Friday, November 7, 2014

Shan Herald Agency for News

Shan Herald Agency for News

BURMA PEACE PROCESS: UNFC is not naïve and the illogical total elimination line of reasoning

Posted: 07 Nov 2014 02:32 AM PST

The line of reasoning that is being aired to falsify intention of and bargaining position of the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAO) or particularly, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), made up of some twelve ethnic armed groups, for quite a while, following the slowing down, or near-stalled, peace process aimed at reaching a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) between the military-backed Burmese regime and the ethnic resistance forces.

The assumption that the UNFC's political manoeuvring is blocking the peace process has been in the air for sometimes. The logic behind this hypothesis is that UNFC is trying to drag the peace process until a new regime is installed after the 2015 election, so that it would not empower the present Thein Sein regime for its successful handling of NCA and pave way for him to win again in the forth-coming election. The line of reasoning goes that UNFC hopes, a more democratic regime, probably with the composition of National League for Democracy (NLD), headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, will be much easier to negotiate for more ethnic rights of self-determination.

The recent SHAN report of 6 November writes: Comparing with Sri Lanka, he – an unnamed academic, according to SHAN - thought that the Tamil Tigers had made a costly miscalculation. "At first they were dealing with a moderate government," he said. "And with all the concessions coming from it, they had overestimated their leverage.  We don't want the ethnic movements in Burma to make their own miscalculation.  Because after the 2015 elections, no one knows for sure how the balance of power will change."

But the problem is the EAO are not Tamil Tigers, who have limited space to manoeuvre. The ethnic resistance forces have been there for as long as more than six decades, with geographical advantage to conduct guerilla warfare for as long as they like to choose. While the Tamil Tigers only have sea around them and no where to flee, the EAO have outlets to neighbouring countries like Thailand, Laos, China, India and Bangladesh, with some of them openly or covertly harbouring the ethnic resistance forces for various reasons, notably, China and Thailand. Apart from that the terrain of the country is an ideal one to sustain a long time armed resistance. If the Burma Army cannot wipe out the EAO in more than 60 years of warfare, it is highly unlikely that it will be able to do so in the near future.

Although the successive Burmese military regimes and as well the civilian government of U Nu had embark on "total elimination" of the EAO since Burma independence from the British, the resistance to the Burmese center is not faltering but gaining momentum. Of course, this is not to glorify or boast that the EAO is unbeatable, but to drive home the point that no party is winning with this prolonged armed conflict and should not entertain the false hope that Burma Army could wiped out the ethnic resistance forces.

The core problem facing the stalled peace process is not that the UNFC is manoeuvring to out wit the Thein Sein regime, but rather it is not coming around to key issues and total denial of the ethnic aspiration of equality, democracy and rights of self-determination. The latest round of peace talks in September has already shown that the USDP-Military regime would not accept even the words of "federal union, federal army formation, rights of self-determination, resistance and revolution" to be put on for discussion at the political dialogue phase at a later date, much less accepting it altogether. Unfortunately, those are the ethnic political aspirations and they are not going to drop it easily just for the sake of signing the NCA, either to please and benefit the regime, or for that matter, to make President Obama, who will shortly be in Burma, happy so that he could leave the office with a good feeling that Burma is his regimes' foreign policy success.

Finally, it will be more appropriate to quote the letter of UNFC Chairman, General N' Ban La, dated 3 November 2014, which part of it writes:
" Additionally, we are not making demands that are outside of any fair peace agreement. The remaining issues in the peace process are critical to the success of any negotiated peace – the right of all ethnic nationalities to participate in a genuine federal union; a military code of conduct to govern conduct of both the Burma army troops and troops of the ethnic armed organizations during the period of nationwide ceasefire and political dialogue; post-ceasefire interim arrangements; measures for joint monitoring of the ceasefire; and a framework for post-ceasefire political dialogue. Frankly, ethnic armed resistance organizations would be both naïve and irresponsible to accept a ceasefire agreement that do not address each of these topics."

To conclude, it will do all of us good to refrain from airing such threatening and illogical line of reasoning that the ethnic resistance armies could be wiped out, if the already big-hearted government offers would be rejected, for the up-coming new regime, after the 2015 election, could be a hard-line one and would crack them down mercilessly. Instead, all those harbouring such line of reasoning should see the fact that there is absolutely no compromise from the part of the government, where ethnic political aspirations are concerned and as the UNFC Chairman puts it, they are not naïve and not about to sign the NCA just for the sake of signing it.

The contributor is ex-General Secretary of the dormant Shan Democratic Union (SDU) — Editor
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