Junta exploiting NCA ceremony for political gain

By Admin 17 Oct 2025

DMG Newsroom

17 October 2025, Nay Pyi Taw

Despite ongoing armed conflicts across Myanmar, the military regime held a series of ceremonies in Nay Pyi Taw from October 15 to 17 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA).

Political analysts say the junta is using the event to present itself as a peace-promoting government and to seek international legitimacy, thereby securing political advantages.

“At a time when the junta is desperately trying to organize an election, this event serves as a political success for them. On the one hand, they are maintaining diplomatic ties with neighboring countries; on the other, they are showcasing this ceremony as a nationwide peace effort by bringing together a few weak or compliant armed groups,” said an Arakan political analyst.

Analysts also observed that the NCA ceremony was part of the junta’s broader political strategy to pave the way for the upcoming election and to soften international criticism.

The junta and several ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that still maintain ties with it told the media that the NCA remains “relevant and essential” to the peace process even after ten years.

Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) chairwoman Daw Saw Mya Raza Linn said: “Those of us who signed the NCA are still active and legitimate. We never said it was destroyed — not before, not now, and we never will. So saying that the NCA has collapsed is completely untrue and impossible. It cannot and will not collapse.”

The ALP, KNU/KNLA–PC, RCSS, DKBA, and PNLO — along with political parties expected to participate in the junta’s planned election — continue to uphold the NCA framework and attended the 10th-anniversary ceremony.

U Ko Ko Gyi, chair of the People’s Party, also defended the NCA during the ceremony: “There are various criticisms, of course, but from my perspective, this remains Myanmar’s only and first-ever nationwide ceasefire agreement.”

Eight EAOs — the KNU, RCSS, DKBA, KNU/KNLA-PC, PNLO, ABSDF, ALP, and CNF — signed the NCA under former President Thein Sein’s government on October 15, 2015. The New Mon State Party (NMSP) and Lahu Democratic Union (LDU) later joined in February 2018, bringing the total number of signatories to ten.

However, groups such as the KNU, CNF, ABSDF, PNLO, NMSP-AD, and LDU have officially declared that the NCA is no longer valid following the military coup, citing its complete breakdown. These groups are currently fighting the junta across multiple fronts.

“They’re deceiving themselves — all of them, including the junta and those few groups still siding with it. Everyone can see the situation in this country; there’s nothing successful about this so-called process. They’re simply lying to themselves,” said Padoh Saw Taw Nee, spokesperson for the KNU.

The NCA’s stated goal was to build a democratic and federal union rooted in freedom, equality, and justice, based on the Panglong spirit, and guaranteeing full self-determination — with the aim of ensuring unity, preventing disintegration, and establishing lasting peace and stability in the Union.

According to the NCA framework, political dialogues were to involve the government, parliament, military, political parties, and EAOs. But since the coup, the dissolution of parliament has rendered such political agreements impossible, effectively freezing all NCA peace processes.

The Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS/SSA) said in a statement yesterday that the original objectives and peace mechanisms of the NCA had come to a halt following the coup, and that the agreement had failed to deliver on its intended goals.

It added that the collapse of mutual trust between the military and EAOs, as well as the junta’s continued pressure on ethnic groups to operate under the 2008 Constitution, had severely eroded confidence in the NCA.