The Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) is no longer active due to the current political situation.
Colonel Saw Kyaw Nyunt, spokesperson for the Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) which is composed of 7 ethnic armed groups who signed the National Ceasefire Agreement made this announcement recently.
He added that while it is not possible to say that the UPDJC is broken, but rather peace dialogues and meetings simply cannot be held at this point in time.
“As for the UPDJC situation, this is the case. If you look at any groups, the government, Parliament If we look at the Tatmadaw (Burma’s military), the people who worked before are no longer united, and the UPDJC leaders who are part of our ethnic armed groups are unable to meet again due to the current political situation.The UPDJC has organized activities along the lines of NCA in the past, but it is currently inactive. We couldn’t hold meetings, conferences and were also unable to negotiate,” he said.
In early March of this year, the UPDJC political parties group and the National Solidarity and Peace Negotiation Committee (NSPNC) led by Lieutenant General Yar Pyae met in Nay Pyi Taw. Following that meeting the UPDJC political parties group was re-elected on April 27, 2022.
According to the Chair of the UPDJC political parties group, Sai Aie Pom, the solution or way forward for peace will only be found when all ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) participate in negotiations.
“Our opinion cannot be the same. The NSPNC and UPDJC groups can’t be the same. But all EAOs have to participate and negotiate. The EAO side still has their opinion, and we will get an answer from them later,” he said.
The State Administrative Council (SAC) itself does not use the term UPDJC, and the UPDJC mechanism does not appear in any of the SAC’s plans for peace, according to the People’s Party (PP) Chairman U Ko Ko Gyi.
U Ko Ko Gyi said, “The SAC itself does not use the term UPDJC. Because the UPDJC is a group of the government, the army, the parliament, a group of ethnic armed groups under the NCA, and a group of political parties. It seems to be broken. That’s why I noticed that SAC doesn’t use the UPDJC as well.”
Sai Aie Pom of the Shan Ethnic Democratic Party (SNDP) is the Chair of the UPDJC political parties group, Daw Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein of the Democratic Party (Myanmar) is the Secretary, and other representatives are members.
The UPDJC will be composed of 16 representatives from the Government Hluttaw and the Tatmadaw, 16 representatives from armed organizations under the NCA, and 16 representatives from political parties.
