Rebel groups have rejected a peace offer from Myanmar’s embattled junta, which is reeling from battlefield losses and defections in a civil war that has lasted more than three years.
It is the first such initiative by the dictatorship since it took power in 2021. It also comes after the failure of a China-brokered ceasefire in the northern state of the Shan.
The junta called on ethnic armed groups and “terrorist insurgent groups” to “communicate with us to politically resolve political issues,” also urging them to join elections scheduled for next year.
The exiled National Unity Government (NUG) said the offer was not worth considering, adding that the junta had no authority to hold elections.
The junta extended an olive branch Thursday as it struggled to fight on multiple fronts and stem a widespread rebellion.
Some reports indicate that the junta now controls less than half of Myanmar’s territories.
In June, an alliance of three ethnic armies renewed its offensive against the army, seizing territory along a key highway leading to China’s Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar.
Fighting near the border in Shan State has stalled China’s ambitious plan to connect its landlocked southwest to the Indian Ocean via Myanmar.
Beijing’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, reportedly issued a warning to the country’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, during a visit to Myanmar last month.
Armed groups should follow “the path of party politics and elections in order to bring lasting peace and development,” the junta said in its Thursday statement.
“The country’s human resources, basic infrastructure and many human lives have been lost, and the country’s stability and development have been blocked (because of the conflict),” the text reads.
But rebel groups are skeptical of the offer.
The Karen National Union (KNU), which has fought for decades with the army for more autonomy along the border with Thailand, told AFP that talks would only be possible if the army agreed “common political objectives”.
“First: no military participation in future politics. Second (the army) must accept a democratic federal constitution,” KNU spokesperson Padoh Saw Taw Nee told AFP.
“Third: They must answer for everything they have committed… including war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said. “No impunity.”
If the junta does not accede to these demands, the KNU “will continue to put pressure on (the junta) politically and militarily”, he added.
Maung Saungkha, the leader of the Bamar People’s Liberation Army, told the Reuters news agency that his group was “not interested in this offer.”
“They hang goat heads but sell dog meat,” Soe Thu Ya Zaw, commander of the Mandalay People’s Defense Forces, wrote on Facebook.
After the military overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government in 2021, peaceful protests resulted in killings and arrests.
This led ethnic armed groups to join forces with anti-coup militias across the country to fight back, plunging the country into civil war.
At least 50,000 people have been killed since the coup and more than two million displaced, according to the United Nations.
The UN warned last week that Myanmar was “sinking into an abyss of human suffering”. Eyewitnesses had previously spoken to the BBC about how the army tortured the people in its custodyincluding pouring burning gasoline on them and forcing some to drink their urine.
