6 ethnic parties discuss charter changes with the NLD

“We invited 14 parties. Six attended [the meeting] today and the rest are from the regional areas. We had to send the invitation on short notice. We didn’t have a week or 10 days. We had to send the invitation within a few days,” NLD spokesman Nyan Win said during the meeting at party’s head office in Yangon on Saturday.

During the meeting, the NLD’s Constitution Amendment Committee and the ethnic parties agreed to meet every Saturday and submit the results of the talks to the parliamentary committee reviewing the constitution formed by the Union Parliament.

The ethnic parities discussed their plans on amending the constitution during the meeting and supported joint meetings with the NLD, Nyan Win said.

“A review committee is being formed in the Lower House. These committees will be submitting their reports within a month or two so we don’t have much time. That’s why we have requested seven members from the Constitutional Amendment Committee and at least two members from each ethnic party to attend the meeting every Saturday. Everyone has agreed on this,” he said.

Among the invited parties, only the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, the Arakan League for Democracy, the Mon Democracy Party, the Zomi Congress for Democracy, the Kaman National Progressive Party, and the Chin Progressive Party were able to attend on Saturday.

“The NLD and other parties have been talking about a federal system. There are many types of federal systems. But we are not discussing what type of system it is. We are trying to reach agreement between us and the ethnic parties. We will discuss in detail next Saturday,” Nyan Win said.

Changes to the constitution not concern political parties and their leaders but also with the public so the NLD chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi had told them to release the results of the next meetings to the public, Aye Tha Aung, Arakan League for Democracy head, said.

“The constitution can only be drafted after getting peace. If the people inside the peace zone are going to draft this even though they still haven’t obtained peace, the views of the people who are suffering from the gunfire will not be included,” said Pu Cin Sian Thang, chairman of Zomi Congress for Democracy.

“We have drafted provisions to amend people’s rights in the 2008 Constitution that don’t give any guarantee to our ethnic race. In the upcoming weeks, we will discuss with other ethnic leaders about the provisions that we want to amend. We will submit them to the Parliament and release it to the public. The main thing is to get acceptance of the public. The current constitution barely gives us these rights,” said Tin Maung Win, secretary of Kaman National Progressive Party.