This is the first time that such a peace process has been initiated in the seventy-year history of conflict and division between the Union Government and armed ethnic groups.
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Wednesday’s meeting comes nearly 70 years after Suu Kyi’s father, independence hero Aung San, signed a landmark agreement to devolve powers to some ethnic groups after independence.
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has come under fire from global rights groups for failing to address the plight of the Rohingya.
The still-powerful military has also strongly opposed talks with three groups – the Arakan Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army – which fought it in the remote Kokang area past year.
In a joint statement, both sides resolved to strengthen defence cooperation, including enhanced cooperation between their security forces and border-guarding agencies “which is crucial to maintaining peace and stability along the long Indo-Myanmar border”.
Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon (R) greets the audience upon arrival with his wife Ban Soon-taek (2nd R) and Ho Kwon Ping (2nd L) Chairman of Singapore Management University at the Ho Rih Hwa Leadership in Asia Public Lecture Series in Singapore on August 29, 2016. “Like all people everywhere, they need and deserve a future, hope and dignity”, he said. “We just want equal rights and to live together and collaborate like brothers”.
News of the fighting underscored the biggest question for Suu Kyi and her government: How far is the military, which holds 25% of all parliamentary seats and a veto on constitutional change, prepared to heed any ceasefire agreements and support the concepts of federalism and greater autonomy for ethnic minority states?
The organizing committee for Myanmar’s Panglong Conference held a meeting in the capital Naypyidaw on Monday to discuss the final preparations for major negotiations with armed ethnic groups in a bid to end decades of ethnic separatist civil wars.
A large number of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in attacks by extremists who call themselves Buddhists.
All members of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an alliance of nine ethnic armed groups that did not sign a nationwide cease-fire agreement with the previous government last October, will attend the peace conference in order to participate in political dialogue so it can push for the formation of a federal union in Myanmar. Given the complexity of the issues in a country with scores of ethnic groups the inaugural conference is simply a “crucial first step” in the country’s “new, democratic era”, as one government negotiator put it.
The 21st Century Panglong Conference is an attempt to end multiple rebel insurgencies that have been waged in Myanmar since the country’s independence in 1948.
Casting a shadow over the summit is a recent flare up in fighting in the country’s north and ongoing clashes in the north east. Suu Kyi has dictated a faster pace for the talks than her military-linked predecessors. The groups have said they can not, citing continued pressure from the army.
Ethnic delegates have complained about what they saw as an arbitrary schedule set by the government.
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She has not consulted the groups about the date of the conference or the specific agenda, diplomats familiar with the situation said.
