Fresh offensive in Kachin State raise doubts about military’s commitment to ceasefire process

Friday, April 25th, 2014

Nai Hongsar at a recent UNFC meeting (Photo: Facebook)

Khitar Non – For government troops to continue launching attacks in Kachin State at this time casts serious suspicion on the military's commitment to the on-going nationwide ceasefire talks,

said Nai Hongsar, the General Secretary of United Nationalities Federation Council (UNFC), in a recent interview with IMNA.

The UNFC called an emergency meeting on April 21st and 22nd in Chiang Mai to discuss the fresh outbreak of fighting. After the meeting, assembled media were told that the UNFC would soon be releasing an official statement concerning the ongoing fighting in Kachin State.

"Because the military continues to launch attacks in the Kachin area, tensions are increasing between the two sides during the nationwide ceasefire talks" said Nai Hongsar. "The Burma Army should not be launching offensives like this" he added.

At the emergency meeting the UNFC delegates revisited the agreement to establish a Joint Nationwide Ceasefire Drafting Working Group signed by both the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) and Union Peace-making Working Committee (UPWC) last month. There was discussion as to whether some points should be negotiated further.

Looking forward to future negotiations, it was decided thatthere are some points that UNFC cannot accept, including "to accept and practice the already-exist law[s]" and "to accept and practice the 2008 constitution and to fix [the constitution] according to public wishes as in allowed in the constitution" said Nai Hongsar.

From April 5th to 8th, the NCCT and UPWC met in Rangoon to begin the work of drafting a single nationwide ceasefire agreement text.

"Last October in Myitkyina, there was an agreement between the government's delegation and the Kachin Independence Organization for both sides to lessen the fighting. The recent Burma Army offensives will be detrimental to any future discussions since the government has broken their promise and continues to attack us" said Kachin Independence ArmyDeputy Chief of Staff General Gun Maw.

According to the Myanmar Peace Center, the NCCT and UPWC will meet again during the first week of May to continue drafting a single nationwide ceasefire agreement text.

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