Powerful ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) boycotted the eighth anniversary of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) hosted by junta boss Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyitaw on Sunday.
Ten EAOs have signed the agreement—eight of them with Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government on Oct. 15, 2015, and two more in February 2018 under the since ousted National League for Democracy government.
Despite criticisms, seven NCA signatories including the Karen National Liberation Army/Peace Council, Pa-O National Liberation Council, Arakan Liberation Party, Restoration Council of Shan State, Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, New Mon State Party, and Lahu Democratic Union attended the event on Sunday.
Three other signatories—the Karen National Union, Chin National Front, and All Burma Students’ Democratic Front—which are engaged in active fighting with the regime, boycotted the event. They released a joint statement saying they would not join NCA peace talks unless the regime stops its violence.
Three non-signatories that have been engaged in peace talks with the regime since 2021 also skipped the anniversary celebrations. They are the United Wa State Army, Shan State Progress Party and National Democratic Alliance Army, all based in Shan State.
Other powerful EAOs including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army also shunned the event. The KIA and TNLA are actively fighting the regime.
At the event, junta boss Min Aung Hlaing brazenly invited non-signatories to sign the pact.
Acting president of the parallel National Unity Government Duwa Lashi La has called the regime shameless for organizing the anniversary celebrations after violating the fundamental principles of the NCA.
EAOs and Myanmar people who oppose the coup say the NCA was rendered void by the military takeover in 2021.
However, ministers and peace brokers from the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) who were involved in the NCA in 2015 attended the event in Naypyitaw. Ethnic leaders and political parties that are collaborating with the regime, and representatives from some of Myanmar’s neighbors, were also present.
Ex-general Thein Sein, who was the key figure in the signing of the NCA in 2015, was not present at Sunday’s event. But then-vice presidents Sai Mauk Kham and Nyan Tun, then-Parliament speaker Thura Shwe Mann, and then-President’s Office ministers Aung Min and Soe Thane were among the attendees.
Shwe Mann, who was earlier dubbed a traitor by the Myanmar military for his close ties with now ousted and detained civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, appeared in public for the first time since the coup. He established his own party to contest the 2020 general election. He did not win a seat and dissolved his party following the coup.
Another significant attendee was Soe Thane, who supported and praised Min Aung Hlaing’s putsch. Senior members of the MPC former lieutenant-general Khin Zaw Oo and U Hla Maung Shwe (both of whom currently sit on the junta’s National Solidarity and Peace Negotiation Council), U Aung Naing Oo, Nyo Ohn Myint, and a former economic advisor to Thein Sein, Dr. Zaw Oo, were also present. Dr. Zaw Oo also reportedly advises the current regime on economic affairs.
Among the representatives of the 35 political parties that were present at the event were Union Solidarity and Development Party chair Khin Yi, Arakan National Party chair Dr. Aye Maung, People’s Party chair and 88 Generation student leader Ko Ko Gyi, and Kachin State People’s Party chair and former vice chair of the Kachin Independence Organization Dr. Tu Ja.
Chinese Special Envoy for Asian Affairs Deng Xijun, along with the deputy Indian national security advisor and the Thai foreign minister, addressed the event, displaying their support for the regime.
Igor Blazevic, a human rights campaigner and a senior adviser at the Prague Civil Society Centre, said those who appeared at Min Aung Hlaing’s “ceasefire and peace show” have chosen the path of their own irrelevance at a moment when the people of Myanmar are “waging a heroic and tragic struggle for its liberation, a struggle in which “David will this time prevail over Goliath.”
“Extras in the manipulative show staged by a murderous dictator are nothing but irrelevant figures soon to be sidelined and forgotten by history,” he said.
