Lawmakers Again Demand Participation in Peace Process

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Lawmakers Again Demand Participation in Peace Process

Irrawaddy News, 25 Feb 2014

URL: http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/lawmakers-demand-participation-peace-process.html
Members of the Parliament Committee on National Race Affairs and Internal Peacemaking (CNRAIP) have called on President Thein Sein’s government to let lawmakers participate in Burma’s ongoing peace process.

The CNRAIP members met with Vice President Sai Mauk Kham, who heads the Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC), on Monday and urged him to increase the participation of MPs, said Thein Aung, a committee member and representative of the Phalon Sawaw Democratic Party, a Karen opposition party.

He said that so far the CNRAIP, which was formed in 2011, has had little to do with the ongoing peace process. Thein Aung said the committee had met only twice in recent years with the UPWC and had only been briefed on the peace process on these occasions.

Dwe Bu, an ethnic Kachin Lower House MP and CNRAIP secretary, said MPs should be regularly informed about the peace process, adding that lawmakers and chief ministers of Burma’s states and divisions should also be directly included in ongoing nationwide ceasefire talks.

The vice president reportedly told meeting participants that he would find ways for the CNRAIP members to participate in peacemaking activities.

It is not the first time that lawmakers have complained over a lack involvement in the peace process. Both Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi have indicated that they would like to be involved in the country’s peace talks, which could end decades of ethnic conflict.

However, government peace negotiators say they would prefer to sign a nationwide ceasefire with ethnic groups first and then let Parliament handle the thorny issue of finding a political solution for the ethnic group’s long-standing demands for greater political autonomy for their regions.

Ethnic armed groups have said there can be no nationwide ceasefire until the government guarantees that genuine political dialogue will follow after an agreement is signed.