19 January 2014

The late prime minister of Thailand Gen Chartichai Choonhawan began his premiership in the 1980’s with the slogan:

“From battlefields to the business fields.” Since then the kingdom has been on the road to becoming one of Asia’s tigers.

This morning Gen Mutu Saypoe, President of the Karen National Union / Karen National Liberation Army (KNU/KNLA), who presides over the conference, appears to be paraphrasing a new slogan by declaring: Now is the time to move from battlefields to the negotiation table.”

The Ethnic Armed Organization (EAO) Conference #2, that begins today isa follow-up to the Laiza conference (30 October-2 November 2013) that formed the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT).

Its main job is to finalize the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) draft, which is the outcome of separate proposals drawn up by the NCCT and the government’s Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC). A copy of the UPWC third proposal, delivered on 29 December, was among the handout package given to each conference participant.

One is pleasantly surprised to see that the UPWC’s latest draft, unlike its second, no longer demands “the renunciation of the armed struggle”. Likewise, it no longer insists that only ceasefire agreements that conform to existing laws would be ratified. No wonder both sides were claiming that they were 80% in agreement.

The difference is that while the UPWC draft has only 13 pages for its 9 chapters (Basic principles, Aims and Objectives, Military matters, Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee (JCMC), Political dialogue, Trustbuilding, The Day the agreement takes effect, Ratification by the Union Assembly, and General), the NCCT’s combined draft has 38 pages (later trimmed down to 29) with 11 chapters and 2 appendices:

• Basic Principles
• Aims and Objectives
• Political roadmap                     (not included in UPWC draft)
• Military matters
• Code of Conduct                       (not included in UPWC draft)
• Nationwide Ceasefire Joint Monitoring
• Trustbuilding and Waiver of Law on Unlawful Associations
• Political dialogue
• Transitional arrangements         (not included in UPWC draft)
• General
• Signing of the agreement          (not included in UPWC draft)

Appendix 1. Code of Conduct (COC)

Appendix 2. Vocabulary

I was surprised by the unexpected change of stand in the Kachin Independence Organization / Kachin Independence Army (KIO/KIA) that had hotly debated in Laiza against the signing of the NCA before agreement on the Framework for Political Dialogue (FPD) was reached. According to it, the roadmap sequence should be Negotiations on FPD, Signing of NCA and Political Dialogue (PD) instead of Signing of NCA, Negotiations on FPD, and PD, as proposed by President Thein Sein.

I was told later, on the sidelines of the conference, that the KIO had changed its mind after international consultants had convinced them that it was the NCA that should logically come first. They later informed the NCCT that as long as the government guarantees that some of their concerns (eg. Creation of a federal armed forces) would be definitely on the agenda during the negotiations for FPD, they would be happy to work alongside the President’s roadmap.

So both sides are each taking one step back in order to take two forward, I thought. And each has good news to report to its people back home.

I thought they should keep doing things that way, if the people really come first in their calculations.

I went to sleep soundly that night. The host had provided us with two more blankets each and I was no longer freezing.