ethnic leaders and make a record (on this).”
The meeting further resolved to form a
working group, to compile all the agreed points and discuss the remaining
outstanding issues. It is said that the Coordinating Team (CT) of the 8
signatory EAOs and the UNFC's Delegation for Political Negotiation (DPN) would
find ways to achieve common positions and bridge the gap on outstanding issues.
According to Mizzima, Colonel Sai Hla
from the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) summed up the situation
recently as follows: “We got a draft from the four negotiation issues. It was
agreed that in order to confirm it, our top leaders will hold another meeting
and make decision.”
The positive outcome was said to be that
the two groups have resolved to bargain as one party in the peace negotiation
process and the agreed upon the understanding to ask for postponement of the
August scheduled 21 CPC from the
government, to either September or November, as they needed more time to work
out common positions among themselves.
The meeting was said to be successful
according to Khu Oo Reh, who is the convening Chairman of the Mai Ja Yang
meeting. “While we cannot say that we have one hundred percent agreement (on
all issues discussed), it is almost close to it,” he said.
But Sai Kyaw Nyunt representative of the
UNA has a different opinion and said that only about fifty percent agreement
has been reached. He particularly pointed out the lack of concrete agreement,
especially on the issue of national state and nationalities state formation
criterion. He explained: “We discussed about the formation of a Bamar State and
other nationalities states, with no concrete count of how many states it should
be there. But in building a federal union with equality, representation (of
each ethnic state) is anyhow needed.”
Outlook and perspective
The purpose of the meeting participants attending the Mai Ja Yang summit, along with
civil society organisations and political parties was to prepare for the 21CPC
and to find common ground for a future federal union. In this respect, it could
be said that the objectives are fulfilled, although one could argue to what
degree of achievement the meeting has
made.
Khu Oo Reh said that it was successful and was nearly a hundred
percent achievement of the meeting's objective, while some ethnic political
alliance representatives put it as some fifty percent success rate. However,
some of the crucial hurdles still left and remain to be resolved are the much
debated controversial issue of all-inclusiveness and real ceasefire
implementation on the ground, in order to even participate in the amending of
FPD, recently being opened
by the government to the EAOs that have not yet signed the NCA.
During the course of meeting in Mai Ja Yang, Vice-Chairman of UNFC Nai
Han Thar and UNFC Chairman General N'Ban La reportedly reiterated their
commitment of all-inclusiveness participation in the peace process – meaning
that the excluded three EAOs that the military refused to let in must be
included – and the implementation of a genuine ceasefire implementation on the
ground, either through unilateral ceasefire from the government part or
simultaneous ceasefire declaration, both by the military and the EAOs.
Only after the above mentioned conditions are being satisfactorily
resolved, the participation of the FPD amendment discussion could take place,
which again would lead to another hurdle of implementing a “tripartite
dialogue” mode of participation.
The UPDJC has now accepted seven parties to participate in the UPC, to
thrash out a political settlement that include a total of 700 delegates
comprising 75 from the Government, 75 from the Hluttaw, 150 from the Tatmadaw,
150 from EAOs, 150 from registered political parties, 50 from ethnic
representatives and 50 from others who should participate.
And finally, provided that
the tripartite participation mode is agreed, the signing of Nationwide
Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) would follow, leading to the participation of the UPC
or 21CPC.
One day after the EAOs'
Plenary Meeting, responding to a question on what he thought about the
tripartite position of the EAOs, Zaw Htay spokesperson of the Presidential
Office replied to the BBC, that he welcomed it, as it is exactly the same with
the UPDJC setup, where the government, parliament and the military, the EAOs
and the political parties, all three have an equal representation of 16 members
each.
Nevertheless, it is a tall
order by any standard and all would have to go through the negotiation phase
whether they like it or not.
For the time being, the EAOs
will be burdened with ironing out the outstanding issues collected from the Mai
Ja Yang meeting and working on the concrete common set of position among
themselves for the UPC, while the NLD and the military would have to scrutinize
the proposals and demands of the EAOs and consider to what extend they are
ready to compromise and accommodate them. Equally, the EAOs would also need to
adjust and soothe down the adversaries' worries, such as secession issue and
angst of having to become equal partner with the other ethnic nationalities,
falsely believing as a degradation from their racial supremacy position.
In sum, there is hardly any
other way, rather than to accommodate and understand each others aspirations
through give-and-take, if we are to break this deadlock of decades-old ethnic
conflict that has consumed the largest amount of our human and natural
resources all these years.
Tags: Opinion
