After the Tatmadaw and ethnic armed organizations that have signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) held an informal talk on May 30, Dr Salai Liang Hmung announced this to the media at the CDES office on June 1.

He explained why the Tatmadaw and the NCA signatories have been debating over the non-secession issue.

National-level political dialogues were held in six locations before the second session of the Union Peace Conference – 21st Century Panglong was held in May 2017. The proposals obtained from the political dialogues were compiled by the working committee and submitted to the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) via its secretary group.

“Everything went well when we submitted to the UPDJC. What I mean is that we were able to submit the demands of the ethnic people - equality, self-determination, and the federal principle including the right to draft the federal constitution,” said Dr Salai Liang Hmung.

The Tatmadaw told them that they are ready to give federal self-determination and equality but they demanded non-secession from the Union in order to alleviate their concerns.

Dr Salai Lian Hmung explained that the Tatmadaw has been afraid of federalism since the Revolutionary Council seized power in 1962 and they regard it as secession from the Union.

“Now they are ready to give federal, self-determination, and equality. But, they demanded Section 10 of the 2008 Constitution, which states that ‘no part of the territory constituted in the Union such as Regions, States, Union Territories and Self-Administered Areas shall ever secede from the Union’ to alleviate the Tatmadaw’s concern,” he explained.

The Tatmadaw’s demand for non-secession from the Union was agreed by the UPDJC meeting as a way of give and take on May 12, 2017.

“When this issue was submitted to the Union Peace Conference, the ethnic people especially the RCSS (Restoration Council of Shan State)…the RCSS hasn’t been allowed to hold a national-level political dialogue so it didn’t want to agree on such kind of important issue because it’s better to consult with our own people first to get their consent so we weren’t able to reach an agreement,” he continued.

The second session of the Union Peace Conference was unable to reach a successful conclusion as both the ethnic people’s demand and the Tatmadaw’s demand had to be excluded.

The NCA signatories drafted a ten-point basic principle based on the remaining issues from the second session of the 21st Century Panglong and other demands to the informal talk in order to overcome the blockage caused by the non-secession issue.

“Non-secession demanded by them is on one side while equality, self-determination, and federal principle demanded by us are on another side. Our country will suffer if these two [issues] block the peace process from moving forward. The peace process will suffer. The public will also suffer. That’s why we are going to leave this blocked ‘package’ behind for now in order to overcome it. We won’t discuss it in the upcoming conference. There are many other issues left. We have agreed to discuss them first,” he said.

“In other words, we will find the issues that both sides can agree on and discuss this (non-secession issue) at the final stage. The Tatmadaw said they must discuss this non-secession issue. We must also discuss the self-determination issue. However, it’s better to move forward after finding other issues we can agree on. We will continue to hold the conference under this aim, but we will leave the ‘package’ behind for now,” he added.

According to him, attempts are being made to hold the third session of the Union Peace Conference – 21st Century Panglong in early July.