The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has rejected an offer of new peace talks from the Burmese government, according to a statement released on August 18.
The government’s offer was rejected because it did not include country-wide political dialogue but only talks with each individual ethnic armed group, according to Salang Kaba Lar Nan, Joint General Secretary-2 of the KIO.
Lar Nan told the Kachin News Group, “The peace offer announcement lacks political dialogue. The government wants to have talks using the military-centered 2008 Constitution. We ethnic armed groups will not talk under the 2008 Constitution.”
Repeatedly, the new government has offered the two-party talk policy to ethnic armed groups, which failed to solve political problems in the past six decades.
Lar Nan added, “We made bi-lateral talk with the Burmese Socialist Programme Party, State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), and State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Every round of talks failed.”
The KIO met with successive governments in 1963, 1972, 1980-81, 1994 and 2010, hoping to solve political problems by political means. Every meeting failed because the KIO was pressured to surrender its arms.
During its first press conference on August 12th, the new government denounced the 10 ethnic armed groups and members of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC)--- Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Chin, Mon, Shan, Wa, Laho, Palong and Pa-O, as “insurgents.”
The KIO rejected that characterization in a statement on Aug 17th.
The KIO, the leader of the UNFC ethnic political and military alliance, says it will discuss all political affairs with the government through the alliance.
Until now, peace negotiations have failed because the KIO desires to solve the country’s political problems based on the 1947 Panglong Agreement but the government is intent on negotiations based on the 2008 constitution.
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