UPDATED at 3:17 P.M. ET on 09-27-2024
Myanmar’s junta has called on its insurgent enemies to abandon their “terrorist way” and join a planned election, but a parallel civilian government spearheading opposition to military rule dismissed the offer as a trick by the junta to burnish its international image.
The junta, which seized power in early 2021 with the overthrow of a government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, says it will hold a "multiparty democratic general election" some time next year, although its opponents say a vote under military rule, with Suu Kyi and hundreds of supporters in jail and her party disbanded, would be a sham.
Giant neighbor China, which has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, including energy pipelines from the Indian Ocean coast, has been pressing Myanmar’s rivals to work out their differences and has offered to help organize the election.
“Ethnic armed organizations and PDF terrorists fighting against the state are invited to contact the state to resolve the political issues through party political or electoral processes in order to be able to join hands with the people to emphasize durable peace and development by discarding the armed terrorist way,” the junta said in a statement published in its media late on Thursday.
Ethnic minority insurgents, who have been battling for self-determination for decades, have built alliances with pro-democracy activists who took up arms after the 2021 coup and formed what they call People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, throughout the country.
The PDFs, which have been relentlessly attacking junta forces in central, heartland areas like the Sagaing and Mandalay regions, are loyal to a civilian government in exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG, formed by pro-democracy politicians largely from Suu Kyi’s party, after the coup.
A spokesman for the NUG’s Presidential Office dismissed the junta’s invitation as fake.
“The terrorist junta council’s invitation to our revolutionary forces to abandon the armed path and discuss this is just a bogus offer,” the spokesman, Kyaw Zaw, told Radio Free Asia.
“It has never intended there to be political dialogue and now it’s making this deception just to sound good and look good internationally,” he said, adding that if the military was sincere, it would stop its “terrorism that is killing the people” and get out of politics altogether.
Rebel groups reject offer
A PDF official in Myingyan township, Mandalay region, where fierce fighting is currently ongoing, told RFA that there is no reason to engage in talks with the junta.
"They have been doing this for years ... they negotiate for a while, then continue doing whatever they want," said the official. "As for all PDFs, we won't engage in any discussions on this matter. There is no reason to talk about it."
Representatives from the Karen National Union and Chin National Army also dismissed the offer as "unacceptable," while one from the Ta'ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, said his group would only consider the invitation if the junta acknowledges its crimes and removes the TNLA from its list of terrorist organizations.
RFA attempted to reach Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, which is currently engaged in conflict with the military in Rakhine state, but received no response.
However, at a press conference on June 8, Khaing Thukha said that a ceasefire with the junta "is impossible."
Myanmar affairs commentator Than Soe Naing said the junta's invitation amounted to a publicity stunt.
"The junta seeks to present itself as implementing the election process with a flexible attitude by inviting the PDFs, however, it does not acknowledge the leadership of the PDFs, effectively sidelining them," he said.
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Election record
Myanmar’s military has ruled since 1962, apart from a decade of tentative reform that was snuffed out with the 2021 coup, and is deeply unpopular with most of the population.
Suu Kyi’s party trounced a party organized by the generals in 1990 – the military ignored the result – and again in 2015, when Suu Kui was allowed to form a government under the generals’ auspices.
Again in late 2020, Suu Kyi’s party swept the polls. The military defended its coup weeks later by saying the voting had been marred by fraud. Election organizers and observers said there was little if any evidence of cheating.
A census that the military is organizing to "ensure the accuracy of voter lists" is due to be launched next week and completed by mid-October but analysts say it will likely only include about 30 million of Myanmar's estimated 56 million people because only residents of major cities, which the junta still controls, are being counted.
Armed conflict is underway in 233 of Myanmar’s 330 townships, according to the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar in a July report. The junta has said that if the census is not complete by mid-October it will “increase security and extend the date” to finalize it.
The United Nations says about 3 million people have been forced from their homes by fighting between junta troops and those who oppose the military’s coup, many since clashes surged at the beginning of the year.
Hundreds of thousands of people have moved abroad since the coup, escaping repression, conscription into the military and an economy in freefall.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This story has been updated to include the reactions of rebel groups to the junta's invitation.