At a press conference held at Naypyitaw yesterday, the joint organising committee of 21st Panglong Conference said that they were told by the State Counsellor not to blame anyone for the unscheduled departure of delegates from United Wa State Army/Party (UWSA/UWSP) on the second day of the conference.
President’s Office spokesman Zaw Htay said that they immediately reported the Wa incident to the State Counsellor and were told that this was normal in such a conference and not to play the blame game.
“We reported the incident to the State Counsellor and explained to her the truth. She told us to explain to the Wa organisation what had happened and not to put blame on anyone. This is a routine technical error, she said. So this incident cannot have any impact on our national reconciliation work,” Zaw Htay said.
Dr Lian Sakhong from the joint organising committee told media, “This is absolutely not political or racial discrimination against Wa delegates. This is absolutely not organisational discrimination against them. This is just a technical error.”
The Wa delegation left the conference on the morning of the second day after feeling they were discriminated against as they were given name tags saying ‘Observer’ instead of ‘Delegate’.
Despite leaving the peace conference, the Wa delegation submitted their paper to the conference through Khin Zaw Oo who said that the paper would be handed over to officials.
This 21st Panglong Conference is being held from August 31 to September 3.
