A leader of the Kachin Independence Organization has criticized the government for shutting out a new ethnic bloc trying to pursue peace talks.
The Kachin Independence Army/Kachin Independence Organization (KIA/KIO) is one of the members of the newly forged and Wa-led Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC). The FPNCC has said it will not follow the Tatmadaw-preferred route to peace via the existing nationwide ceasefire agreement, insisting instead on renegotiating the lines of ethnic political autonomy.
“The Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee was [established] to hold political dialogues [to negotiate] a nationwide ceasefire and to build a federal Union. However, the government still has its door shut to negotiations with the FPNCC,” General Lanyaw Zawng Hra, chair of the KIO, said in a speech marking the 57th anniversary of the KIO on October 25.
The FPNCC insists on meeting with the government as a unified group, but the government only wants to meet ethnic armed organizations one-on-one in an effort to defuse the alliance’s unified strength, the KIO leader said.
He added that the KIO has engaged in peace discussions with successive Myanmar governments and remains eager to solve political issues quickly.
According to Lanyaw Zawng Hra, ethnic armed organizations felt the need to unify after the Tatmadaw used military might to try and pressure groups into signing ceasefires before full political deals were reached. Several rights groups and observers have documented an escalation in Tatmadaw offensives coinciding with the height of peace negotiations, such during the Union peace conferences.
The KIO leader said at the moment, negotiations are nonexistent betwen the government and the FPNCC,
Former vice-chair of the KIO and current chair of the Kachin State Democracy Party (KSDP) Manam Tu Ja urged both sides to compromise for the sake of forging peace.
“The northern groups [unified under the FPNCC] want to meet as a group. The government wants to meet them separately. They need to negotiate on this,” he said. “If the northern groups continue to insist on meeting only as a group, it may take a long time [until negotiations can occur]. The government must also change its policy to meet each group separately.”
The FPNCC is comprised of seven ethnic armed groups fighting along the Myanmar-China borderlands
