Joint strategic meet declared a success

No.11 - 2/2007
26 February 2007
Politics
 
Joint strategic meet declared a success
 
Unity among Burma's opposition forces has been strengthened as a result of three days of consultation, an elated spokesman for the strategic meeting held on the Thai-Burma border from 21-23 February told S.H.A.N. today.
 
"We share identical goals," said U Thein Oo, Member of Parliament elected in 1990. "The gap among us lies with our different strategies. The meeting has certainly succeeded in closing the gap among us."
 

^{U Thein Oo}
He named three areas where agreement was reached among dissident movements, which included National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) and Womens' League of Burma (WLB), among others:

• A 10-point criteria for humanitarian assistance ("All of us agreed that there exists a serious humanitarian crisis in Burma. Our common concern was how to prevent the junta from exploiting the crisis to its advantage at the expense of the people")

• To draw up a n effective mechanism to deal with the issue of sanctions against military Burma

• To set up conditions for the formation of a federal government

Which were in contrast with the joint statement that came out in the wake of the groups' sixth meeting:

• The SPDC's Road Map must be attacked and destroyed at every step by people's power (The National Convention would only "provide the military clique with license to murder")

• To ask Burma's neighbors to "consult with the international community and undertake actions more dynamically"

• To struggle on firmly together for the advent of democracy and the federal union

The groups will be meeting again soon for further consultation, according to Thein Oo.
 
The first strategic meeting among Burma's diverse groups began in 2001. Before the meeting, a number of Burma watchers in Thailand had expressed their desire to see a unified opposition with a "realistic" program.
 
The late Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (1939-2004), a few months before his death had exhorted all of his fellow dissidents to fight smart: "Our task is not only to say or to show the world that the SPDC is BAD, BAD, BAD. It is also to convince the world that we are the available alternative, that we are smart, we get things done, that we are doers, not an audience that sits by the ringside and curses and boos, or cheers as it sees fit."