Some sayings and quotations are easier said than done. Like the one quoted from the late Nelson Mandela by the Burma News International (BNI) in its Deciphering Burma’s 

peace process 2014:

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.

Then (your enemy) becomes your partner.

It goes admirably together with other quotations oft-cited by negotiators:

§  Get to know your opposite numbers at all levels socially. Friends take longer to fall out.

§  Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Even the Buddha who taught his pupils: Hatred is not appeased by hatred in this world. It is appeased by love.

This is the eternal law, would have agreed with them.

All of them, as several negotiators on both sides in the current peace process have found out, are very practical and valuable.

However, as worldly sayings go, they are not without negative results as well.

When Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), the father of India, made peace with Muslims, he was assassinated by a fellow Hindu. So was Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat (1918-1981) by his fellow Muslims after he signed a peace treaty with Israeli.

Even the highly successful British-American alliance that had won the war against Germany during World War II was not without its sad consequences, as reported by David Irving in his bestseller The War between the Generals. One former British general was punished by the British army after the war for his close collaboration with the Americans.

When we look into the ongoing peace process that began in Burma in 2011, we are seeing signs of history repeating itself on both sides. Negotiators who are adhering to the dictum: Successful negotiations require “relationship orientation” rather than “deal orientation” are being viewed and snubbed as turncoats by their own colleagues. There’s no denying that some of them may defect to the other side, but sweeping generalization based on a few facts will turn out to be self-defeating.   

At the same time, implementing the “relationship-orientation” to the other extreme, too many secret meetings and too many informal gatherings, especially by top leaders will be counter-productive. Because successful negotiations not only rest on trust by the other side but trust by one’s own side.  

Once again, it is high time SHAN’s earlier counsel: There is a great need for a proper balance between confidentiality (of the negotiations) and transparency (for one’s own people at all levels) is taken into serious consideration if peace in our long-suffered land is to be achieved.