Wednesday, November 15, 2017

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

US Secretary of State Voices Support for Individual Sanctions Against Security Forces

Posted: 15 Nov 2017 04:52 AM PST

YANGON — US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States would consider individual sanctions against security forces found responsible for human rights abuses against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State.

More than 600,000 Rohingya are now in refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing the Myanmar military's clearance operations since August when a Rohingya militant group attacked 30 police outpost in northern Rakhine State, citing accounts of arbitrary killings, rapes and arson by the security forces.

To seek accountability from the army, the US announced sanctions against Myanmar's military leadership last month, ceasing travel waivers for current and former senior leadership of the Burmese military while assessing authorities to consider economic options available to target individuals associated with the atrocities. The restrictions also include all units and officers involved in operations in northern Rakhine State to be ineligible to receive or participate in any US assistance programs.

Rex Tillerson was in Myanmar's capital Naypyitaw on Wednesday to meet with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu kyi and military chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing.

During a joint press conference with Daw Aung San Suu kyi in the afternoon, Tillerson said all of the individual sanctions have to be evidence based.

But the Secretary of the State said he would not advise "broad-based economic sanctions" against the entire country.

"If we have credible information that we believe to be very reliable that certain individuals were responsible for certain acts that we find unacceptable, then targeted sanctions on individuals very well may be appropriate," he said.

While reaffirming the US commitment to Myanmar's transition and condemning the Rohingya militant attacks in August, Tillerson also called for a credible investigation into human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims committed by Myanmar’s security forces.

“We're deeply concerned by credible reports of widespread atrocities committed by Myanmar's security forces and by vigilantes who were unrestrained by the security forces during the recent violence in Rakhine State,” he said.

But the Myanmar Army denied the atrocities in the internal investigation released on Monday.

After the meeting, a Facebook post of Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing said he explained to Tillerson the real situation on the ground in Rakhine, the reasons behind the exodus, the military's cooperation with the government, repatriation and delivering aid.

The post US Secretary of State Voices Support for Individual Sanctions Against Security Forces appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Do Not Lose Sight of ARSA

Posted: 15 Nov 2017 04:45 AM PST

The international community is rightly focused on humanitarian issues in northern Rakhine State. If the situation is not resolved in the near future, there is a danger that the region will become destabilized, leading to further violence. There is no military solution to the crisis in Rakhine State; we must find political solutions and compromises.

Nor should we lose sight of the activities of the militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), or Harakah al-Yaqin.

In fact, ARSA initiated the latest violence with attacks on innocent civilians and security forces on Aug. 25, provoking a heavy-handed military response.

ARSA's leader is Ata Ullah, believed to have been born into a Rohingya family in Pakistan and now wanted in Myanmar. He conveys his orders and instructions to the group verbally or through audio-video recordings. He and his terrorist group are believed to have sympathizers in the Middle East and beyond.

It has been reported by several news publications that most of ARSA's funding comes from Rohingya living in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, with additional support coming from other Middle Eastern countries with small Rohingya communities.

According to eyewitness accounts from refugee camps in Bangladesh, foreign donors believed to be based in the Middle East and elsewhere are distributing cash to refugees, and ARSA militants roam freely.

Ata Ullah's whereabouts are unknown. The terrorist chief is believed to be on the run but he has several deputies who manage day-to-day operations and communicate with media and donors.

Observers have noted that ARSA's propaganda machine is wide reaching; the militants and the group's propaganda wing are fluent in English and make effective use of social media platforms. They are adept at making themselves appear moderate and reasonable. They are not.

ARSA militants, according to several reports and accounts published in recent months, mingle with villagers and wear civilian clothes. ARSA's tactics more closely resemble those of the Muslim insurgents in southernmost Thailand, adjacent to Malaysia, than they do the methods used by Myanmar's other ethnic armies. Their preferred mode of operation is to mobilize hundreds of villagers armed with homemade weapons for attacks on state positions in the middle of the night.

ARSA militants are not well armed but have undergone intensive training in the hills and forests near the border with Bangladesh. The training includes use of firearms and explosives as well as physical exercises.

Video footage shows that these militants do have some AK-47, M-16, G3 and G4 assault rifles. They also recruit desperate Muslim villagers to launch attacks on army outposts. During clearance operations the police and army have faced massive numbers of villagers – in some cases they have been encircled by them – who were aided by militants, forcing security forces to return fire. The number of militants killed during the operation is believed to be high; the Bangladesh side has said over 3,000 were killed but Myanmar government estimates put the figure at hundreds killed in August and early September.

At a meeting with Bangladeshi officials in Naypyitaw this week, senior Myanmar police officers presented a list of over 1,000 terrorists believed to be taking refuge in Bangladesh and asked that they be handed over. So far Bangladesh has sent back four alleged Rohingya militants to Myanmar.

In October last year ARSA launched well-coordinated attacks on Myanmar Border Guard Police outposts, escaping with dozens of assault rifles and ammunition. It has been reported that since the attacks in August, ARSA has received a large amount of donations from groups in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, as well as international media coverage. However, the Myanmar government officially considers the group a terrorist organization, shutting the door to talks with them.

ARSA leaders claim they are fighting to secure the rights of the marginalized Rohingya people and to end decades-long oppression at the hands of the government. (In the early 1950s, Myanmar faced a mujahideen rebellion in northern Rakhine State by militant Muslim separatists. The Myanmar Army launched decisive operations against the mujahideen in northern Rakhine. The mujahideen leadership eventually surrendered to government forces.)

This week, ahead of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit, the army continued to deny atrocities and use of excessive force against Rohingya Muslims during clearance operations.

The report on an internal investigation led by Inspector-General of Defense Services Lt-Gen Aye Win was released on Monday. It stated that a team spent nearly a month on the ground gathering information and interviewing nearly 3,000 people, including Rakhine, Hindu and "Bengali" people (the term used for Rohingya in the report and by many others in the country to imply they are interlopers from Bangladesh).

The findings of the investigation stated that "all security members abided by the orders and directives of superior bodies, especially the rules of engagement-ROE in connection with the rights of self-defense and in discharging duties during the armed conflicts and anti-terrorist operations."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement saying the army's claim is contrary to a growing body of evidence to the contrary, and repeating calls for a UN fact-finding mission to be permitted entry to the region.

"The Burmese military's absurd effort to absolve itself of mass atrocities underscores why an independent international investigation is needed to establish the facts and identify those responsible," said HRW Asia Director Brad Adams. "The Burmese authorities have once again shown that they can't and won't credibly investigate themselves." HRW is right to say that the findings lack credibility.

But even as we condemn the human rights abuses and humanitarian problems in northern Rakhine State, insist on accountability from the army and government, and ask that independent organizations and media be allowed to travel to the restive region, we should not lose sight of the activities of ARSA and its network, its links to extremist groups, its financial resources, or the donors and political and strategic support groups standing behind it.

ARSA has connections with foreign extremist groups, despite its blanket denials of such accusations. For instance, Abdus Qadoos Burmi, a Pakistani of Rohingya descent, the group's mentor based in Karachi, has called for "jihad" in Myanmar and has well-documented links to Lashkar-e-Taiba (the Army of the Righteous), one of South Asia's largest Islamic terrorist organizations, whose operations are based mainly in Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Taiba was founded in Afghanistan in 1987 with funding from now deceased Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Abdus Qadoos has even appeared at meetings with Lashkar-e-Taiba supremo Hafiz Mohammed Syed.

Myanmar's neighbors India, China and Thailand, along with several other Asean countries, have been assisting Myanmar and its security forces on this issue, as they recognize the danger of terrorist operations and networks.

To combat terrorism, Myanmar's security forces will need assistance, intelligence sharing and training from neighboring countries that have gone through their own dark times with terrorists striking innocent people.

Like any government or armed forces, the Myanmar government and military has a responsibility to defend itself and its people, but innocent civilians must not be targeted.

The post Do Not Lose Sight of ARSA appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

UNFC Set to Meet Govt for 9th Round of Peace Talks in Yangon

Posted: 15 Nov 2017 04:06 AM PST

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — The United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), representing an alliance of five armed ethnic groups, and the government will meet for a ninth round of talks to pave the way for the bloc to sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), in Yangon's National Reconciliation and Peace Center on Thursday.

Following an eighth round of talks last week (Nov 8-9), the two sides said they were close to reaching an agreement on the UNFC's eight-point proposal – a list of key demands by bloc members to sign the NCA. The main sticking point is the future name of the country.

As the second point on their list, the UNFC has proposed that the country be officially described as the "Federal Democratic Union" but the government wants it to be the "Democracy and Federal Union."

The government delegation, which also includes representatives of the Tatmadaw, is opposed to starting with the designation "federal".

"It is because our generation has been indoctrinated to think of 'federal' to mean seceding from the union," said U Tun Zaw, a spokesman for the UNFC.

Whether the bloc will sign the NCA is "totally dependent on the negotiations during the ninth round of talks [tomorrow]," U Tun Zaw said. He added that the alliance was sticking to its position that it would not sign the NCA until every item in its eight-point proposal had been agreed.

"We are now close to signing the NCA, but we cannot say exactly when," said the UNFC's chairman, Naing Hong Sar, during a speech at a political dialogue framework review meeting between the UNFC's delegation for political negotiations (DPN) and the eight current signatories of the NCA on Monday in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The talks between the UNFC and the government have continued without conclusion despite the eight-point proposal having been around one and a half years.

"The main obstacle is the limitations regarding policy. If this rigidity continues," Tun Zaw said, "hurdles will persist during the negotiations."

Prior to their departure to Yangon, the senior leaders of the bloc discussed the advantages and impacts of signing the NCA at a executive committee meeting in Chiang Mai on Tuesday, where the top leadership of the five member organizations – the New Mon State Party (NMSP), Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), Lahu Democratic Union (LDU), Arakan National Council (ANC) and the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP) – were present.

The SSPP has asked to withdraw from the UNFC, but they are still taking part in the group's activities, as their request to leave has not been formally approved.

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Challenges Impede Development of Myanmar’s Public Health

Posted: 15 Nov 2017 02:49 AM PST

YANGON — Myanmar's de facto leader and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly singled out the minister for health and sports as one of the few Cabinet members whose performance she has been consistently satisfied with since taking office nearly two years ago. Despite this praise, however, after decades of institutional neglect of public services by the military junta, the public health sector still regularly faces criticism for being understaffed and providing substandard care.

"The health status of the Myanmar population is poor and compares unfavorably with other countries in the region," the Health and Sports Ministry acknowledged in its recently launched 2017-2021 National Health Plan.

Human resources constitute a critical input into the health system if it is to ensure access to quality care. For that reason, the plan cites a lack of human resources, skill imbalances, inequitable distribution of services, and difficulties in rural retention of medical personnel as being among the ministry's main challenges.

Myanmar's key health care performance indicators — maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and life expectancy at birth — are among the worst in Southeast Asia, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data.

The MMR is the annual number of female deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes). It includes deaths during pregnancy, during childbirth, and within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy. The column chart below shows the MMR ratios (2015) of ASEAN countries, with Myanmar's being the second highest in the region.

Small Budget Allocation  

Health care spending accounts for just 5.23 percent of Myanmar's total budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year, which is an improvement over past years but still extremely low by global and regional standards. The charts below show the comparison of Asean countries' health expenditure and the Myanmar government's budget allocation on health and sport, and defense. 

Uneven Distribution of Health Care Workers

According to the ministry, there were 1.33 health workers (doctors, nurses and midwives) per 1,000 people – well below the WHO's minimum recommended threshold of 2.3 – as of November 2016. In terms of distribution, health workers were largely concentrated in Yangon, Mandalay and other urban areas.

The map below shows the distribution of health care workers and health facilities throughout the country according to data from the ministry. The darker shade represents a higher population per hospital bed.

The chart below shows the uneven distribution of doctors throughout the country, both in the public and private sectors.

The main reasons most health workers don't want to work in rural areas are: a lack of incentives, including very low salaries, from the government; lack of health facilities; and the challenge posed by a low ratio of health workers to patients, according to doctors working at public hospitals who talked to The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity.

Such a challenging work environment allows no study time, they said. Many medical personnel who wish to become specialist physicians must concurrently prepare to apply for graduate programs while completing their required public service, said a 25-year-old assistant surgeon at Yangon's Insein General Hospital.

"If the government sends me to a rural area, I won't go until I have completed the process of becoming a specialist with a graduate degree, and no longer need to spend time studying," she told The Irrawaddy.

The assistant surgeon said her only aim in working at a government hospital was to complete the service needed to qualify for a graduate course and become a specialist.

Shortage of Personnel, Despite Student Intake

Five medical universities across the country admit a total of around 1,500 students per year, while two nursing universities in Yangon and Mandalay admit around 400 students each year. The chart below shows the number of undergraduate students produced by medical schools overseen by the Ministry of Health and Sports.

Low job satisfaction related to the poor working environment and low pay at public hospitals prompts some to join the private sector, said a 28-year-old doctor who recently joined a non-governmental organization that works in public health.

"With such an unbalanced ratio of human resources to workload, doctors can't provide quality care to patients, which affects their profession's image," he told The Irrawaddy.

"As a result, the profession no longer enjoys the trust and respect that it once did from the public. This causes doctors to quit working in the public service and join the non-governmental sector," he said.

The graph below shows the percentage of physicians who don't contribute to the public health care sector after graduation for various reasons.

According to the ministry's Nursing Department, the more than 1,000 public hospitals across the country require a minimum of 35,000 nurses. But about 43 percent of these nursing positions are vacant, with only about 20,000 nurses serving in government facilities.

Public/Private Sector Wage Differential 

Medical students have to invest seven years of their lives studying, including a year of house surgeon training, to obtain an M.B., B.S. degree, while nursing students spend four years studying for their B.N.Sc degrees. A medical graduate can expect to earn a minimum of 1,000,000 kyats (approx. US$800) at non-governmental organizations or UN agencies, but only 250,000 kyats (approx. US$185) at public hospitals. The chart below shows the basic salaries of physicians and nurses working at government facilities.

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BGB Urges Myanmar Govt to Repatriate Rohingya Refugees as Soon as Possible

Posted: 15 Nov 2017 12:36 AM PST

NAYPYITAW — The Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) has urged the Myanmar government to repatriate as soon as possible more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees back into Rakhine State's Maungdaw at the fourth central level meeting on security and law enforcement of the two countries on Tuesday.

The mass exodus of Muslim refugees has caused a "burden" to Bangladesh, said director-general Abul Hossain of the BGB, urging the Myanmar government to stop the mass immigration of Muslim refugees and begin repatriation efforts quickly.

The Myanmar government has, however, voiced doubt as to the figure of 600,000 cited by UN human rights observers and international media.

The Myanmar authorities have asked the BGB to recheck the figure and compile an accurate list of refugees, said Police Brig-Gen Aung Htay Myint, the head of the cross-border crime department of the Myanmar Police Force, who participated in the meeting.

"We have our immigration data to check if refugees lived here. We have an agreement that we will accept them back if they have actually lived here," said police Brig-Gen Aung Htay Myint.

Details about the repatriation will be discussed during the upcoming Bangladeshi foreign minister's visit to Myanmar, he said.

The Myanmar government has invited Bangladeshi foreign minister Abul Hassan Mahmud Ali to Myanmar from Nov. 16-18, but the visit has not yet been confirmed.

"We expect to sign a memorandum of understanding when the Bangladeshi foreign minister comes. We expect to discuss repatriation policies in detail, and we'll form joint committees to verify and repatriate according to those policies," he added.

The BGB director-general lamented that drones and helicopters from Myanmar crossed the border in October, and that Myanmar border guard police detained some Bangladeshi fishermen.

The Myanmar government has handed over a list of more than 1,000 suspects who were reportedly involved in the attacks in Maungdaw and fled to Bangladesh, and the Bangladeshi government has handed over four suspects, according to police Brig-Gen Aung Htay Myint.

The BGB director-general said that his country had never and would not accept any unlawful organization, insurgents or terrorists on its soil.

"Myanmar wishes to start the negotiation as soon as possible. The more the negotiation is deferred, the longer delay it will cause in the repatriation process," said U Zaw Htay, director-general of the President's Office.

The Tuesday meeting discussed bilateral cooperation in border security and law, illegal fishing, smuggling through the border, and establishment of a Border Liaison Office (BLO), according to a joint statement.

Present at the meeting were high-ranking officials of the Myanmar Police Force led by Police Brig-Gen Myo Swe Win, members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population, and high ranking officials of Bangladesh's Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Court Case Begins Against Naypyitaw Municipal Officials

Posted: 14 Nov 2017 11:58 PM PST

MANDALAY — The Mandalay Region Supreme Court began hearing a lawsuit against two officials from the Naypyitaw Council on Tuesday.

The municipal officials were arrested and sued under the 2013 Anti-Corruption Law for taking bribes from butchers in October.

On Monday, the court heard from plaintiff U Aung Myint Kyaw, a member of the investigation committee from Naypyitaw's anti-corruption commission. The accused, Dr. Khaing Soe Hla, a deputy director general from the veterinary and butchery department of the Naypyitaw municipal council, appeared in court.

During the court session, U Aung Myint Kyaw told the court that the deputy director general took 5,500,000 kyats from two butchers, as a bribe for permission to reopen their shops, which had been forced to close.

"We received complaints from the butchers, which they submitted with photos of Dr. Khaing Soe Hla accepting money from them," said U Aung Myint Kyaw, during the court session.

"We investigated and found out that he accepted the bribe, so, we cooperated with police to arrest him under Article 56 of the Anti-Corruption Law," he added.

In a separate case, U Min Lwin Soe, a deputy director general from the market department of the Naypyitaw municipal council, was sued under the same law for taking 3,000,000 kyats as a bribe from the same butchers.

The case against U Min Lwin Soe will be heard at the same court on Wednesday.

If found guilty, the minimum sentence for the crime is two years imprisonment.

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Tillerson to Press Myanmar Army Chief to Halt Violence so Rohingya Can Return

Posted: 14 Nov 2017 08:13 PM PST

YANGON — US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will stress the need to halt violence and stabilize Rakhine State when he meets the head of Myanmar's military on Wednesday in a bid to ease the Rohingya refugee crisis, a senior State Department official said.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since late August, driven out by a counter-insurgency clearance operation of Myanmar forces in Rakhine. A top UN official has called the operation a textbook case of "ethnic cleansing."

Attending an East Asia summit in Manila on Tuesday, Tillerson met Myanmar leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose less than two-year-old civilian administration shares power with the military and has no control over its generals.

He will meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi again in the Myanmar capital of Naypyitaw on Wednesday, and hold separate talks with the head of the armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

Asked what approach Tillerson would take with Myanmar's army chief, the State Department official told journalists in a briefing by teleconference that the emphasis would be on restoring peace in Rakhine.

"We are focusing on trying to stabilize areas in northern Rakhine so that people can return there, stopping the violence, making sure that the military would protect all populations in that area equally and that they conduct a credible investigation that leads to accountability for people who have perpetrated abuses," said the official, who was with Tillerson in Manila and declined to be identified.

The official said the consequences for the country, also known as Burma, if it failed to respond to the crisis with accountability could be part of the conversation with the military leader.

"Burma made a lot of progress and we would not want to see that progress reversed," the official added.

US senators in Washington are pressing for economic sanctions and travel restrictions targeting the Myanmar military and its business interests.

"The secretary will reiterate support for Burma's democratic transition and urge the Burmese government to protect the local population and allow unhindered humanitarian and media access, [and] support for a credible investigation of abuses," the official added.

Accusations of organized mass rape and other crimes against humanity were leveled at the Myanmar military on Sunday by another senior UN official who had toured camps in Bangladesh where Rohingya refugees have taken shelter.

'Whitewash'

Pramila Patten, special representative of the UN secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, said she would raise accusations against the Myanmar military with the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

The military, known as the Tatmadaw, has consistently protested its innocence, and on Monday it posted the findings of an internal investigation on the Facebook page of Min Aung Hlaing.

It said it had found no instances where its soldiers had shot and killed Rohingya villagers, raped women or tortured prisoners. It denied that security forces had torched Rohingya villages or used "excessive force."

The military said that, while 376 "terrorists" were killed, there were no deaths of innocent people.

Human rights groups poured scorn on the military's investigation, branding it a "whitewash" and calling for UN and independent investigators to be allowed into Myanmar.

"The Burmese military's absurd effort to absolve itself of mass atrocities underscores why an independent international investigation is needed to establish the facts and identify those responsible," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Amnesty International also dismissed the military's internal investigation. "There is overwhelming evidence that the military has murdered and raped Rohingya and burned their villages to the ground," the London-based rights group said.

The government in mostly Buddhist Myanmar regards the Muslim Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

And Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's failure to speak out strongly over their plight has widely damaged the Nobel Peace Prize winner's international reputation as a stateswoman.

Many diplomats, however, believe Myanmar's fragile transition to democracy after 49 years of military rule would be jeopardized if she publicly criticized the armed forces.

"Both parts of the government will have to work together in order to solve this problem…Trying to get two of them to work together, to try to solve the problem, is certainly going to be very important," the US official said.

The US official said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had been forthcoming in her talks with Tillerson and others during the past few days about the steps that needed to be taken to improve the situation, including plans for the voluntary repatriation of Rohingya.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were among those she met in Manila to discuss the Rohingya crisis.

"This is a tremendous concern to Canada and to many, many countries around the world," Trudeau told a news conference.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged up to 117 billion yen ($1 billion) of development aid to Myanmar in his meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

While world leaders wrung their hands, thousands of Rohingya remained stranded in Myanmar, on beaches around the mouth of the Naf River, hoping to find a boat to make the short, sometimes perilous crossing to Bangladesh.

"They’re still coming, risking their lives, driven by fears of starvation and violence," Shariful Azam, a police official in Bangladesh’s Cox's Bazar, a narrow spit of land where the world's most urgent humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

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Japan’s Abe Offers $1 Billion in Rural Aid to Myanmar’s State Counselor

Posted: 14 Nov 2017 08:03 PM PST

TOKYO — Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday pledge up to 117 billion yen ($1.03 billion) of development aid to Myanmar in a meeting in Manila with government leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The package of low-interest loans will be used to fund projects including infrastructure and small company financing meant to help improve rural incomes, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a release.

The aid pledge comes as Myanmar comes under intense criticism from human rights groups, the United Nations and other countries for a counter-insurgency operation that has sparked an exodus of more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh since August.

Abe and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are in the Philippines for an Association of South East Asian Nations conference including other regional leaders.

While there, Suu Kyi, whose administration has no control over the security forces under a constitution drafted during military rule, discussed the Rohingya crisis with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

China and the United States also compete for influence in Myanmar.

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Meetings With Northern Groups Make No Progress on Peace Talks

Posted: 14 Nov 2017 05:56 PM PST

CHIANG MAI, Thailand – A government peace delegation led by Border Affairs Minister Lt-Gen Ye Aung failed to make any progress towards establishing peace talks with Myanmar's northeastern-based ethnic armed groups over the weekend.

The government delegation, which included high-level military leaders, met separately with the leaders of the United Wa State Party/United Wa State Army (UWSP/UWSA) and Mongla's National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) in Special Region No. 2 and No. 4 respectively on Nov. 11 and 12 to discuss regional development, state-run newspapers reported on Tuesday.

The UWSP/UWSA said the meeting discussed ways to build mutual trust, as well as political issues and matters related to development.

"Regarding political discussions, the government delegation urged the UWSP/UWSA to sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement [NCA]," Nyi Rang from the UWSA's Lashio Liaison Office posted on his Facebook page on Tuesday evening. The UWSA responded "to continue according to the political dialogue framework drafted by the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC)," which was shared with the government's Peace Commission in May last year.

The FPNCC continues to assert the need for an alternative process to the NCA, which was drafted with the involvement of 16 ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), excluding the Wa and Mongla, over a period of almost two years and signed by eight of 21 government recognized EAOs in October 2015. More than two years after the signing and implementation of the NCA, the National League for Democracy-led government has yet to make peace with non-signatories of the NCA.

No specific peace proposals were discussed at the meetings over the weekend, according to sources close to the northern-based groups, despite the government's repeated insistence that it is doing its best to hold talks with active ethnic armed groups in northern Shan State and Kachin State.

"Their positions are diametrically opposed, so it is hard for the two sides [the government and the ethnic armed groups] to hold face-to-face talks," said U Maung Maung Soe, a political analyst familiar with ethnic affairs.

"The door to talks will remain closed as long as the government and the Tatmadaw [Myanmar's military] do not accede to the FPNCC's request [to meet them as a bloc] and do not consider holding at least informal meetings with the group," he said.

According to sources close to the Wa and Mongla, the government delegation brought up the issue of further peace talks with the groups. However, the talk did not go further as the government maintained its condition that talks could only be held with the groups individually, rather than with the FPNCC.

The Facebook post included a demand that the government take steps to reverse the Shan State Parliament's 2016 classification of three members of the FPNCC – Kokang's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta'ang Nationalities Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) – as "terrorist organizations."

A post on Nyi Rang's Facebook page said the government and Wa delegations discussed possible further collaboration to build mutual trust and support for the region's development.

The Wa first requested such support when they travelled to Naypyitaw to meet State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in July last year.

Among specific topics discussed at the weekend discussions were the possibility of the government supplying materials [tar] to build new roads within Wa-controlled areas; possible plans for a 60,000 MW hydropower plant in Mong Tong Township in Mongmaw District; and the issuance of national identity cards to students in Wa state to enable them to continue their higher education in Lashio, Mandalay and Yangon.

The UWSP reiterated that "its vice chairman Xiao Minliang (Tax Ngox) vows that the Wa state will never secede from the territory of the Union of Myanmar," a promise the Wa has made to the government since last year.

The Wa were granted a self-administrative zone under the 2008 military-authored Constitution along with five other minority groups: the Palaung (Ta'ang), Kokang, PaO, Danu and Naga.

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