Will Myanmar farewell to war for national ceasefire?

An ethnic discontentment spreads out against the government's offer publicly that signing of nationwide ceasefire accord wouldn't be accepted without satisfactory guarantees for political dialogue and monitoring mechanisms. There is an unyielding demand from the country's ethnic groups to have the benefit of equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of autonomy and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament.

However, nobody knows whether the sitting administration has genuine intentions to grant autonomy toward ethnic minorities with the purpose of making national reconciliation. No proposal of the ethnic representatives was taken into consideration during the national convention (1993 — 2007), in which the principles of the 2008 constitution were laid down.

The process of making changes with previous junta-drawn Constitution is going to set in motion at the end of this January. Several politicians focus on article 59 (f) which especially ban the way for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be president subsequent to the 2015 elections.

The Article 59 (f) is merely one of numerous key barriers in question, quite a lot of which are prospective cordon so as to shield the position of the military's influence. At the same time, similar articles limit sharing of political power and natural resources with the ethnic minorities in various ways. The governing military elites who name themselves 'the state' make use of the controversial Constitution for the benefits of select few rather than the average citizens.

Some political analysts believe that the previous military authorities including current president and most of his cabinet-members made the bill ensuring their grip on power. They purposefully put constitutional provisions that protected the military elites from being condemned for their human rights violations and possessing illicit assets.

On 3 October last year, the 109-committee released a statement calling opinion and suggestions from a wide-ranging measure of stakeholders for assessment or amendment of the 2008 State Constitution.

According to the committee's statement, it would seek opinion and recommendation from the Legislative Pillar, Administrative Pillar and Judicial Pillar through the Union Parliament, and would hunt for assessment and advice of political parties, organizations and individuals through respective Union Parliament representatives or by addressing of assessment and advice to the secretary of the Joint Committee for Reviewing the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.

First, the committee set the deadline for 15 November, 2013 for submission of advice and assessment, but later reset the target for end of this month. More than 2,500 amendment suggestions are going to put forward just before the Union Parliament at the end of this month. It's uncertain when the amendments process of scrutiny will be approved, since the next election comes by 2015.

According to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the measures for making any constitutional change in Myanmar were among the most inflexible in the world as many terms of the contract provide with absolutely oppressive. It seems the 2008 constitution is preventing Myanmar from becoming a truly independent country. Citizens cannot have genuine democracy under such a constitution.

The Myanmar's Nobel laureate said constitutional change was very important for the economic improvement of the country, as Myanmar opens its key regional developing market after decades of military rule.

The country was run by two earlier Constitutions, in 1947 and 1974. In 1988, the army seized power and dumped the then Constitution, so the country was under military rule with no social contract for two decades until 2008. Previous Constitutions specified that the head of the state and cabinet members were required to be a citizen born in the country from both citizen parents.

Besides, the amendment procedure is crammed with doubts as the military seems unprepared to give up its privileged category that could be taken place later than 2015.

During the 2nd Ethnic Armed Organizations Conference in Law Khee Lar, the H.Q. of the Karen National Union (KNU) in Karen State, on 23 January, Lt-Gen N'ban La Awng said that the government is only seeking to broker a ceasefire deal and is not committed to holding political dialogue with ethnic minority armed groups, as reported by the Myanma Freedom Daily English.

The general also said that many senior figures from ethnic minority armed groups lack faith that the peace process won't be reversed at some point in the future.

"We must demand an end to army having a finger in every pie. We can't just take their word for it," Karen National Union's vice-chairperson, Padoh Naw Zipporah Sein, told Myanma Freedom Daily.

THE chairperson of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), Lt-Gen N'ban La Awng, urged ethnic minority armed groups to unite in calling for political dialogue with the government. Most ethnic leaders consider, under the military-made Constitution, the country may not have an option to shape an authentic democratic federal union at all.

Therefore, President U Thein Sein's ongoing peace-making practice seems to be unpredictable towards a true democracy state. Some analysts think that U Thein Sein government has also been following the nonconstructive path of its predecessor. The real plan of seeking nationwide ceasefire by the government looks as if to win over more affirmation of armed ethnic communities, rather than unquestionable political settlement.

Even though some armistice deals are made between the rebel groups and the government, there has been little practical progress. Instead, the government keeps on continuous deployment of troops with systematic attacks in the ethnic areas. Many ethnic leaders asserted that they don't have expectation either the current Constitution or the current peacemaking as there is no pledge for creation of federal union at some point.

It is discreditable that the government has failed to declare a nationwide ceasefire in order to set up a proper nonviolent nation. If it was sincere, it would stop all self-styled area-cleaning offensives in ethnic territories in support of impressive dialogue to show it has a serious will to bring all ethnic brethren back together.

- Asian Tribune -

Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2014/01/30/will-myanmar-farewell-to-war-for-national-ceasefire/