Acting PPST leader welcomes ASEAN envoy’s call for four-month ceasefire

By DMG 08 Sep 2021

DMG Newsroom
8 September 2021, Yangon 

The Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) has welcomed a proposal from Erywan Yusof, ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar, for a four-month ceasefire by all sides to allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the country.  

Naing Aung Ma Ngae, acting leader of the PPST, spoke about the matter during a video conference meeting held by the PPST on September 7-8. 

“We’re ready to support this humanitarian process as much as we can,” Naing Aung Ma Ngae in his address. 

The PPST was formed of nine ethnic armed groups and the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), which comprise the 10 non-state armies that are signatory to the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement. 

Erywan called for the four-month ceasefire on humanitarian grounds during a meeting late last month with the Myanmar military regime’s foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, according to Kyodo. The news agency reported that the junta government had accepted the proposal.   

The PPST leader noted that it had been over seven months since the military coup in Myanmar toppled the country’s elected government. International and domestic stakeholders have tried to address the ensuing political fallout using various strategies, but had yet to achieve their aims, Naing Aung Ma Ngae said. 

“We’ve faced both political dilemmas and the Covid-19 pandemic, and have tried to find a way to overcome both,” he added. 

Over the weekend, three ethnic armed groups known as the Northern Alliance, which includes the Arakan Army (AA), urged Myanmar’s respective armed groups to reduce, avoid and cease military movements that affect people’s security, and to refrain as much as possible from acts that cause anxiety among the public. The alliance cited the need for a cessation of hostilities to more effectively combat the Covid-19 pandemic. 

But sounding a decidedly divergent note, the National Unity Government (NUG) on Tuesday declared a “people’s defensive war” against the military regime, with the NUG’s acting president, Duwa Lashi La, saying: “As this is a public revolution, all the citizens within entire Myanmar, revolt against the rule of the military terrorists led by Min Aung Hlaing in every corner of the country.” 

A nationwide anti-regime movement has continued to protest the dictatorship in various ways over the seven-plus months since the coup, including through armed resistance.  

From February 1 to September 6, a total of 1,049 people were killed and 7,904 were arrested for their opposition to the junta, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).