January 12, 2021)

PEACE Info (January 12, 2021) − Calls For Myanmar Govt to Scrap Terrorist Label for Arakan Army − Another Meeting Between Myanmar’s NLD, Ethnic Party Collapses Over Venue Dispute − Military tensions grow between the Tatmadaw and the KIO/KIA in the post-election − Farmers Threatened to Accept Deal for Confiscated Land − Chin Government Criticized for Neglecting IDPs − China, Myanmar agree to accelerate construction of economic corridor − 70 kg of heroin seized in Myanmar's eastern state − �င�မ��ခ�မ��ရ�အတ�က� ကရင�အမ��သ��အ��လ�ံ� ပ�ဝင�ရန� ��စ�သစ�က��သဝဏ�လ��တ�င� KNU ဥက��တ��က�တ�န�� − အစ��ရ��င�� မ�က�ပ��င��အဖ��မ��ဆ��မည�� အခ��န��င�� နရ� အတည�မ�ပ��င��သ� − ပင�လ�ံ ကတ�ကဝတ�မ�� ဖ��ဆ�င�ရန� ကခ�င�လ�ငယ�မ�� တ��က�တ�န�� − တ��တ��င�ငံ�ခ��ရ�ဝန��က��န�� မန�မ�က�ခ��ပ� လ�ံ�ခ�ံ�ရ�၊ �င�မ��ခ�မ��ရ��ဆ�� − တ��တ��င�ငံ�ခ��ရ�ဝန��က�� ရခ��င�အ�ရ�န�� နယ�စပ�တည��င�မ��ရ� �ဆ�� − မ � �� လ � -�က��က��ဖ�ရထ��လမ��စ�မံက�န�� ဆက�လ�ပ�ဖ�� တ��တ�န��မန�မ� လက�မ�တ��ရ�ထ�� − နယ��ခ��စ�င��တပ�ဖ��တ� စ��ပ��ရ�မလ�ပ�ဖ�� တပ�မ�တ�� သတ��ပ� − နမ��ဆန��မ ��နယ� �ဒသခံ ၆ဦ� က�� KIA ဖမ��ဆ��ခ��ဆ�င�သ�� − နမ��လန��မ �� လင�မယ�� ၂ဦ��သနတ�ပစ�ခံရ၊ အမ��သမ��သဆ�ံ� − RCSS ��င�� TNLA စစ��ရ�တင��မ��နသည��က�� နမ�တ�စစ��ရ��င�မ�� စ��ရ�မ�စ�တ��ဖင��နရပ��ပန� − ၂၀၂၀-၂၀၂၁ ဘ�န��စ��က�ရ�သ�တ�င� ရ�မ��ပည�နယ� ခ��င� က��ခ��င�အတ�င�� ဘ�န��ခင�� ၈၇၅၃ ဧက�က�� ဖ�က�ဆ��ခ�� -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 1 of 24 Calls For Myanmar Govt to Scrap Terrorist Label for Arakan Army By Min Aung Khine | 12 January 2021 Arakan Army fighters. / Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy Sittwe, Rakhine State — A lawmaker from the Arakan National Party (ANP) submitted a proposal to the Rakhine State parliament on Monday, urging for the Arakan Army (AA) and its political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), to no longer be regarded as terrorist groups. “If permanent peace is to be built, the terrorist label must be removed as it poses obstacles to the peace process,” said U Tun Tha Sein, who put forward the proposal. The government declared the groups to be unlawful associations and terrorist organizations in March last year. The AA on Nov. 12 called on Myanmar’s military and government to hold elections in parts of Rakhine State where voting in the Nov. 8 general election was canceled for security reasons. Within hours, Myanmar’s military welcomed the AA’s request. Guns have fallen silent since then and residents are having a peaceful life for the first time in more than two years, said U Tun Tha Sein. “There were clashes for nearly two years, but after the two sides issued statements, there has been no gunfire. And people can live peacefully and farmers can harvest their paddy until late at night. These are the benefits of the ceasefire,” said the lawmaker. U Tun Tha Sein of the Arakan National Party. / Rakhine State Parliament U Kyaw Zaw Oo, the vice-chairman of Arakan Front Party and Rakhine State lawmaker for Sittwe Township, said the revocation of the AA status as a terrorist group is the precondition for the two sides to build peace. “Removing the ULA and AA from the terrorist group list is the first step in the peace process. Only after that step is taken, will we be able to move forward to further steps in solving the issues of Rakhine State. This is the view of our party,” he told The Irrawaddy. U Tun Aung Thein, a parliamentarian for Buthidaung Township, seconded the proposal and no one objected to the discussion. The Tatmadaw (military) and AA are in discussion about how to hold elections in areas of Rakhine State where voting was canceled on Nov. 8. Page 2 of 24 Voting was not held in Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Rathedaung, Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U, Minbya and Myebon townships and parts of the state capital, Sittwe, Kyaukpyu and Taungup townships. Translated from Burmese Thet Ko Ko https://www.irrawaddy.com/elections/calls-myanmar-govt-scrap-terrorist-label-arakan- army.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another Meeting Between Myanmar’s NLD, Ethnic Party Collapses Over Venue Dispute By San Yamin Aung | 12 January 2021 KySDP supporters stage a rally in Loikaw prior to the Nov. 8 election. / KySDP / Facebook YANGON—For the second time this month, a scheduled meeting between the National League for Democracy (NLD) and representatives of an ethnic political party to discuss plans for a federal union has fallen through due to a disagreement over the venue. This time the aborted meeting had been planned between the ruling party and the Kayah State Democratic Party (KySDP). Since its landslide victory in November’s general election, the NLD has been sending a delegation to ethnic states to hold talks on forming a national unity government with ethnic political parties as a step towards establishing a federal union. So far, however, only the delegation’s first such meeting—with a state-based ethnic party in Kachin State—has been held according to plan. Following that, a planned meeting with the Mon Unity Party (MUP) on Jan. 4 in Mon State was aborted, as the ruling party refused to budge on its insistence that the talks be held at its local office—a venue rejected as unacceptable by the MUP. On Tuesday, the exact same issue befell the planned meeting with the KySDP. The meeting between delegations of the NLD and KySDP was scheduled to be held at the NLD’s Kayah State office in Loikaw on Tuesday afternoon. The NLD delegation, which comprises three of the party’s senior leaders—Magwe Region Chief Minister Dr. Aung Moe Nyo, Karen State Chief Minister Daw Nan Khin Htwe Myint, who is also a member of the party’s Ethnic Affairs Committee, and Ntung Hka Naw Sam, the chair of the committee— arrived in Loikaw on Monday. KySDP general secretary Khu Theh Reh said on Tuesday the party demanded to meet at a neutral venue—ruling out either the NLD or the KySDP’s offices—but the NLD did not accept the proposal, leading to the meeting being scrapped. Page 3 of 24 “Dr. Aung Moe Nyo called me this [Tuesday] morning and asked to meet at their party’s office. I told him [we want] to meet at a third location. But he said the party had made the decision that it would hold talks [with ethnic parties] at its offices. Thus, they couldn’t change the venue,” Khu Theh Reh said. He said the KySDP proposed meeting at a neutral location as it believes such an arrangement would be more agreeable for both sides and allow them to talk more freely. “If our proposal [to change the venue] is accepted, we are willing to hold discussions with them about politics, ethnic issues and the formation of a new government,” he said. The KySDP was one of 34 political parties that met with military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing at the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Service’s office in Naypyitaw prior to the election. During the meeting, the parties sought assurances from the senior general that they could count on his help if the voting turned unfair. However, the KySDP later released a statement saying the decision to join the meeting with the military chief was made solely by the party’s chairman and did not have the support of the party as a whole. Khu Theh Reh accused the NLD of adopting a superior attitude as the winning party, claiming it wanted ethnic parties to be subordinate to it and that it simply made demands instead of seeking to collaborate. The NLD won 20 of 34 total parliamentary seats in Kayah State, including both Union and state parliament seats, while the KySDP won eight and the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party won six. However, in the state parliament, the NLD will require the support of the KySDP against the USDP and military-appointed lawmakers, as it failed to win a majority of the state legislature’s seats. Dr. Aung Moe Nyo said the delegation couldn’t change the proposed venue as the NLD’s Central Executive Committee made the decision to hold talks at the party’s state offices before dispatching the team. “We will go Taunggyi [in Shan State] tomorrow. As long as the central committee doesn’t direct us to change the venue, we will stick to it,” he said. He added that the delegation traveled to Kayah State as it wanted to listen to the voices and hear the wishes of ethnic parties. “Even in repressive times, we shared an understanding and all the allied ethnic parties met at the NLD’s office. We are not saying now to come to Yangon or Naypyitaw to meet us. We came here to listen to their voices. I want to request their understanding respectfully to meet at the [NLD’s] office,” he said. Additional reporting by Nan Lwin Hwin Pwint https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/another-meeting-myanmars-nld-ethnic-party- collapses-venue-dispute.html Page 4 of 24 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Military tensions grow between the Tatmadaw and the KIO/KIA in the post-election Tuesday, January 12, 2021 | by - Khaung Nyol (KNG) After the Tatmadaw carried out the attacks on a KIA camp in Waingmaw Township, with heavy weapons, a KIO official (Kachin Independence Organisation) spoke about escalating tensions between the Tatmadaw and the KIO and their armed wing the Kachin Independence Army (KIO/KIA) In the post-election period whereas the relations between the Arakan Army and the Tatmadaw in the post-election period has improved with a ceasefire now in place, their Northern alliance ally the KIA has been targeted by the Tatmadaw as a focus for military incursions into long standing territory under the control of the dissident armed force of the ethnic KIA.

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