Law Khee Lar EAO summit: Day to Day

Day One. 2 June 2015
17 out of 21 EAOs attend. Chairs: Mutu, N’Banla and Khun Myint Tun.

Gen Mutu Saypoe reading out opening speech, 2 June 2015.

Chair message: NCA will pave the way for political dialogue. Pragmatist approach is the driving principle for  negotiation.
Nambiar and Sun Guoxiang: as already reported by agencies.
Nai Hongsa delivers NCCT report.
Saw Mra Raza Lin reads out NCA draft.
Questions for NCCT:

• Did the NCCT have mandate?
• What if we do not get the desired outcome at PD?
• Why some articles are left to be negotiated later?
• Can the draft be changed? etc.

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Day Two. 3 June 2015
Chairs: N’Banla, Khaing Re Khaing, Pu Lian Uk

UN special representative Vijay Nambiar reading out message to conference, 2 June 2015

Chair: Government promise for federal union has no substance, as shown by continued offensives against EAOs.
Each EAO reads out assessments and recommendations on NCA:

• change of words
• registration with an international body
• inclusiveness

NCCT response:
We have not sacrificed the principles laid down by previous EAO summits. When we could not get agreement we made a condition that it should negotiated again in future. Some NCCT members did not appear to inform their own EAOs properly. NCCT could work on what was mandated. It was not mandated to reduce armed conflicts that took place during negotiations. One reason for the NCCT to try to get a final draft at the 7th meeting was because of information that the UPWC had run out of mandate.
37 out of 40 points for the COC  (Code of Conduct) that came out of previous EAO summits are in the draft. But for JMC (Joint Monitoring Committees), more work still needs to be done.

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Day Three. 4 June 2015
Chairs: Abel Tweed, Zipporah Sein, Kya Khun Sa

Gen N’ Banla, Chair for the second day, 3 June 2015.

Chair: Political battle will be harder than gun battle. Experience shows armed conflict will lead to no end. Political problems should be solved by political means. Equality, Right of Self Determination and genuine federal union are our common goal.
Main agenda is to go through recommendations put forward by EAOs. Copies of document combining all their suggestions is distributed.
Discussions today cover chapters 1,2,3. Hot issues include :

• Panglong spirit or agreement
• “According to the outcome of Political Dialogue”,
• “Those who should participate in Political Dialogue”
• Security related reintegration and

Hot debate follows.
Summit forms 19 person committee to lead the Summit.

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Day Four. 5 June 2015.
Chairs: Khaing Soe Naing Aung, Dr Laja, Nai Aung Min. Chair urges summit to stick to tripartite principle.
Continues EAOs’ recommendations to amend the NCA draft:

Abel Tweed, Chair for Day Three, 4 June 2015.

• Security related reintegration (Chapter 3,Article 6)
• In accordance with the law (Chapter 3,Article 9)
• NGOs and INGOs to get government permission to assist the IDPs
• Whether COC should be included in detail in NCA text or separately
  Chinese representatives leave.

Another day of hot debate.

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Day Five. 6 June 2015
Chairs: Khun Myint Tun, Sao Perng Fa, Khun Maha.
Chair: The NCCT has built a bridge for all of us to cross.
Nambiar calls on both government and EAOs to be flexible in order to make great changes. He leaves today.
Discussions continue:

The NCCT members, 4 June 2015.

• DDR—Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (Chapter 5,Article 20c)
• Women’s 30 percent participation

They have covered chapters 4, 5, 6. Temperature 37 degree. All will try to wind up tomorrow.

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Day Six. 7 June 2015

Chairs: Mutu Saypoe, Nai Hongsa, Dr Khin Maung.

Today’s session manages to review all NCA chapters based on EAOs’ recommendations. No group is against signing, declares Nai Hongsa.

Day Seven is expected to touch on draft framework for political dialogue, setting up of high level supervisory body similar to the government’s Union Peacemaking Central Committee (UPWC), and the Conference statement.

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Respect each other, going to build "Federal Union"

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Karen leaders at Panghsang conference call for joint supervisory body

The Karen National Union(KNU), attending the first day of the Panghsang conference, urged 11 other participating movements to consider a joint supervisory body to oversee the peace process.

” Having a  joint political leading body will confer more bargaining power to our cause,” the paper read out by a KNU delegate is quoted as saying.” At the same time, this body will also listen to and address the aspirations of smaller ethnic groups.”

The KNU had first put forward the proposal at the Ethnic Armed Organizations(EAO) Conference in Laiza,30 October- 2 November 2013. The decision however was that the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team(NCCT) formed by the EAO Conference would be accountable only to the EAO Conference.

It remains to be seen how the 6-day meeting of the 12 major groups will decide on it.

Other proposals made yesterday included:

• For all the EAOs, and not just those currently recognized by Naypyitaw to sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement(NCA)
• Immediate ceasefire in Kokang followed by the setting up of a Ceasefire Supervisory Committee  and a peacekeeping force
• Sympathy, understanding and support for the Wa call for a separate state within the Union

An official request through the Panghsang  Summit to include Kokang, Arakan Army and Ta-ang in the process to finalize the NCA draft will be reviewed by the government, reports the RFA on 30 April, quoting U Hla Maung Shwe, advisor to the government affiliated Myanmar Peace Center.

According to the source, the following is the conference agenda:
30 April       Welcome dinner
1-2 May         Discussions by participating movements
3     May        Break
4      May       Discussions by participating movements
5      May       Visit to Mongmai’s tea and coffee plantations
6      May       Review and approval of conference statement.
Farewell dinner

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Local people ask for ethnic armed unite and fight to Min Aung Hlaing Burmese Army During the second day of Twelve ethnic armed groups summit

Local people ask for ethnic armed unite and fight to Min Aung Hlaing Burmese Army During the second day of Twelve ethnic armed groups summit.

"The Local Ethnic Armed United, Beat Min Aung Hlaing Souces Attack"

ပန္ဆန္း ထိပ္သီး ညီလာခံ က်င္းပေနစဥ္ ပန္ခမ္း ေဒသခံျပည္သူ မ်ား မွ တိုင္းရင္းသား ေခါင္းေဆာင္ မ်ား အား မင္း ေအာင္လိုင္ စစ္တပ္ ကို ၀ိုင္းတိုက္ ေပးၾကပါ ရန္ ေတာင္းဆို

Photo @ Lachid Ka Chin Facebook 

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Twelve ethnic armed groups meet to discuss nationwide ceasefire

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) " Ethnic rebel group leaders began meeting Friday in northeastern Myanmar to discuss how to end the current fighting in the region and finalize a nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government.

The meeting which was taking place in Panghsang, the stronghold of the militarily powerful ethnic Wa group is attended by about 50 representatives from 12 ethnic armed groups including the Wa group. Meanwhile in a nearby region, fierce clashes between Kokang guerrillas and government troops have left hundreds killed.

At the same time, an alliance of more than a dozen ethnic minority groups has been holding talks with the government to end decades of fighting for autonomy.

The government's continued clashes with the Kokang have caused the ethnic alliance to distrust the sincerity of President Thein Sein's regime. Neither the Kokang nor their Wa hosts have been part of the government's talks but both were taking part in Friday's consultations.

The government strongly opposed the participation of the Kokang but leaders of the United Wa State Army invited them "so that we can help discuss and negotiate a speedy cessation of fighting in Kokang region," Wa spokesman Aung Myint told The Associated Press by phone.


In his opening speech, Wa chairman Pau Yu Chan said, "Nationwide ceasefire agreements are merely words on papers as long as ethnic conflicts continue." He said all ethnic minorities want to live in peace and build a prosperous and developed nation but ethnic minorities suffer due to more than half a century of ethnic conflict.

The issues discussed would relate to peace and stability in ethnic regions, the Wa spokesman said. "We want peace in the ethnic regions because development cannot be achieved without stability," Aung Myint added.

His viewpoint was endorsed by government peace negotiator Hla Maung Shwe, who said, "I believe that the Wa leaders will help find a way to end the conflict in its region " especially the ongoing conflict between the government and Kokang rebels."

He was referring to the fighting between Kokang rebels and government troops in Laukkai region near Chinese border, which broke out in early February.

"If the ethnic leaders summit can find a practical solution to end armed conflict, it could help bring about a more meaningful and inclusive ceasefire agreement," noted Yan Myo Thein, a writer and political analyst.

The Wa and the Kokang were the fighting force of the now-defunct Burma Communist Party about four decades ago and along with four other ethnic groups have their own designated self-administered areas stipulated in constitution.

It is the first time the Wa have hosted such a meeting in their capital as the government and 16 other ethnic armed groups inch toward signing a historic ceasefire accord.

"The conference will not have an adverse impact on the ceasefire agreement talks but it is likely to cause slight delay," said Aung Naing Oo, a program director for the non-partisan Myanmar Peace Center.

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