Ceasefire deal : Unrealistic tactic in ending Myanmar’s military crisis
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Tun Mon Thet (NP News) - Dec 3
Officially recognized 135 ethnic tribes under eight major ethnicities, having at least 60 ethnocentric armed groups within the country, it has been more than 70 years of armed conflict in Myanmar. The country’s successive governments have been trying their commitment to end the world-longest civil conflict. Ceasefire agreements have been the most common manoeuvre in seeking to resolve the internal conflict within 77 years. However, the fighting is yet to end.
The world has witnessed the worst-ever fighting situation in Myanmar after the 2021 political transition. It was the most terrifying battles in the history of Myanmar in the modern days, especially after its independence in 1948.
Last week, dated on 25 November 2024, the TNLA (which stands for so-called Ta’ang National Liberation Army) issued a statement in the quest of holding a ceasefire talk with the government or the Tatmadaw.
Including the TNLA, the three northern ethnic insurgents: MNDAA (Kokang insurgents), TNLA and the Arakan Army (Rakhine insurgents) launched a series of the most offensive military attacks under Operation 1027 in northern Shan State, central Myanmar and the Rakhine State in October 2023. Battles were intense and very belligerent where the insurgents even committed war crimes against human rights, citizen rights, the rights of the Prisoners of War (POW), humanity, and human dignity for many times in the battlegrounds. Since the insurgent groups can combine their manpower with different groups, involving the Bamar PDF youths, based on the ideology of ‘Enemies of the enemy are the friends’, the ethnocentric armed forces could conquer territories and areas for the very first time throughout the history. In this point, many Bamar ethnic youths have sacrificed lives and souls under so-called ‘PDF’ or the armed revolutionists.
Haigeng Agreement
Following the series of battles of Operation 1027, Tatmadaw and the ethnocentric armed groups conducted courses of Haigeng meetings seeking the way to cease fire exchanging. Deals were made by both sides along with the Haigeng, as being mediated by China. Afterward, Tatmadaw followed the terms and the rules agreed in the Haigeng Agreement. Notwithstanding, the ethnocentric insurgents – MNDAA, TNLA, and the AA – broke the deal for numerous times, and military assaults were initiated sporadically while the Tatmadaw indeed ceased firing. It was the ill-will and covert intention of the ethnocentric groups to seize territories as much as they could, however illicitly, taking the Haigeng agreements as lip-service treats.
Hence, violating the Haigeng terms is nothing more than that these ethnocentric armed groups humiliated or disgraced the Chinese-mediated ceasefire agreement. In other words, it is not only disparaging the Myanmar government but also insulting China, a powerful adjacent neighbour of Myanmar and the country that assists in resolving Myanmar’s internal dilemma.
Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement
The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, commonly known as the NCA, was signed before the witnesses of international organizations and the global powers in 2015. The NCA was regarded as a major achievement and landmark in Myanmar’s long journey to the eternal peace.
It took four years to achieve the NCA successfully back in the year 2011-2015. Then-President U Thein Sein invited the EAOs and the political parties for peace on 18 September 2011, within five months after he took the office. Before successfully achieving the NCA, a total of 7 formal meetings and over 20 informal meetings were held between the government, Tatmadaw, political parties and the EAOs to attain the ‘Approved Draft’, the forerunner of the NCA.
The draft was agreed upon by a majority of the involved parties on 31 March 2015, and the agreement was signed on 15 October 2015 by the government, Tatmadaw, political parties and eight EAOs. The signing was witnessed by observers and delegates from the United Nations, the United Kingdom, Norway, Japan and the United States.
Nevertheless, after nine years of signing the NCA, we can clearly see that the ethnocentric groups are now taking down or dismantling the peace agreement – which was witnessed primarily by the West, into pieces.
Fights for self-interests, not for tribes
Generally speaking, the EAOs in Myanmar usually claim that they fight for equality, federal rights, ethnic rights, or whatsoever. Experts, authors and researchers, especially the outsiders, concluded that the armed conflict in Myanmar is the outcome of political disagreement and the contradictions in political ideologies. Tatmadaw is subjected to be blamed repeatedly in Myanmar politics by the politicians from the mainland, ethnic politicians and the ethnic armed groups. In particular, Tatmadaw is the only institution that can persist in the solidarity of the Union.
Excluding the ethnic civilians, the ethnocentric leaders’ paradigm of addiction to nepotism could not spare the goodwill commitment of Tatmadaw to preserving national unity. The self-centered egoism of the ethnic armed leaders continuously makes efforts to implement the project of brainwashing as in developing ethnocentrism and hating Burmese populations.
That is why, no matter how many peace deals or the ceasefire agreements were made between Tatmadaw, government and the EAOs, battles can be resumed and re-started by the EAO sides at any time in any administrative terms as long as they refuse to surrender the weapons.