To keep up with the timeline of 90 days and start the political dialogue, Union Peace Conference   took place from 12 to 16 January, in Naypyitaw.

The conference or convention was attended by over 1000 representatives from government, parliament, Tatmadaw (military), political parties, civil society organizations, international representatives, including  the country’s eight non-state armed groups who signed the controversial Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in October 2015. Boycotting the event were over 100 civil society organizations, in protest of ongoing conflict, and the ethnic armed groups who were not signatory to the NCA on the grounds that it was not inclusive.

But the only exception attending the gathering from non-signatories ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) was the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Kaplan (NSCN- K), reportedly just as an observer.

Accordingly, the five issues, political, economic, social, security and land and natural resources management were discussed, where two issues concerning federalism and federal army, under the category of politics and security, dominated all the other topics.

On 16 January, at the end of the conference, the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) secretarial group tabled 4 point proposal to U Aung Min, Chairman of the political session in Union Peace Conference working group, which was accepted without opposition and endorsement of all the participants.

1. Suggestion to earmark the time span of achieving Union Accord from 3 to 5 years;
2. To convene the second Union Peace Conference at an appropriate time as soon as possible;
3. To involve more women representative; and
4. To honour those who are active and supportive in the preparation of Union Peace Conference and peace process.

Opening speeches of the President, Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief

The opening ceremony speeches were delivered by President Thein Sein, National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, Lower House Speaker Thura Shwe Mann and Karen National Union (KNU) Chairman Mutu Say Poe.

President Thein Sein said: “This peace convention is started to smoothly transfer the duty to the new government and to implement the NCA according to the timeline.”

He stressed that aside from having to abide by the timeline, the five categories – politics, economy, social, security, land and natural resources management – were overwhelmingly wide-spread in spectrum and during these five days of deliberation, the convention won't be able to make decision but just compile them and hand it over to the incoming regime.

He continued that in order the new government to achieve good results, in the forthcoming convention, it would depend on how much good points the recent convention could gather.

Aung San Suu Kyi voiced a different tone, when she said equality, trust, respect and harmony for each other between ethnic nationalities were cornerstone of the NLD and that round table political negotiation culture with Panglong spirit were principles of the party, since its foundation.

She said: “The NCA is the first step to achieve peace within the union and (we) must without fail cooperate so that all EAOs could signed. It is important that ethnic nationalities born within the union not to have differences of mind between those armed groups that signed the NCA and those that still haven't sign it.”

Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, apart from reiterating the military stance of six guiding principle on the peace process with three political objectives, which in effect means adhering to the military-drafted constitution, said: “(We) could see that all countries around the world have only one army. Our country is also adhering to this principle and building from all sides the Myanmar Tatmadaw to be a standard army. (I) would also like to invite and welcome those EAOs that desire to carry the duty of defending the country.”

He stressed that when discussing about a union based on democracy and federalism, it could not be done bearing arms and that all the EAOs that were still to sign the NCA could do according to their desire at any time and that the door would be wide opened.

Wrap up of Union Peace Conference

The Union Peace Conference discussion was conducted by more than 70 representatives from the government and parliamentary, together with nearly 200 representatives from military, EAOs and political parties on five categories separately.

Seven groups – the government, parliament, military, EAOs, special invitees from ethnic groups and invited appropriate individuals - discussed the topic of politics, economy, defence and security, social and natural resources, which were recorded, compiled and handed over to the Vice-President Dr. Sai Mauk Kham, who in turn would hand over to the second session of Union Peace Conference, to be carried on by the next government.

Reportedly, on 16 January, the compilation of opinion gathered at the five day convention includes the political category with 11 pages, defence and security 19 pages, social 8 pages, economy, taxation and revenue distribution 4 pages, management of natural resources 6 pages, making 48 pages altogether.

8 States or 14 States & Regions?

At the end of the conference, all the seven groups' participants agreed to the basic principles that in forming the union with equality and justice among ethnic nationalities, based on democracy and federalism, no portion of the country's territory may secede and would not copy any country's federal system, but would establish the federalism suitable to the people.

But regardless of such agreement, disagreement on how to approach the suitable federal form of government were there for all to see.

While the Union Solidarity and Development Party-Military (USDP-Military) regime is for a strong central government with weak state and regional governments, the ethnic nationalities, armed and unarmed, are for a balanced power-sharing between the central and the state-regional governments.

On top of that, the ethnic nationalities, particularly the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), are for 8 States configuration, while the USDP, military and the NLD opted for the present 14 States and Regions set up, reasoning that fairness must be taken into account for other ethnic groups which reside within the designated area for state-level status of a dominant ethnic group. And as if there is not enough problems, the Wa, Palaung, Pa-O and Tai-Leng aired their aspirations to upgrade their status to national state-level within the union.

The  Wa, Palaung and Pa-O are sub-ethnic groups residing within Shan State and Tai-Leng, also known as Shan-Ni inhabited Kachin State and Sagaing Region.

The recognized national states are Kachin, Shan, Karenni, Karen, Mon, Arakan and Chin States, with the Burma Proper, also known as Ministerial Burma during the British colonial era, which supposed to be a Bamar State, has diversified into 7 Divisions that only lately, according to 2008 military-drafted constitution, have been changed into 7 Regions.

Perspective

The Union Peace Conference is more like a discussion forum for different groups, according to many keen observers and the fact that deliberation of federal union formation and restructuring of the Tatmadaw into a federal army, as inspired by the EAOs, including resources-sharing will be the main bone of contention.

To be exact, the debate of 8 States versus 14 States and Regions, Bamar-dominated Tatmadaw versus ethnic-desired federal army, including how to tackle and accommodate ethnic sub-groups aspirations of national state-level status will be the central themes for the rest of the forthcoming peace conference.

The discussion group from the military said the present 14 States and Regions should go on and rejected the ethnic proposed position of 8 States configuration on the ground that such places like Yangon, Mandalay, Pago Regions and so on are ethnically mixed populated areas and that there is no homogeneous ethnic population in a particular state.

The non-Bamar ethnic groups, on the other hand said that in the present two parliaments there is no equality of power for even if the national parliament rejects a motion, the peoples parliament could endorse it, given that the 7 Regions are populated by the majority Bamar ethnic group. And as such,  it will be like the Bamar are getting 7 Kyats (Myanmar monetary units), when each time each ethnic state is only receiving one, according to the report of 16 January in SHAN.

The ethnic groups proposal in a nutshell is similar to the all ethnic nationalities' endorsed “Federal Proposal” of Taunggyi Seminar (1961), out of which emerged the following 5 point call:

•Burma Proper must be a constituent state like Chin, Kachin, Shan and others

•Equal power to the two Houses of Parliament

•Equal representation for each state in the Upper House (National Parliament)

•Reservation of the following subjects for the Union government and the remaining subjects for the states: Foreign affairs, Defence, Finance, Coinage and paper currency, Posts and Telegraphs, Railways, Airways and Waterways, Union Judiciary and Sea Customs Duty

•Fair distribution of the revenue collected by the Union Government among the state

The same SHAN report also said that U Nyan Win from the NLD indicated during the discussion that he didn't like the idea of 8 States configuration. But according to political observer Dr. Yan Myo Thein: “The NLD crowd doesn't like 8 States from the outset and it seems the decision is made depending on the political situation. But after (the NLD) come to power, it could possibly reconsider and make changes. It couldn't be that it doesn't accept federalism.”

Given such circumstances, the issue of 8 States versus 14 States and Regions will dominate the future political discussion.

The relatively new issue, which has been suppressed during the successive military regimes coupled with the aspirations of ethnic upsurge, of the demand for national state-level administration by the Wa, Pa-O, Palaung and Tai-Leng is also a challenge that the new government has to tackle.

“Instead of splitting into states, why we don’t help each other and work together based on the principles of the Panglong Agreement?” asked Sai Leik, spokesperson for the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), citing the landmark 1947 accord promising autonomy and equality to Burma’s ethnic nationalities.

As to why this conflict might have developed, Sai Leik attributed it to the fact that “the ethnic nationalities who formed the union have never had their rights honoured,” according to the recent SHAN report.

The Chairman of SNLD, Hkun Htun Oo went so far in a recent interview that accommodating such aspirations could lead to a former Yugoslavia-like scenario, splitting the country into many independent states and that will be the end of union we know it now.

Whatever the case, those who aspire for an upgrade national-level state administration would have to wait, until a set of criteria is drawn together with all concerned stakeholders, under the rule of a genuine federal government, which is still in the making.

It seems the Union Peace Conference has opened up a Pandora box and the genie is out of the bottle. One could only wish the incoming NLD regime a lot of luck and success in tackling the many challenges that lie ahead.