BURMA PEACE PROCESS: Third party mediation would help move the process forward
The latest round of ceasefire
talks, known as Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), held from 22 to 26
September for five days came to an end without any significant
agreement being reached. The irony is that the Nationwide Ceasefire
Coordinating Team (NCCT) and as well, the Union Peace-making Work
Committee (UPWC) were both reluctant to admit that the talks have
produced no progress, whatsoever, and that they are a long way from from
signing the said agreement. Although in a closing statement, the two
sides have agreed, in general, to a fourth draft of the Nationwide
Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), it did not provide any details on how they
arrived at the new draft during the talks.
According
to the report from Eleven Media Group, on 26 September, U Aung Min,
chief of the UPWC, said: “ The discussion, which has been held, by
allotting more time, understanding, trust and respect, is itself an
achievement. We all have decided to go hand-in-hand to strive for peace
and are convinced that all our efforts will be successful. Only the two
negotiating parties understand most of the difficulties surrounding the
discussion, challenges and nature. Basing on the trust achieved, the two
negotiation parties would have to work for the solid backing
-endorsement- of their concerned organization.”
Nai Hong
Sar, head of the NCCT also said: “ We could understand the fear and
worry of the public caused by the recent problems adjourned to our area
and we could understand this. On the other hand, our discussion, if
compared to the previous one is faced with some difficulties. But if we
compare the 60 years of hardship in the front line, it is not that
difficult. We will be able to overcome these problems.”
The
report also mentioned that since the UPWC and NCCT were having problems,
where the interpretation of principles on both sides is concerned, and
have agreed behind closed door discussion agreeing not to abandon the
peace process altogether.
While it
is somewhat convoluted on what issues are at stake, the problematic or
themes needed to discuss, according to various media, they are said to
be - the inclusion of the word “revolution” in the text; formation of a
federal union; military code of conduct for both parties; deployment of
troops; transitional period arrangement for the ethnic armies; who
should be involved in the signing of NCA; political framework; and
whether the political dialogue should be tripartite, as demanded by the
NCCT, or eight parties, as foreseen by the UPWC, among others.
The
latest Irrawaddy report, on 27 September, said that the UPWC has agreed
to come down to five parties involvement in forthcoming political
dialogue, instead of eight, which means the army, government and the
parliament will form as a group and not three separate ones as
previously demanded.
At the
end of the latest round of ceasefire talks, on 26 September, a video
interview of DVB, with Dr Lian Sakhong was said to have indicated that
the main obstacle was on agreeing to the political roadmap tabled by the
UPWC.
The real
hindrance to the agreement is the acceptance of federal union and
federal army formation, although it has been agreed in the previous
round of peace talks in August. The change of heart and going back on
its promises and reconfirming the adherence of the Commander-in-Chief's
six guiding principles and the demand to adhere to the military-drawn,
2008 Constitution, which the military previously have agreed to drop,
added more uncertainty to the peace process. And thus, the situation
seems to be pushed back to the start or square one again.
The peace
talks has been ongoing,since the last three years. And at this rate, it
is hard to imagine, if the contending parties could be able to sign the
NCA anytime soon. It is quite evident that this “self-help”
peace-making initiative is not producing the wanted result and that it
is now time to look for third party mediator to break the ice.
The main
problem is the interpretation of the concept of power-sharing or federal
form of government, the main demand and aspiration of the non-Burman
ethnic nationalities The Burma Army top brass sees it in the light of
win-lose aspect, although the government faction, headed by President
Thein Sein and his top trouble-shooter, seems quite acceptable to the
concept. It was evident during the second last round of peace talks,
when the NCCT hailed as a breakthrough success for securing the
agreement to include the discussion of the federal union set up and
formation of a federal army, at the phase of political dialogue, after
signing the NCA. At that time, the participating Burma Army
representative didn't utter a word and left after the end of the
meeting, without giving interview or any comment.
Nai Hong
Sar, when asked if the Burma Army also was in agreement to the said
issue for later deliberation, said that it would only become clearer in
the next round of meeting. And as he had said, it turned out that the
Burma Army refused to even talk about the issues and terminated the
second day meeting, when the NCCT brought up the issue of federal army
formation. The situation now is that the army faction is undoing the
agreement that the government faction has agreed upon. In short, there
is a real problem on the part of the UPWC or government, which the army
is also a part, to accept federalism in words and deeds for it sees this
in the light of win-lose or zero-sum game and not win-win outcome.
From the
NCCT side, the concept of federalism could create a win-win situation,
ending the ethnic conflict, where all will benefit from the
power-sharing and resources-sharing in equitable manner.
Another
point is although it is said to be negotiating using the single text
method, it is mostly not adhering to its theoretical principle and
implementation. The ongoing peace process differ from One-Text Process
in the following points.
- There is no neutral third party facilitator or mediator.
- The two contending parties are the drafters and not the facilitator or third party.
- The two parties keep the draft, although they should give it back to the facilitator after the end of the session.
- The two parties revise, delete or add to the draft at free will.
- As there is no facilitator or mediator, the two sides could only aired their opinion or interpretation in a debate manner, rather than criticism to a draft drawn by the neutral party, which is only interest-based formulation for all stakeholders.
The
ongoing single text approach used by NCCT and UPWC differs in a lot of
approaches from the real theoretical underpinnings. The procedure and
implementation are outlined by The Negotiator Magazine as follows.
The
one-text procedure is a systematic process for shifting negotiators away
from thinking about concessions, by using a neutral, third party
facilitator to elicit underlying interests and to simplify the process
of jointly inventing many options and deciding on one. After eliciting
the issues and interests of all the parties, the facilitator drafts a
proposal and presents it to the parties as a draft for their criticism.
The parties may not accept or reject any part of the draft at this stage
of the process; they may only criticize.
The
process is called the "one-text" procedure because quite literally there
is only one text. All the parties get a copy of the facilitator's
draft, but they are not allowed to keep it, revise it, or add to it.
They must return the draft at the end of the session. The only people
who can revise, delete, or add to the draft are the facilitators. This
process helps prevent people from taking positions or getting a vested
interest in particular language or proposed terms. It allows them to
criticize freely without damaging their working relationships. It also
allows them to learn that they often share the same interests, and only
disagree about the means used to achieve them. The facilitators continue
to revise and resubmit drafts to the parties until the facilitators
feel the draft they have reflects the best they can do to meet all
parties' interests. Then and only then, they offer the parties an
opportunity to say "yes" or "no." At that point, the parties have a
clear choice; either I say yes to this or I start over. This procedure
was used at Camp David in the negotiations between Israeli Prime
Minister Begin and Egyptian President Sadat. President Carter and
Secretary of State Vance created 23 drafts in 13 days before they had a
proposal to which both sides could say yes.
Such
being the case, the two negotiating parties need to rethink the single
text approach seriously and adhere to the basic rule prescribed, by
employing a third party mediation team to help move the stalled peace
process further forward.
The contributor is ex-General Secretary of the dormant Shan Democratic Union (SDU) — Editor
Tags: Opinion
