Three ethnic groups currently fighting with the Myanmar Government have threatened to pull out of ceasefire negotiations. The three groups, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Paluang State Liberation Front/Ta’ang National Liberation Army (PSLF/TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) have been involved in a Ethnic Leader’s Summit currently being held in Panghsang, Wa State.
The summit was called to further discuss the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) a draft of which was signed by the Nationwide Ceasefire Co-ordinating Team (NCCT) representing armed ethnic groups and the Government on the 31 March 2015.The government does not believe the three should be included in the NCA although it has previously held unofficial talks with the PSLF/TNLA. The Arakan Army was involved in the conflict in Kachin State while the MNDAA is led by leaders that were defeated in 2009 and had fled to China.
Lieutenant Colonel Nyo Tun Aung, deputy commander-in-chief of the AA told RFA’s Myanmar Service “The government forced the ethnic leaders not to invite us, and it has ignored us in politics . . .We have to raise our political standard, and we also have to do many other things. That’s why we have applied to resign from the NCCT.”All three groups are members of the United Nationalities Federal Council an alliance of sixteen ethnic groups.
The signing of the draft NCA, on the 31 March, was heralded as a major accomplishment with Vijay Nambiar, the U.N. special adviser on Myanmar stating that ‘’Today's agreement is a signal that new levels of trust, confidence and cooperation are possible between former enemies and that the seeds of change in Myanmar are beginning to sprout’’ while a U.S. Embassy statement noted "A nationwide ceasefire agreement would mark a potentially historic step towards achieving peace and national reconciliation, which has eluded the country for decades."
While there have been major breakthroughs in negotiations with the Government, there remain suspicions on behalf of armed ethnic groups in relation to the signing of a final agreement and their demands for political dialogue and the realisation of a Federal Union.