July 27, 2016•Update: July 27, 2016
By Kyaw Ye Lynn
YANGON, Myanmar
Leaders of rebel groups and political parties representing ethnic minorities have joined a summit in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State, aiming to encourage all groups to participate in next month's government-sponsored peace conference.
The secretary-general of the Karen National Union told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday that representatives of 18 rebel fronts attended the Ethnic Armed Organizations’ plenary meeting while three groups were absent.
“The meeting aims to help search for common ground toward a federal system,” Saw Kwe Htoo Win said by phone.
The four-day meeting started Tuesday in the remote town of Mai Ja Yanng, which is under the control of the powerful rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
The meeting was also attended by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, Sun Guoxiang from China's ministry of foreign affairs and representatives from ethnic political parties.
Saw Kwe Htoo Win said the gathered ethnic armed groups will discuss four topics: discussion and approval of a manual for the upcoming 21st Century Panglong Conference, adoption of basic principles for the constitution of a federal democratic state, basic principles for security and defense and amending the framework for political dialogue.
Ethnic rebels have been fighting Myanmar's central government and military for greater autonomy and self-administration since the country’s independence from Britain in 1948.
State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Gen. Aung San, has made peace and national reconciliation a priority of her National League for Democracy government, which took over in late March following the Nov. 8 2015 election victory.
N’Ban La, chairman of the United Nationalities Federal Council -- an umbrella association of 11 armed groups -- has called on Suu Kyi to carry on the political commitment gained between her father and ethnic leaders to build a federal democratic system in Myanmar, according to state-run media reports.
In 1947, Gen. Aung San signed the Panglong Agreement with leaders of Shan, Kachin and Chin ethnic minorities in a conference in Panglong town in Shan state to grant them autonomy.
Aung San was then the deputy chairman of Burma’s Executive Council -- effectively a prime ministerial position, but still subject to the British governor’s veto.
His assassination in July 1947 prevented the agreements from reaching fruition, and many ethnic groups took up arms against the central government in wars that continued for decades and took Burma (which became Myanmar) into what became known as "the world’s longest civil war".
Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi's government has said all ethnic armed organizations would be invited to August's conference, including those that didn’t sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement -- a peace deal inked between the previous quasi-civilian government and eight rebel groups in October.
