TAKING STOCK: The peace process after five years
As the Thein Sein
regime initiated peace process, which started out on 17 August 2011, entered
into the fifth year and the partially signed Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement
(NCA) a little more than one year old – its first anniversary just celebrated
on 15 October 2016 -, many started to wonder, where it is heading and if this
noble initiative is really making sense from the point of national
reconciliation and state-building, especially in the wake of recent furious
armed clashes that has happened along the Burma-China border, around Muse
Township, in northern Shan State.
Let us look at
the whole peace process of this some five years, four under the Thein Sein
government and some nine months now under the NLD regime, headed by its de
facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, that has inherited it from its predecessor.
In order to do
this, let us dwell on the premises of NCA, as both the Thein Sein and Suu Kyi
governments have made it a cornerstone and guiding principles to achieve the
desired result that would usher the country its people to a new harmonious
political system that all could live with, fulfilling national reconciliation
and most importantly, a durable political settlement along ethnic lines and
diverse political aspirations of the major stakeholders.
Nationwide
Ceasefire Agreement
The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) text, agreed on 6 August and signed on 31
October 2015, has a preamble and seven chapters, with 33 clauses and 86
sub-clauses containing 104 specific provisions and running to twelve pages in
the English version. Key provisions are: Preamble, Basic principle, Aims and Objectives, Ceasefire Related Matters, Maintaining and
Strengthening Ceasefire, Guarantees for Political Dialogue and Future Tasks,
and Miscellaneous.
The International Crisis Group's (ICG) report
of 16 September 2015, just prior to the signing of NCA, correctly spelled out
the challenges which the negotiators would face ahead, which are still valid
today after one year of inking the agreement. It said: “Finalization of a draft NCA text was a
significant step but meant as only the first in the process, with long,
difficult political dialogue needed before a comprehensive peace agreement –
the “Union Accord” – could be reached. Many of the most challenging issues,
including what form of federalism might be envisaged, how revenue sharing would
be done and the future status of the armed groups and their possible
integration into the military were deferred to the political dialogue. So too
were some technical military issues on ceasefire monitoring and code of
conduct”
The report
further pin-pointed the agreement's weakness and difficulties in implementing
it on the ground, concluding with perhaps a possible ray of false hope that it
might as well succeed. The report stated: “Thus the text is neither a classic
ceasefire agreement – many of the military issues such as force separation,
demarcation and verification are vague, or not included, or would require
further agreement to come into force – nor is it a political agreement, as it
references many political issues but defers detailed discussion. This hybrid
status reflects the genesis of the document and the diverse set of actors and
priorities around the peace table, as well as political constraints. As a
ceasefire document, this means it is very weak, but as experts have pointed
out, this does not mean the peace process cannot succeed, as there are many
examples of comprehensive peace accords being
negotiated while fighting continued.”
In sum, it could be said that the NCA is not only concerned with
ceasefire alone but also issues relating to the formation of future political
system formation, although nothing is quite clear on how to go about with it,
at the moment, given the convoluted nature of the contemporary political
landscape.
How NCA is managed
Looking at the chart flow on NCA management, one would see Joint
Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM) is the highest organ that delegates
the Joint Monitoring Committee – Union-level (JMC-U) regarding ceasefire
implementation and Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) responsible for
political dialogue and directing the whole peace process undertaking.
JICM is made up of two groups with 8 members each. One is the
government, parliament and military combined and the other the signatory EAOs.
The JMC-U is made up of three groups. The two groups with 10 members
each are the government, parliament and military combined and the other, the
signatory EAOs. In addition, 3 civilian representatives each chosen by the
military and the signatory EAOs, making 6 altogether also are included.
The UPDJC is made up of three groups, each with 16 members. The three
groups are the government, parliament and military combined, the signatory
EAOs, and political parties. It is the highest organ in directing the country’s
political dialogue, including the convening of Union Peace Conference (UPC) or
21st Century Panglong.
The actual
signing of NCA
On 15 October 8
EAOs signed the NCA in Naypyitaw, while the rest that made up 13 others refused
to sign. The official count of the EAOs is 21, while the government only
recognized 15 altogether.
They are Arakan
Liberation Party (ALP), Chin National Front (CNF), Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA),
Karen Peace Council (KPC), Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), Karen
National Union (KNU), New Mon State Party (NMSP), Pa-O National Liberation
Organization (PNLO), and Shan State Progress Party (SSPP), which are Nationwide
Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) members that have signed bilateral ceasefire
agreement with the government and invited to sign the NCA.
The only NCCT
member that has no ceasefire agreement with the government, but invited to sign
the NCA is the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).
The non-NCCT
members that have bilateral ceasefire agreements with the government and
invited to sign the NCA are All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF),
National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), National Socialist Council of
Nagaland – Khaplang (NSCN-K), Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and
United Wa State Army (UWSA).
EAOs that have no
bilateral ceasefire agreement with the government and not invited to sign the
NCA are Arakan Army (AA), Arakan National Council (ANC), Lahu Democratic Union
(LDU), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta'ang National
Liberation Army (TNLA) and Wa National Organization (WNO).
These 6 excluded
EAOs are members of the UNFC, a 12 ethnic armies alliance, which since the
signing of NCA some of its original members like the KNU has opted to suspend –
not resign – its membership, while the CNF and PNLO were expelled. In addition,
the MNDAA and TNLA have asked for resignation but the UNFC has not taken
decision on the issue up to this days.
Thus, the actual membership count of the UNFC is not clear, although to
date many referred to it as a 7 member ethnic army alliance.
The NCA
signatories are ABSDF, ALP, CNF, DKBA, KNLA-PC, KNU, PNLO and RCSS
The NCCT was a
negotiation body of the EAOs, prior to the NCA signing, which had 16 EAOs as
members.
Reasons for not
signing the NCA
The reasons for
the UNFC not signing the NCA has been the government rejection to accept 6 of
its members, while other non-signatories that are not UNFC members like UWSA,
NDAA and NSCN-K have their own doubtfulness and reasons, one way or the other.
The UWSA aspires
to achieve the status of a statehood within the union and is not yet satisfied
with the recent status of Self-Administrative Division. The NDAA or Mong La, on
the other hand, dreams of achieving an Akha Self-Administrative Zone.
The Wa, who
already has the highest degree of self-administration in practical sense, where
even the government's troops cannot even enter without permission, simply
doesn't see more profit to be gained from signing the NCA. Mong La being the
UWSA ally, also sees the situation more or less the same.
As for the
NSCN-K, its goal is to carve out a political entity from Burma and India and
doesn't see any meaningful approach through signing the NCA.
As for the UNFC
not going along with the inking of the agreement hinged on the exclusion of its
members and explained by the KNU Vice-President Naw Zipporah Sein – oddly
enough, whose organization is a leading proponent that signed the NCA - in a written text titled “A brief NCA history,
the NCA’s flaws and failings”, dated 14 January 2016, as: “The government refused to allow three of
the 16 EAOs, represented by the NCCT and the Senior Delegation (SD), to sign
the NCA. These three are the Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF) – also known
as TNLA, the Arakan Army (AA), and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance
Army (MNDAA). There was also a second group of three organizations that the
government also refused to allow on grounds that they did not have a
significant number of troops. They are the Lahu Democratic Union (LDU), the Wa
National Organization (WNO) and the Arakan National Congress (ANC). At the
time, the three EAOs in the first group were facing government’s massive
military offensives.”
She further wrote: “It is clearly stated in the last chapter of NCA that
the NCA shall be signed by representatives from the government and
representatives from the EAOs, as well as the international representatives and
domestic personages, as witnesses. Nonetheless, the government continued to
refuse the signing of the NCA by the 6 groups mentioned above. Out of the 7
countries proposed, the government also refused three international would-be
witnesses, representing the US, UK and Norway to sign the NCA.”
As a result, on the 15th of October 2015, 8 EAOs repudiated the EAOs
Summit Meeting decisions and agreed to sign the NCA with the government. The
other 7 EAOs refused to sign, and a total of 6 were not allowed to sign.
The majority
of the EAOs were irked and felt betrayed by the 8 signatories of the NCA, as
the Laiza and Law Khee Lar conferences of the EAOs were to undertake the
signing of agreement together.
The
following statement from a paragraph of the “Conference of Ethnic Armed Resistance Organizations
Law Khee Lar, Kawthoolei “ from January 20 – 25, 2014 stated:
This Law Khee Lar Conference, held under the aegis of KNU as the host,
in addition to consolidating unity of all the ethnic nationalities, serves as
an arena for preparing them, for different stages of political dialogues and
negotiations that will come after achievement of nationwide ceasefire. The
ethnic armed resistance organizations are to participate in the political
dialogues and negotiations, with unity and coordination, and they will have to
struggle on until their political goal of establishment of a Genuine Federal
Union is achieved.
Ongoing wars on
non-signatory EAOs and signatory EAOs
With the EAOs
divided between the signatory and non-signatory groups, tension arose
politically and militarily.
However, the
hardened political stance dissipated as signatory and non-signatory EAOs began
to cooperate to position or act as a bloc or group, after the Ethnic Armed
Organizations’ (EAOs) Plenary Meeting in Mai Ja Yang, Kachin Independence
Organization’s (KIO) controlled town near Chinese border, took place from 26 to
30 July.
Militarily,
shortly after the signing of NCA in October last year, the signatory RCSS
reinforced its units in northern Shan State, leading to protracted armed
confrontation between itself and the TNLA. The TNLA accused the RCSS of
intruding into its territories and that it was in league with the Burma Army,
but the latter denied that it was the case.
To complicate the
matter, the Burma Army attacked the RCSS several times during the year in
Kyaukme and Hsipaw Townships and the latest one being this year in October, in
Mong Kung Township where the RCSS accused the Burma Army of breaching the NCA.
The on and off
military engagements between the EAOs and the Burma Army occurred all through
out the year, in Shan and Kachin States, from 2011 until today.
But serious bouts
of conflict happened during 2015 and 2016. Outstanding among them were the well
publicized conflict in Shan State between the MNDAA and government troops in
Kokang area, in February 2015, which was particularly intense
from February to June that year and again in October 2015; and the recent 20
November, Northern Alliance-Burma (NA-B) offensives along the Burma-China border
against the government positions. By 5 December, the ethnic alliance was said
to have withdrawn from its siege of Mong Ko, where the government troops had
put up a stiff resistance, using air strikes and artillery bombardment hitting
many civilian targets. But elsewhere the fighting goes on in northern Shan
State, which might still go on for quite a while.
The NA-B, made up of KIA, MNDAA, TNLA and AA were said to have launched
the offensives, to employ the strategy of “offensive is the best defensive”, as
the Burma Army has been conducting heavy attacks on the the KIA and NA-B
members in Kachin and Shan States, since three months ago. Other than that they
also wanted to send the message that excluding them from the peace process
won't achieve the desired political outcome and that they are a force to be
reckoned with.
There have also been clashes between government forces and the
SSA-North, of particular intensity from October to November 2015 and in August
2016.
In Karen State, clashes in July 2015 and again from August to September
2016 between a renegade faction of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA)
and government troops together with Border Guard Force soldiers were reported.
In summary, the Burma Army has been in an offensive mode and war-footing
against all the non-signatory EAOs in
the Kachin and Shan States, but remarkably, also attacking the RCSS an
NCA signatory and intruding into the KNU territories, while going after the
DKBA splinter group. KNU is also an NCA signatory.
Analysis
Given such circumstances, the whole peace process spanning some five
years should be viewed and assessed from the point of NCA implementation
organs' performance, players or stakeholders political outlook and initiatives,
the actual challenges the country is facing and possible remedies to break the
deadlock.
The performance of the NCA implementation organs, which are JMC-U and
UPDJC could be said as unsatisfactory, even though some might argue otherwise.
The first ever investigation carried out by the JMC regarding the armed
clashes between the RCSS and Burma Army, which occurred in Mong Kung Township,
said that the troops from both sides have no in-depth understanding of NCA, no
contact with each other and no clear understanding on each others operational
area.
The JMC investigation team is said to be formed with two civilian, two
Tatmadaw and two RCSS representatives. Reportedly, it has suggested that aside
from generally promoting better understanding between the RCSS and the
Tatmadaw, drugs related crimes should be tackled cooperatively in coordination
and the need to draw up demarcation lines for both troops to observe.
Thus it could be said even though JMC State-level could be formed in
Shan and Karen states, implementing and understanding NCA for the troops is
still rudimentary and on top of that demarcation lines for troops movement and
stationing have not even started yet, after one year of NCA signing. In short the JMC still needs a long way to go
to be really effective.
The ongoing talks between the UNFC and the government's Peace commission
also includes the strengthening of the JMC, where international experts'
participation in ceasefire monitoring and also enforcement mechanism should be
incorporated, which so far has been given a cold shoulder by the military on
the proposal.
While JMC covers only the NCA signatory EAOs, the armed engagement with
the non-signatories EAOs is solely the domain of Burma Army or defense
ministry, which are exacerbating with its offensive wars in northern Shan and Kachin
states.
As for the UPDJC performance being unable to conduct the peace process
without having an all-inclusiveness is the biggest obstacle, as it would be
only able to preside over limited state-level political dialogue, which is
supposed to give crucial inputs to the union-level political dialogue or Union
Peace Conference - 21st Century Panglong, as it is now officially
dubbed by the NLD regime.
As areas that have not been covered by the NCA won't be able to conduct
political dialogue, the inputs could not be all-encompassing, which in effect
would mean the peace conference would only partially represent the population
and that is not the intention of the Union Peace Conference.
Aung San Suu Kyi, as chairperson of the UPDJC and as well the National
Reconciliation Peace Center (NRPC), is committed to a rigid time-frame and is
determined to carry on the peace process with only the 8 EAOs, plus other
stakeholders that are already part of the process. Her logic seems to be that in
time the remaining EAOs would join in and eventually the idea of excluding the
three EAOs would be accepted. But this has already been proven wrong, as could
be seen by the recent NA-B offensives on the Burma Army positions.
As for the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, the military posture of
“a state within a state”, combined with upholding the military-drafted
constitution would continue to be the norm and continued military supremacy in
political arena would be maintained. People should not be confused with the military
making use of Aung San Suu Kyi to gain international acceptance and
legitimacy.
The NCA signatory EAOs are torn between having to go along with the
powers that be, for whatever purpose the individual members might have in
store, and moral conviction to be in solidarity with the non-signatories of the
NCA.
The NCA non-signatory EAOs, especially the UNFC, continues to bargain
with the government on its 8 point proposal, which centers around, bilateral
nationwide ceasefire, tripartite dialogue composition and commitment to the
building of the genuine federal union, including all-inclusiveness of all EAOs
in the peace process, even though not explicitly mentioned in the proposal.
The recent NA-B offensives on Burma Army positions could now have a
negative impact for the UNFC negotiation with the government, as KIA, which is
also UNFC leading member, is part of the NA-B.
The actual challenges facing the country are:
- Firstly,
the ongoing armed engagements and tensions between the EAOs and the Burma
Army, including communal violence and the uprising of Rohingya, dubbed as
Bengali by the government, in Arakan State;
- Secondly,
the government of NLD and the military power relation or problematic
two-tier administrative structure;
- Thirdly,
the power and resources sharing within the ethnic states;
- Fourthly,
due to the ongoing wars and violence some 120,000 refugees fleeing across
the borders and more than 662,400 inside the border as IDPs;
- Fifthly,
from 1962 to 2010, successive military governments confiscation of
hundreds and thousands of acres of land from farmers all over the country;
and
- Finally,
the superpower and regional power relationship, among others.
In order to overcome and tackle all the said woes and problems, the best
place to start is countering the prevailing “depleted trust” atmosphere by
initiating a “trust-building” initiative. And to do this the following mindset
alteration, specifically from the part of the government and military might be
necessary.
- The genuine
wish and commitment to be equal with all negotiation partners and not a
patron-client relationship;
- Practicing and believing in a real joint-ownership of the peace
process and not just lip-service;
- Bridging the
differing concept, by accepting a common denominator that the country is a
newly formed political entity voluntarily formed between ethnic states as
the “Union of Burma”, after the British left in 1948 and they gained a
joint-independence; and
- A real
political will and belief in peaceful co-existence and durable political settlement.
If
the above suggested measures could be accepted, we all will be in a position to
stop the ongoing armed ethnic conflict, create a peaceful atmosphere conducive
to the peace process and eventually overcome all the woes that the country is
now facing. Otherwise, we will be stuck up in a make-believe illusion and false
believe of doing a noble deed by holding another 21st Century
Panglong Conference, which is neither all-encompassing nor all-inclusive.
Tags: Opinion
