United Fronts

   (Antigovernment Insurgents)

   Ethnic nationalist, leftist, and Burman (Bamar) insurgent groups have established united fronts to topple the central government since independence, but their effectiveness has been undermined by geographic remoteness, ideological and factional differences, and the often-effective tactics of the Ne Win and State Law and Order Restoration Council/State Peace and Development Council regimes to divide them against themselves. The most important were the National United Liberation Front (NULF), which brought together the Parliamentary Democracy Party (PDP) of former Prime Minister U Nu, the Karen National Union (KNU), the New Mon State Party (NMSP), and the Chin Democracy Party in 1970. After its collapse, ethnic minority leaders established a new grouping in 1976, the National Democratic Front (NDF), which in addition to the KNU and MNSP also included the Kachin Independence Army/Organization, the Karenni National Progress Party, the Chin National Front, and seven other armed groups. In principle, it remained operative in 2005, although overshadowed by the Democratic Alliance of Burma, established in November 1988, which includes a broad array of minority, Burman, and political exile groups.

   See also Cease-Fires.