Junta serves notice to ceasefire groups

Politics

Junta serves notice to ceasefire groups

A 13-point demand classified as terms of agreement reached between Rangoon and various armed opposition movements since 1989 had recently been doled out to the ceasefire groups by the Lashio-based Burma Army's Northeastern Region Commander, according to sources coming to the border:

The typed demand in Burmese was handed out to their representatives during a series of briefings that took place in the wake of the sudden removal from office of Gen Khin Nyunt on 18 October, said the source who had brought a copy to S.H.A.N. yesterday.

"The terms of agreement reached during the peace building period between the government and ethnic armed organizations" reads:

• Non-association with anti-government organizations

• Renunciation of armed struggle

• Non-expansion of current military strength, non-recruitment and end to military trainings

• Submission of detailed strength to facilitate support (from the government)

• Not to collect contributions and opium taxes

• Not to rob or abuse the people

• Movement must be under government supervision and to travel outside specified areas after (prior) notice and without arms

• Non-association with aboveground political parties

• Non-interference in the government's administrative, management and judicial affairs

• Determination of a specific site rather than a broad, sweeping area for planned development

• State assistance for (each group's) subsistence

• To reorganize, under state guidance, as armed organizations that shall safeguard public interests

• Effective assistance for the state's anti-narcotics efforts

"They are just a collection of demands and requests made to us during the course of our 15 year relationship with them," commented a former ceasefire group officer working in Thailand since 2002. "None of us groups would have agreed for a truce had they been delivered from the very beginning."

General Gauri Zau Seng, Vice President of Kachin Independence Organization, also denied the said conditions were included in the ceasefire pact signed between the two sides 10-years earlier. "There were three signatories from each party: the military, KIO and civilian peace sponsors," he recalled.

Gen Shwe Mann, Joint Chief of Staff, had recently stated that the Burma's military rulers had never made a signed agreement with any of the 17-ceasefire groups.

Mai Ai Hpong, General Secretary of the Palaung State Liberation Front, thought "the 13-points" was a representation of what Rangoon had in store for the ceasefire groups' future. "The generals just want them as components of the Burma Army," he remarked. "I fear the noose is tightening around the groups' neck.'"

S.H.A.N. however is unable to obtain statements from other groups.

Update:
The New Light of Myanmar, 14 November also reports Lt-Gen Thein Sein, Secretary-1, telling U Tha Htoo Kyaw, Chairman of DKBA, "to work together with the government within the framework of law."

Original "Terms of Agreement" in Burmese