KNPP meet CBOs to form ‘peace-talks’ monitoring team
The Karenni National Progressive Party met and discussed with Community-Based-Organizations (CBO) from Loikaw Town in mid June to set up a ‘peace-talk’ monitoring group to keep tabs on the on-going talks between the government and the KNPP. in the Kayah State.
The CBO initiative followed on from agreement reached between the KNPP and government representatives on June 9th.The KNPP put forward 14 points that were signed and agreed to along with a ceasefire paper by the government peace committee led by Railway’s Minister, U Aung Min, at Tatmadaw Hall in Loikaw Town.
U Aung San Myint, KNPP secretary 2, spoke to Karen News.
“We agreed with the government to form a local monitoring team for the ceasefire process and to look at human right abuses. Civilian groups have already been carrying out this role previous to the current peace talks – we discussed with them what is the best way for them to participate in the process.”
U Aung San Myint said that the ‘peace-talks’ were successful for the KNPP as they achieved agreement on 14 of their points out of 20 that they put forward for negotiated.
“We recognized that government is trying to be more flexible with us than before. But we still need to discuss a lot more, for example getting agreement on the location of Burma Army camps and of troop movements in the area – we haven’t agreed on a process for this issues yet.”
As many as 30 CBO representatives, state MPs and nine peace negotiators attended the meeting and discussion set-up to establish an on-going monitoring process.
The KNPP was established in 1955 and currently has about 1,000 soldiers. In 1995, the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) signed a ceasefire agreement with the former State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) but the agreement was unsuccessful and was broken within three months.
