More ceasefire groups in Burma are expected to follow the lead of the Shan State National Army in breaking ceasefire accords with the ruling military regime, according to ethnic leaders.

The Shan State National Army, which signed a ceasefire agreement with the military government in 1995, broke with Rangoon on Saturday and merged with the rebel group Shan State Army (South). It was the first such action in 10 years by any of the 17 ceasefire groups. The last to break with Rangoon was the ethnic rebel Karenni National Progressive Party, in 1995.

The pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a splinter group of the Karen National Union, is now very likely to merge with the KNU if the junta keeps pressuring it to disarm, said sources close to the DKBA in Karen State. A member of the DKBA said a high-ranking Rangoon military official had recently met a DKBA leader and told him to follow the government’s “exchange arms for peace” program, as other ceasefire groups had done.   

The DKBA member said his organization wouldn’t hand in its weapons to the government.

The Rangoon government has been pressuring ceasefire groups to disarm, one by one. The ethnic Palaung State Liberation Army and the Shan State National Army recently complied.

A day before the Shan State National Army joined the Shan State Army (South), the state-run radio and television reported that 325 SSNA members had handed over their arms to the government.

The general secretary of the KNU, Mahn Sha, said the SSNA had cancelled its ceasefire agreement with the junta and joined with the SSA-S as a direct consequence of the government pressure to hand in its arms. “More ceasefire groups will come out if the SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] has been pressuring them to disarm,” Mahn Sha warned

Aung Myint, spokesman of the United Wa State Army, told The Irrawaddy Tuesday that the government hadn’t yet brought any pressure on his movement to disarm. 

A senior official of the UWSA in northern Shan State said that the ceasefire groups will all have to disarm. The 16,000-strong UWSA is the most powerful ceasefire group, and for several weeks, with the backing of the Burma Army, it has been engaged in fighting with the Shan State Army (South) in the Mong Ton area of northern Shan State, opposite Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province

The military government has reportedly told the ceasefire groups to transform themselves into political parties, and has included them in the National Convention. The NC is charged with drawing up a constitution providing for a general election, and observers say the ceasefire groups are likely to be allowed to participate in such an election. The NC has been in recess since April, however.

Dr La Ja, general secretary of another ceasefire group, the Kachin Independence Organization, said he believes that the government will move to disarm all ethnic ceasefire groups after the completion of a new constitution.