On 26 September, 567 Civil Society Organizations signed an open letter calling for leaders of the Ethnic Revolutionary Organisations not to engage with Myanmar’s State Administrative Council, the junta that seized control of the country in February 2021.

In particular, it calls on the EROs not to become involved in the junta’s ethnic peace talks that it is trying to persuade ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) to engage with.

ERO is a term used for ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) who are fighting the junta and have aligned themselves with the National Unity Government (NUG) in exile and other anti-junta forces.

Below is the text of the letter. Of the 567 organisations that signed the letter only 281 have been named due to security reasons.

Below is the text of the letter:

The undersigned Civil Society Organizations urge the Ethnic Resistance Organization not to attend the military sham Peace Dialogue, a sham intended as a way to distract and exit from their own political, military, and economic crisis.

The armed conflict currently unfolding must be understood clearly as a battle between the military and the people. Min Aung Hlaing led-terrorist military has ignored the will of the people in the election and attempted to stage a coup since February 1, 2021 and arrested the elected members of parliament. Since they refused to accept the result of the 2020 November General Election, which was accepted by the international community as a free and fair election and in which the people freely cast their votes, they became merely a terrorist organization which no longer has legitimacy domestically and internationally.

In order to take power the military cruelly tortured and killed peaceful protesters who protested against their unlawful actions according to democratic practice. Therefore they are regarded as merely a terrorist organization according to international and domestic laws.

It is evident that the terrorist military council is targeting civilians across the country every day. The terrorist military is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by torching villages, looting civilian properties, burning civilians alive, including children and women, mass killing, raping women, shelling civilian sites with artilleries, and inflicting aerial attacks and bombardments on civilian sites, religious buildings, schools and IDP camps.

As the terrorist military council violated the ASEAN’s five-point Consensus and ignored the international community, they not only failed to receive any recognition from the international community but were isolated and prevented from attending ASEAN summits and related minister-level meetings.

As the terrorist military council can no longer defeat the people’s resistance, they are creating a sham peace dialogue using ethnic armed organizations in order to mislead the international community, including ASEAN.

This terrorist military council (formerly Myanmar Tatmadaw) dictated and influenced peace dialogues using the 2008 Constitution; not a single genuine peace and political agreement has been achieved under this military. Again, the invitation to ethnic armed resistance organizations by the military group firmly holding the 2008 Constitution is not a genuine attempt to find a peaceful political resolution and build a Federal Democratic Union to meet the political aspirations of ethnic armed organizations. Instead, it is evident that it is a sham dialogue intended to divide and rule the resistance groups, namely the Spring revolution forces, the people and ethnic armed organizations.

Therefore, attending this sham dialogue is not only against the will of the people resisting this terrorist group, but will also lend legitimacy to this terrorist military council. In addition, it will further delay the process of building genuine peace and federal democracy, and also place further obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people most in need. Worse, sham talks will permit and encourage further crimes against humanity committed by the terrorist military group.

The military group led by the terrorist Min Aung Hlaing continues to kill their own people. He is currently facing criminal charges in the International Court of Justice for allegedly committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It is imperative to learn from Myanmar’s history that this terrorist group is not a worthy political dialogue partner for peace and to make efforts to remove them from Myanmar’s political arena entirely. Hence, we call on ethnic armed organizations – that have been consistently struggling for democracy, federalism, and peace – to avoid attending sham political and peace dialogues (either publicly or secretly) held by the terrorist military group and join with people who are fighting to totally remove the military from politics.