Myanmar: ‘Good start’, but no deal at major peace talks

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar

An initial session of a major peace conference aimed at ending “the world's longest-running civil war” ended Saturday without Myanmar’s government and ethnic rebel groups engaging in a discussion or signing a deal.

The government led by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has been holding the Union Peace Conference with 17 out of 21 ethnic armed organizations in the political capital Nay Pyi Taw since Wednesday.

The government, for which Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi has made peace and national reconciliation a priority, had agreed with rebels to hold the conference every six months.

The vice chairman of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an umbrella association of 11 armed groups, told Anadolu Agency on Saturday that the first meeting aimed at allowing each group to present their own views.

“Therefore no agreement or deal is made this time,” said Naing Hantha.

“We even don’t make any discussion at the conference,” he added. “Anyway the conference is a good start, and we are going to build mutual trust gradually through the meetings.”

Suu Kyi described the peace conference as just part of the peace-building process.

“We need to work hard constantly in order to achieve our goal of peace,” she said Saturday, stressing that stakeholders should not worry when discussions and criticisms of the country’s problems were made freely at the conference.

“It would be dangerous if only we pretend there’s no problem here,” she told the conference on its final day.

Most ethnic groups and militias have been calling for amendments to the country’s current junta-drafted constitution, seeking the establishment of a federal democratic union with equality for all ethnic peoples along with the right to determine their own fate and preserve their languages and cultures.

Naing Hantha, who is also a leader of the opposition New Mon State Party, said his group had proposed changing the country’s official name, underlining that both its current name “Myanmar” and former name “Burma” represent only the Bamar -- the major ethnic group in the country.

“Our country deserves a new name, not the old ones which seem to discriminate minority ethnic groups other than Bamar ethnic,” he told Anadolu Agency.

However concerns are rising among the public after a delegation from the largest rebel group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA) which has 20,000-25,000 troops, left the conference Thursday -- citing “discrimination” after being informed that they had been accredited as only observers rather than speakers.

Organizers, however, insisted that the accreditation was due to a mix-up regarding badges and sent a written apology to the leader of UWSA, which governs No (2) Special Region in eastern Shan State, requesting the militia’s understanding toward the shortcomings faced by conference managers.

The conference was the second most important meeting between the government and ethnic rebels in Myanmar’s history.

The Union Peace Conference is also named the 21st-Century Panglong after a historic meeting between the country’s independence leader Gen. Aung San -- Suu Kyi’s father -- and some ethnic leaders in 1947, which committed the country to a federal state.

Since Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948, it has seen over a half-century of armed conflict, with ethnic rebels embarking on a longstanding battle for greater autonomy and self-administration.