Radio Free Asia (RFA) | July 25, 2016

Myanmar’s United Nationalities Alliance (UNA) is working on the formation of a coordinated platform based on common policies on key issues as it prepares for the government’s Panglong Peace Conference in late August, an official involved in the process said Friday.

The members of the group, which consists of a dozen ethnic political parties, will attend an armed ethnic groups’ summit on July 26 in Mai Ja Yang in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, to discuss a federal union, politics, the military and an interpretation of the original Panglong Peace Agreement of 1947.

For help with sorting out a unified policy for the peace conference, the UNA has consulted the Ethnic Nationalities Affairs Center (ENAC), an independent organization created in July 2013 to support Myanmar’s peace process and the development of democratic institutions in the country by engaging with political stakeholders, civil society, and the international community.

“The ENAC has created nine policies, including ones pertaining to education, health care, and natural resources, with different organizations outside Myanmar,” Sai Nyunt Lwin, General Secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), a UNA member.

“Because we will begin the 21st-Century Panglong Conference soon, we are updating these policies with UNA member groups inside Myanmar for the first time today,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The UNA will make any necessary amendments to its policies during the meeting next week, after which the group will discuss the policies with other political parties and civil society organizations, he said.

“Every political party has its basic policies,” Nyunt Lwin said. “If a party is in talks without having a policy, it could be chaotic. But we will not stand only on our policies and will welcome better ideas and other thoughts.”

In the meantime, the UNA is trying to settle on an approach for getting concrete policies upon which every group agrees, he said.

“When the Panglong Conference begins, we can quickly discuss these policies if we have our draft policies ready,” Nyunt Lwin said.

Government peace negotiators, military representatives, and leaders from various political and armed ethnic groups will attend the Panglong Conference organized by Myanmar’s de factor leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“I think the ethnic groups will have something that they want after the Panglong Conference, but it depends on the willingness and wishes of the military and government as well as all stakeholders’ goals and goodwill,” Nyunt Lwin said.

The UNA also discussed preparations for the peace conference and forming a federal union during a meeting it held on June 30-July 2.

A common goal

Aung San Suu Kyi has made peace and national reconciliation between Myanmar’s armed ethnic groups and the government military a priority of the NLD government.

Her father, General Aung San, arranged the first Panglong Conference in 1947 to grant autonomy to the Shan, Kachin, and Chin ethnic minorities before Myanmar gained its independence from colonial rule by Britain.

Panglong is a town in southern Shan State where the first conference was held.

But Aung San’s assassination in July 1947 prevented the agreements made during the conference from being implemented, and many ethnic groups took up arms against the central government in wars that continued for decades.

“When

[the first] Panglong Agreement was signed, all ethnic groups shared the goal of fighting together for freedom from the British, and we achieved our goal,” Nyunt Lwin said. “But we haven’t achieved a federal union with equality of rights and power yet. We must try to achieve this goal during the 21st-Century Panglong Conference.”

“Working on peace between previous and current governments is not that different, although the people who are working on peace have changed,” he said. “We should have hope for peace because goodwill can be changed as people change. It is better to be in peace talks than to be fighting.”

Besides the SNLD, UNA’s members include the Mon National Party, Kayan National Party, Kayin National Party, Rakhine National Party, Shan State Kokang Democratic Party, Zomi Democracy Federation, Kachin National Democracy Congress Party, Khume (Khami) National Party, Rakhine Patriotic Party, Mro National Democracy Party, and Danu Nationalities Democracy Party.

Eight armed groups that signed a nationwide cease-fire agreement with the previous government last October will also attend the Mai Ja Yang summit.

This article originally appeared on RFA on July 22, 2016.