Min Thuta – The Overseas Mon Coordination Committee (OMCC) has urged the New Mon State Party (NMSP) not to enter into peace talks with the Union Solidarity and Development Party (UNDP)-led government of Mon State without the involvement of all members of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC).
OMCC’s statement said that the NMSP, as well as other former cease-fire parties, should learn lessons from past cease-fire talks with the previous Burmese government, the SPDC/SLORC, in the 1990s.
“The weakness in the past was [the NMSP] could not understand the Burmese regime’s strategies due to insufficient analysis of the political situation at that time. For example, to crush pro-democracy groups, [the Burmese regime] signed cease-fires with the ethnic armed groups one-by-one. Now, we have a lot more experience and facts to be careful about in the current political environment,” said OMCC Vice Chairman Nai Siri Mon Chan.
Nai Siri Mon Chan said that although democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has met with representatives of the new government and the president has invited Burmese exiles to return home, the regime’s motives and actions are not transparent as it continues to launch offensives in Kachin, Karen, and Shan States.
“The NMSP should not discuss matters at the State government level, but should only discuss directly with the central government,” said NMSP military adviser and retired colonel Kao Rot.
