The leader of the oldest ethnic armed organization in Myanmar, the Karen National Union (KNU), said the junta had derailed six years of dialogue with ethnic armed organizations that sought to create a federal, democratic union.
Myanmar’s military lacks the will to create a federal, democratic union even though this is the shared desire of ethnic minorities and other citizens of Myanmar, KNU chairman Padoh Kwe Htoo Win said in an address marking the 76th anniversary of the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO).
Founded on July 16, 1947, the KNDO aims to protect ethnic Karen people and ensure their right to self-determination. Both the KNDO and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) are armed wings of the KNU.
The KNU and other ethnic resistance groups signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in 2015 and engaged in political dialogue with the quasi-civilian government to find peaceful solutions to the political problems that had provoked decades of armed conflict.
The KNU believes that the best way to solve political problems is through dialogue, said Padoh Kwe Htoo Win, who represented the KNU in peace talks for the NCA.
The NCA aimed “to secure an enduring peace based on the principles of dignity and justice, through an inclusive political dialogue process,” its preamble states. It also included a road map for ensuring its principles, including creating a union based on federalism and democracy, became reality and that ”a new political culture of resolving political conflicts through political dialogue instead of force of arms” was established.
Myanmar’s military has held power in one way or another since its first coup in 1962, and it staged another coup in 2021 that derailed the NCA, the KNU chairman said.
The KNU has been fighting Myanmar’s military since the February 2021 coup alongside other ethnic armed organizations like the Kachin Independence Army. It has also supported the anti-regime resistance groups that emerged nationwide following the putsch.
In the first half of this year, the KNLA, KNDO and combined resistance forces under the command of KNDO engaged in 2,495 clashes with junta troops. A total of 2,632 junta soldiers, including five battalion commanders and five deputy battalion commanders, were killed and 1,685 more junta troops were injured in the clashes. Seventy-six Karen fighters were killed and 257 were injured in the clashes, according to the KNU.
The Irrawaddy could not independently verify casualty figures.
