Myanmar’s Shan State parliament on Wednesday approved a proposal to define a coalition of four ethnic armed groups battling the country’s armed forces as terrorists, RFA reported on 7 December.
The move comes more than two weeks after the Northern Alliance – Burma (NA-B), consisting of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), attacked military and government targets in several townships in northern Shan State.
More than 10 civilians have been killed and 40 have been injured, as the fighting continues. Talks between government peace negotiators and the ethnic militias broke down last week in Kunming, capital of southwestern China’s Yunnan province.
Sixty-three of 106 lawmakers supported the proposal, while 45 voted to reject it and seven abstained from casting a vote, said Sai Tun Myan, a lawmaker from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), according to the report. The proposal is only Shan state policy and does not have an impact on national policy.