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Myanmar to sign ceasefire agreement with eight armed groups Myanmar agrees limited ceasefire without most powerful rebel armies
(about 11 hours later)
A ceasefire agreement between eight of Myanmar’s armed ethnic groups and the government is set to be signed on Thursday, the culmination of over two years of negotiations aimed at bringing an end to the majority of the country’s long-running conflicts. Myanmar and eight rebel armies have signed a ceasefire agreement to end more than five years of conflict, but the largest insurgent forces were absent from the ceremony.
But the deal will fall short of its nationwide billing, with seven of the 15 armed groups invited declining to take part amid disagreement over whom the process should include and ongoing distrust of Myanmar’s semi-civilian government and its still-powerful military. The refusal of seven of the 15 rebel groups to appear means peace will remain elusive for Yangon, which wanted to clinch a comprehensive deal and boost its popularity ahead of next month’s election.
Thein Sein, the president, led the ceremony in the capital, Naypyitaw, aimed at ending conflicts with multiple ethnic factions demanding autonomy in northern, resource-rich areas of the country.
Related: Aung San Suu Kyi vows to lead Myanmar if her party wins electionRelated: Aung San Suu Kyi vows to lead Myanmar if her party wins election
The absentees will be a blow for President Thein Sein, a former general, who made the nationwide ceasefire agreement a key platform of his reformist agenda after taking power in 2011, ending nearly 50 years of military rule. He said: “The national ceasefire agreement is a historic gift from us to the generations of the future. Even though the agreement is not nationwide yet, we will try harder to gain the agreement with other groups.”
He has pushed for a signing ahead of a general election on 8 November. Ethnic minorities in Myanmar complain of discrimination and a lack of services in border regions compared to the dominant Bamar population, who are mostly Buddhists. Although the country was named Burma after the main ethnic group, up to 40% of modern-day Myanmar consists of minority populations.
Thein Sein, along with foreign diplomats, military officials and armed group leaders, will attend a lavish signing ceremony in Naypyitaw that has been widely publicised by state-owned media. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not attend. When Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948, many of these groups took up arms. Parts of the country are still controlled by rebels, although active warfare ebbs and flows.
The United Wa State Army, believed to be the largest and best equipped of the country’s armed ethnic groups, has remained largely on the sidelines of the peace process since its beginning and will not sign. The key rebel armies that control the most territory and arms – the Kachin Independence Army, Shan State Army and United Wa State Army – refused to sign the agreement.
Also missing is the Kachin Independence Organisation, which controls vast areas of Kachin State, in Myanmar’s northeast. In Kachin state, more than 100,000 people have been displaced following the collapse of a 17-year peace deal in 2011.
The group’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army, has clashed regularly with the Myanmar military since 2011, when a 17-year ceasefire between the two broke down. After half a century of military rule, Myanmar promised reforms in 2011 that were welcomed internationally. The army handed power to a civilian government, although it was still headed by military figures.
An official from the government-linked Myanmar Peace Center told Reuters that the two groups, which operate on the Myanmar-China border, had come under pressure from China not to sign. China has denied these claims. Representatives from the United Nations, China and the US witnessed the signing on Thursday. The deal is a major objective of Thein Sein’s five years in office and he will be depicted as a peacemaker ahead of the polls. The state-run newspaper the Global New Light of Myanmar ran the headline “Peace Starts Now”.
Among those that will be signing is the Karen National Union (KNU), Myanmar’s oldest armed group. The KNU has fought one of the world’s longest running conflicts with the Myanmar military, spanning nearly 70 years. The opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party did not attend.
The KNU said in a statement that it hoped the ceasefire would bring “the termination of civil war and the building of genuine peace”. The deal comes during a time of increased nervousness over the upcoming elections. Earlier this week, the election commission suggested the 8 November date should be postponed, leading to fears of military interference. In 1990, the army ignored a huge election victory by the NLD and put the party’s leaders in prison.
All of the groups signing were removed this week by the government from its list of unlawful associations. The commission said flooding could stop people making it to the polls but backtracked hours later after the proposal caused panic, announcing that the elections would take place on time.
The colonial-era law was used to prosecute people who had contact with the groups. The removals could be a crucial step to the groups joining the political mainstream. Related: The Guardian view on Burma, Myanmar, and faltering steps toward democracy | Editorial
Those groups that have opted not to sign on Thursday will still be able to do so in the future. A senior negotiator in the peace talks also accused China of trying to derail the deal. Min Zaw Oo said China’s special envoy pressed two key rebel groups – headed by ethnic Chinese – not to sign the peace accord.
“China usually says they want stability. Of course they want stability, but at the same time they want to wield influence on the groups along the Chinese border,” Min Zaw Oo told Reuters.
Ryan Aherin, a senior Asia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, warned the ceasefire “could be short lived as the military has failed government orders to cease offensive operations in the past”.
He said the refusal of other groups to sign the agreement might bolster the ruling Union Solidarity and Development party (USD) as regions under rebel influence “will most likely be excluded from the November general elections. This could benefit the ruling USDP, which has a better standing with many of the parties agreeing to sign the ceasefire”.
The groups that did sign will be taken off the country’s terrorism lists and allowed development and investment in areas desperately in need after years of isolation. It also means the rebel armies’ members can now move freely across the country and take part in politics.