PEACE Info (April 23, 2021) − NATION UNITY GOVERNMENT: Domestic unity and EAOs involvement key to success − ASEAN’s Exclusion of NUG in Summit Disappoints Myanmar − More Than 110 People Abducted by Myanmar Junta This Week − Myanmar Junta Forces Detain Senior Citizen and Loot Village in Mandalay Region − Myanmar’s National Unity Govt Asks Interpol to Arrest Coup Leader − China Says ASEAN Summit Should Fend off External Interference in Myanmar − China expects ASEAN leaders' special meeting to be conducive to Myanmar situation: Chinese FM − Bangkok Ducks ASEAN’s Myanmar Challenge − Food aid operation begins to reach two million affected by Myanmar crisis − KIA has seized 10 Myanmar military bases since coup, locals estimate − Myanmar troops fire warning shots at Thai boat − အမ����သ��ည���တ��ရ�အစ���ရက�� ���င�ငံတက�အသ�အမ�တ��ပ�မ� အ��ခအ�န − တမ��၌ ရပ�က�က�ကင���စ�င��လ�ငယ�က�� ဓ����င��မ�န��၊ အ����က���� သည�အထ� ���က���က� − မ���က�တ�တ�င� �ပည�သ� ၂ ဦ�က��ဖမ��ဆ���ပ�� �င�က�ပ�သ�န�� ၇၀ က�� အ�ကမ��ဖက�စစ�အ�ပ�စ� ယ��ဆ�င� − အဖမ��ခံရသည�� အမ����သမ��ငယ�တခ���� လ�င�ပ��င��ဆ��င�ရ� အ�ကမ��ဖက�ခံ�နရ − စစ��က�င�စ�က�� ASEAN အသ�အမ�တ�မ�ပ��ရ� NUG �တ�င��ဆ�� − အ�ဆ�ယံအစည��အ�ဝ� NUG က��ဖ�တ�ဖ��� အရပ�ဘက�အဖ����တ� တ��က�တ�န�� − မ�မ�ပဋ�ဉ���က�� မ�မ�ခ�����ဖ�က��သ� ASEAN − �မန�မ��အ�ရ� အ�ဆ�ယံ��ဖရ�င�����င�မယ�� အလ��အလ�နည��ပ�� − အ�ဆ�ယံအစည��အ�ဝ� ရလ�ဒ��က�င��ထ�က�လ�မယ�လ��� �လ�လ�သ��တ� �မ���လင��မထ�� − အ�ဏ�သ�မ��စစ��ခ�င���ဆ�င�က�� စ�ံစမ��စစ��ဆ��ရ� အ�ဆ�ယံက�� AI အဖ��� တ��က�တ�န�� − �မန�မ��အ�ရ� အ�ဆ�ယံအစည��အ�ဝ� အထ���စ�င���ကည���န�က − က�လ အ�ထ��ထ�ည�လ�ခံ၌ �မန�မ��အ�ရ���င��ပတ�သက��ပ�� ဆ�ံ��ဖတ�ခ�က�ခ�ရန� စဥ်�စ��လ�က�ရ�� − က���က��က��တ�င� KNU ��င�� အ�ဏ�သ�မ��တပ� ပစ�ခတ�မ��ဖစ� − KNU တပ�မဟ� (၁) ��င�� စစ��က�င�စ�တပ��က�� တစ�ရက�အတ�င�� ပစ�ခတ�မ� ��စ��က�မ��ဖစ�ပ��� − က���က��က��ဆ���ပသ��တ�က�� �ဖ ��ခ��မယ�� စစ��က�င�စ�တပ� KNU တ��က�ခ��က� − က�တ�ခ��င� တ�င� ��မ�က�ပ��င��မဟ�မ�တ�တပ�ဖ�����င��စစ��က�င�စ� တ��� တ��က�ပ���ဖစ� − က�တ�ခ��င�တ���ဂ�တ�တ�င� လက�နက��က��က�ည� ၄ လ�ံ�ထက�မနည�� က��ရ�က��ပ�က�က��၊ ၁ ဦ� ဒဏ�ရ�ရ − စစ��ရ�တင��မ��နတ�� နမ�တ� မန�ဆ�ရ��မ�� ထ�က���ပ�ရသ� ��စ��ထ�င��က���ရ�� − ထ��င��နယ��ခ���စ�င��ရ� စက��ရယ��� �မန�မ�တပ�ပစ�ခတ� ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 1 of 48 NATION UNITY GOVERNMENT: Domestic unity and EAOs involvement key to success By Sai Wansai - April 23, 2021 On April 16, National Unity Government (NUG) was formed, reportedly after intensive discussion among the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) members of whom the identities are not publicized. It is also not clear if the NUCC is already formed as one Chin National Front (CNF) leader Salai Lian Hmung Sakhong, recently appointed federal union affairs minister, said recently that it will be officially formed soon. NUG The idea to form NUG is an excellent thinking mode but a few basic understanding has to be in place, in order to be effective and cater to the widest possible range of stakeholders or representatives representing the peoples or ethnic groups concerned. First and foremost, the members of the NUG have to be chosen from organizations and not cherry picking individuals from organizations without their consent, although this does not mean competent and committed patriots should not be recruited to join the fray. Formation of the NUG is in many ways similar to the forming of coalition in normal times of any coalition government. It must have a coalition contract, which covers almost all issues that have to do with the governance of a country. This contract has to be ironed out so that during the legislature period the business of governing will have as little problem as possible, within the given constitution. However, coalition government though similar to the NUG, is quite different in a lot of aspects in reality. The NUG is not just having a few coalition partners to govern which will have a majority vote within the parliament like in normal times but to cover, coordinate and cooperate with the widest range of stakeholder organizations, primarily political organizations, to salvage the country from falling into abyss, like we are facing now in Burma or Myanmar. In other words, NUG is generally formed to overcome either the natural disaster, pandemic, economic recession, or uncontrollable civil war, which could lead to a failed state. Burma now covers almost all the aspects mentioned and in short, NUG is a national emergency war time formation. As such, wholly banking on the electoral victory of NLD in November election of last year would not be an appropriate approach. In the recent Burma’s case in order to avoid becoming a failed state, which led to the essential struggle to uproot the military dictatorial system, or should we say a social revolution, now popularly dubbed “Spring Revolution”, political stakeholders can be divided into armed and unarmed political organizations. Page 2 of 48 Armed organizations are some 20 ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), while unarmed are political organizations, including the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that are at the forefront of the Spring Revolution. But let us first look at who the actors are in this ensuing conflict between the coup-maker military junta and the revolting people who are against its rule and sought to return to democratization process setting, which was abruptly stopped on its track because of the military coup staged on February 1, 2021. Actors in the conflict The State Administration Council (SAC) or coup-maker junta wants to cling to 2008 military- drafted Constitution and vowed to hold on to multi-party national election in a year, which now has been extended to two years. But nobody believes in it as it tries to disqualify the National League for Democracy (NLD) and its leaders by all means to reenter the election or political arena. Thus, it could be said that the junta will try to create a situation of 2011- 2016 Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)-led Thein Sein era kind of government, which means the NLD will be left out or disbanded forever, with some multi- party trappings allowing some medium to small political parties to operate. In other words, it will be a military bloc one party rule, with perhaps some small opposition parties as show case that won’t be able to do much against its political hegemony. FPNCC meeting at Pangsang The EAOs are divided into United Wa State Army (UWSA)-led and Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement- Signatory-EAOs (NCA-S-EAOs) groups. The former is politically under the alliance of Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC), while the latter is represented by the Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) in deliberations and bargaining for political settlement with the government. 2019 05 10 PPST Photo The peace negotiation process stopped when the military coup took place in February. However, regarding the NCA the 10 NCA-S-EAOs may have different interpretation on whether it is still valid or already defunct, as some want to cling to it as it gives them legitimacy to move around domestically and internationally, while the others take it as being irrelevant because the NCA is made up of four parties (government, military, EAOs and political parties) and now only the military and EAOs are left from the negotiation partners. Contractually, this situation makes the NCA automatically defunct because all stakeholders are no more present to make a deal. Page 3 of 48 The political alliance FPNCC is made up of United Wa State Army (UWSA), National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP), Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and Arakan Army (AA). Ten ethnic armed organizations signatory to the NCA are the Karen National Union (KNU), Chin National Front (CNF), All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), Karen National Liberation Army-Peace Council (KNLA/PC), Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO), Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), New Mon State Party (NMSP) and the Lahu Democratic Union (LDU). The FPNCC members has two separate military alliances. One is the National Alliance-Burma (NA-B), which includes the KIA, AA, MNDAA or Kokang and TNLA. The second is called the Three Brotherhood Alliance, made up of the AA, MNDAA and TNLA, without the KIA. A few weeks back the Three Brotherhood Alliance attacked a police station in Nawng Mawn, Lashio Township, killing a dozen of policemen and wounding a few of them. Thus, it could be said that that the alliance is openly against the SAC, while the UWSA, NDAA and SSPP are undecided as of this writing. A week ago the SAC led by Lieutenant General Yar Pyae was said to be wooing the three not to join the anti-junta camp. Besides, the KIA has been actively engaged in military offensive shortly after the military coup and retook many of the outposts manned by the junta’s troops previously.