As Sao Aung Myat, the Chief Minister of the Shan State Government, has mentioned earlier (on 4 March 2014), there are altogether 14 armed resistance movements (ARMs) that have concluded ceasefires with Naypyitaw.

They have so far agreed upon 3 stages of negotiations:

• Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA)
• Frame work for Political Dialogue
• Political Dialogue

On 9-10 March, the ARMs’ Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) and the government’s Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC) are going to meet again to discuss the ARMs’ NCA draft that emerged from the 20-25 January Law Khee Lar Conference.

SHAN has no crystal ball to inform you in advance what the outcome will be. What it can tell you is this much:

• The bad news is that the government is unhappy about the NCCT draft’s chapters 4 (Military matters) 5 (Military Code of Conduct), 6 (Joint Monitoring) and 9 (Transitional arrangements). The ARMs are also unhappy about recent clashes in Kachin and Shan states.

• The good news is that both sides have people who really want peace.

So what will happen after the NCCT-UPWC meet?

The NCCT will probably hold another summit meeting of top ARM leaders to report back and discuss how much they can agree upon the 9-10 March meeting results.

If it turns out well, another meeting with the UPWC will then be held in Pa-an to finalize the agreement and fix a date for the official signing. (Hkun Okker, a member of the NCCT, later added public consultations will be held before the signing to seek their approval.)

The signing will then be followed by negotiations for the framework and the actual political dialogue.

The worry here is that we don’t have all the time in the world. By May 2015, election campaigns will be in full swing and the peace process has only a little over 13 months to go before taking a reluctant break.

If there were, say, 10 topics to discuss at the political dialogue and they have just finished, say, 2 topics, we may be able to see an agreement saying the remaining 8 topics will be negotiated after the new president is installed in his/her office in 2016.

SHAN thinks that will be our best hope. But if worse comes to worst, and both sides are still stuck with the NCA negotiations in April 2015, the concern is that the new administration that succeeds the present government might be “afraid” to continue with the peace process. (We will naturally need guarantees from all the presidential candidates that whoever becomes president will not give up on the peace process)

The ARMs as well as the political parties and civil society organizations including the media must therefore work hard to see that whatever changes take place in the country, the peace process goes on until peace returns to it and its people.

(Adapted from remarks given by SHAN advisor Khuensai Jaiyen on 4 March 2014 at the Ethnic Media Conference #2 in Taunggyi)