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Peace hopes grow, but snags ahead

NEGOTIATIONS with ethnic groups must go beyond ceasefires and address the underlying grievances if decades-old conflicts are to be resolved, analysts say.

While national and regional governments have increased efforts to end fighting in Myanmar’s border areas in recent months, major obstacles remain to achieving a real peace solution. In the most significant development to date, Minister for Rail Transportation U Aung Min met representatives from five ethnic groups, including the Shan State Army-South, Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), Karen National Union (KNU), Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and the Chin National Front, for talks on the Thai-Myanmar border on November 19-20.

More recently, the Shan State Army-South reached a ceasefire deal with the Shan State Government in Taunggyi on December 2.

The “initial agreement” was designed “in order to build peace at the invitation of the government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar”, and was witnessed by national ministers, the state-run New Light of Myanmar said. Significantly, the Shan State Army-South had never previously agreed a ceasefire with the government.

“[The Shan State Army-South is] the first group who signed the peace agreement among the five groups that we have met,” U Hla Maung Shwe, a founder of Myanmar Egress, told news agency AFP after witnessing the signing.

Mediators were also trying to reach agreements with the other groups that participated in the November 19-20 talks, he added.

More meetings are planned throughout December and early 2012, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a recent report, Myanmar: A New Peace Initiative.

The report said that while fighting continues in some parts of the country, “momentum is clearly building behind the government’s initiative”, which “may offer the best chance in over 60 years for resolving these conflicts”.

However, the ICG and other analysts cautioned that talks were still at an early stage and peace deals may be years away.

“A lasting solution to the problem requires going beyond just stopping the wars,” said Jim Della-Giacoma, ICG’s project director for Southeast Asia. “Multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious Myanmar can only achieve genuine national unity and reconciliation by embracing its diversity.”

U Aung Naing Oo, deputy director of the Thailand-based Vahu Development Institute, told The Myanmar Times in a recent interview that “the peace initiatives … must go beyond the leaders” if they are to bring about viable long-term solutions.

“For peace deals to succeed, everyone – armed forces, armed ethnic groups, government, opposition parties, state and region governments, civil society, business and if possible the United Nations and international community – must play a meaningful role,” he said.

However, he described last month’s negotiations as “very significant in the sense that all sides see the possibility of at least a ceasefire throughout the country by 2012 … [the talks] are the first step to a nationwide ceasefire”.

The talks were facilitated by prominent civil society organisations, including Myanmar Egress and the Euro-Burma Office. One Yangon-based analyst familiar with the discussions agreed that while the meeting was “very positive, even exciting … the challenges remain great”.

“These negotiations have not gone further than the agreement to stop firing weapons at each other. A long process of discussing the way forward now can start,” he said. “The issues are complex, trust will be hard to build, the political solutions will probably take years to be agreed upon, and there may be resistances to whatever compromise is found, on both sides.”

He said the meeting showed “that the government was serious about reform, about engaging all stakeholders, about listening to its civil society, and about bringing peace to the land”.

Representatives from the groups involved in the discussions also expressed optimism that a permanent peace deal could be reached to end decades of armed conflict.

Sui Khar, a member of the Chin National Front, told Bloomberg that the groups would hold further talks with regional governments at meetings that will include representatives from the Union Government.

U Aung Min “said to us that this time they are trying to look for a solution for permanent peace”, Sui Khar said by phone from Chiang Mai in Thailand. “He agreed to have this political dialogue. I’m very positive.”

U Aung Min also proposed creating a liaison office and having both the government and ethnic groups request permission before entering areas controlled by the other, Sui Khar said.

The meeting was considered a major breakthrough for a government that had been widely criticised for the way it had managed the conflicts since coming to power in March.

Speaking to Myanmar journalists on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Indonesia on November 19, President U Thein Sein said the government was trying to “build trust” but the armed groups would “have to promise not to try to secede from the country”.

“We will look to implement more projects to raise their living standards while at the same time negotiate with them. If it works they will not be holding weapons in the future,” he said.

U Aung Naing Oo, who was present at the negotiations, said the November 19-20 meeting was made possible by the “introduction of democracy and change of government” earlier this year.

“The changes that have taken place inside the country are a prerequisite for peace overtures,” he said.

U Aung Min also brought “a fresh approach” to the talks, which saw “all former enemies sharing meals and cracking jokes during and after the negotiations”.

U Aung Naing Oo also highlighted the role civil society groups played in facilitating the discussions.

“It would not have happened if the mediators, those who organised the meetings from both sides of the borders, did not have the trust of the government as well as that of the armed ethnic groups.”

The Yangon-based analyst agreed that the discussions “confirm the greater role the government is ready to give to civil society organisations”.

“To see Yord Serk, the head of the Shan State Army-South, shaking hands with U Aung Min, a government minister, with the son of the Shan prince who convened the Panglong conference, [Euro-Burma Office’s] Harn Yawnghwe, and the son of professors at the military academy, Myanmar Egress’ Dr Nay Win Maung, seemed to me to be a very powerful image indeed, and one that really symbolised national reconciliation, acknowledging history and looking towards the future.”