The Burmese government needs to immediately declare a nationwide ceasefire to implement a 21st Century Panglong Conference within one or two months, the United Nationalities Federal Council’s Vice Chairman Nai Han Tha told I.M.N.A.
He said: “If [the Burmese government] wants to immediately implement it [a 21st century Panglong Agreement] just as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has said, a nationwide ceasefire needs to be immediately declared and the Tatmadaw [Burma Army] needs to accept it.”
He pointed out that a year after General Ne Win’s revolutionary Council Government staged a military coup in 1962 the Burmese government and ethnic armed groups were able to hold political dialogue, declare a ceasefire and grant an amnesty for all opposition forces.
Nai Hong Tha continued: “I want the government, parliament, military, and political parties, and all ethnic armed groups to participate, discuss, and find solutions at a 21st Century Panglong Conference. All the ethnic armed groups including the NCA-signatories and non-NCA-signatories need to participate.”
He said that though a 21st century Panglong Agreement would not be the same as the 1947 Panglong Agreement signed between General Aung San and the ethnic groups from the hill regions, he hoped that it would be able to succeed in its main objective of bringing about the building of a federal union.
In an interview with the I.M.N.A, the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD)’s Chairman U Khun Tun Oo said: “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said the 21st Century Panglong will be held within one or two months. We don’t know which methods and format will be used to hold it. We don’t know who will support it and who will participate. This is a problem. The biggest problem is that the Tatmadaw needs to be satisfied with it.”
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told the Union Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC-U) on 27 April that she wanted to hold a 21st century Panglong Agreement within one or two months.
Translated by Thida Linn
Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
