SEC gives NMSP a “pre-ceasefire relationship” ultimatum

Kon Hadae

According to reports, an April 7th meeting between New Mon State Party (NMSP) members and the Southeast Command (SEC) involved the latter placing substantial pressure on the NMSP to accept the Burmese government’s Border Guard Force (BGF) agreement, at the risk of the government’s 1995 ceasefire agreement with the NMSP.

According to an NMSP Central Committee member, who asked that his name be with held, SEC Lt. Gen. Ye Myint reportedly stated that a NMSP failure to convert its armed wing, the Mon New Liberation Army (MNLA) into a government-run Border Guard Force (BGF) or people’s militia, by April 22nd of this year, will result in the reinstatement of the “pre-ceasefire relationship” between the Burmese Government and the NMSP.

The NMSP issued a public refusal of the Burmese government’s BGF offer in August 2009, which resulted in the Burmese government’s withdrawal of the party’s taxation rights in September of that year.

The Central Committee member IMNA spoke with reported that the meeting, which was held in Moulmein’s SEC headquarters, was attended by 7 NMSP officers: Joint Secretary Nai Chan Toi, Vice Chairman Nai Rotsa, CEC Nai Htar Wara, CEC Nai Tala Nyi, Colonel Nai Layi Ka kao, CC Nai Kow Seik, and CC member Nai Chan Nai. The meeting was led by Gen. Ye Myint.

“He [Gen. Ye Myint] told us the NMSP could decide to do what it wants. But if we refuse to accept both the Border Guard Force and People’s Militia agreements, the SPDC will view us as they did before the ceasefire,” an NMSP insider claimed.

Gen Ye Myint gave the NMSP a deadline of April 22nd to submit their final answer regarding the MNLA’s fate, he added.

The NMSP agreed to a ceasefire with the current Burmese military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), in 1995 an attempt to extinguish the vast amounts of human rights abuses that were then being suffered by the Mon people. The SPDC’s “pre-ceasefire relationship” with Mon State resulted in, among other abuses, widespread forced labor, mass forced relocation of Mon communities, tens of thousands of Mon “internally displaced persons” (IDPs) living in squalid refugee camp conditions on the Thailand-Burma border, and the commencement of the construction of the infamous Yanada gas pipeline in 1991.

A NMSP spokesperson informed IMNA that the NMSP is currently in the process of gathering its members for an emergency meeting to discuss the ultimatum, at the party’s headquarters near the [Bee Ree river] in Ye Township; word of the exact nature of what the NMSP’s decision will has not yet been disclosed.