 Okay, ladies and gentlemen, as I used to say when I was in Myanmar, al-alameen-le-abakameen. So good morning, and thank you very much for coming to the U.S. Institute of Peace. My name is Derek Mitchell. I'm a senior advisor here. This topic in this morning is something that's – I think has been long-encombing in something very close to my heart, because I think as all of you know and as all of us have been engaged for years on the issue of Myanmar, we have done it from the perspective of democracy-building, human rights, the concern about military regime, that kind of thing, a little bit of a buzz. Yeah, but – and we've had an evolution of what's going on in the ground and the politics of the country. But as anybody who follows the place knows that the defining challenge of the country of Myanmar is really peace. National reconciliation is kind of a broad term, but peace – there's been the longest running civil conflict in the world in this country, really since they had independence from the British, essentially. In the 1940s, they've never been at peace. They've never worked out a way to be unified as one nation. And that has driven a lot of the developments, the underdevelopment and the other types of developments in the country for 70 years. And I don't think that we in Washington, those of us who care about this country, understand this country and all its complexity. And now that we are in a new phase or a different phase of a kind, it's very important that we do understand that. And here at the U.S. Institute of Peace, I think we are going to take a much more – we try to be a center for understanding what's going on, what's truly happening in this country, the real dynamics and all its complexity of what's happening. And today, I think we want to start – and this will be the beginning of a series of discussions focusing on peace process and how we can understand it and maybe how we can assist this country to really get on track to become a model for Southeast Asia and go back to what I think it should be. What we have today is two separate sections here. First, we're going to hear from the Ambassador Ong Lin, and then we're going to have a panel discussion. And I will introduce the panelists and the panel discussion in a moment. But first, I am extremely pleased to introduce to everybody the new Ambassador here, Ambassador Ong Lin. Just by background, he began his career in government in 1982 and he was a geologist. I didn't realize this. I know him from MOFA, but he has a background in geology. I had served in Hong Kong and South Africa and other places. He was the individual. He was a permanent secretary in MOFA until very recently in the person that I worked with very closely during Myanmar's ASEAN year. And I have to say, just from a personal level, I am so pleased when I heard – when he was coming here, I felt good. They're sending their best. And I wondered who they would send, but he is a thorough professional, a great individual, a patriot of his country, and somebody that will do a lot for U.S.-Myanmar relations and for Myanmar specifically. So I just want to introduce to you for some comments, and I think you will take a few questions. Ambassador Ong Lin from the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Thank you very much, Derek, and for your introduction. I would like to say hello to all of you. Have a very good morning. I thank you for giving me the chance of taking part in this public event. Ambassador Vijay Nambia, Ambassador Derek Mitchell, Country Coordinator Vanessa Johnson, Johansson, and officials from the USIP, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to you. First of all, allow me to express my appreciation for having the opportunity to participate in this important event. This event is important and significant because it is the very first event held outside Myanmar that is related to our peace process. And moreover, it is because it is convened in the United States Institute of Peace. In addition, the subject that we are discussing today reflects the aims and purposes of the USIP. Furthermore, I am glad to see an assembly of enthusiastic people who have keen interest in the peace process in Myanmar. I am confident that the event will produce a very fruitful outcome. Peace is very precious to us, as Derek has mentioned, as a country that has faced numerous internal conflicts since its independence from Britain in 1948. Insurgency erupted soon after the independence in our country. Thousands of combatants from both sides lost their lives and hundreds of thousands of civilians suffered tremendously because of the nearly 70 years of conflicts. By looking back into these past ordeals, we find that all of the people who were affected were no other than our fellow countrymen. Realizing that peace is so important in nation building, successive governments of the country and the past tried vigorously by various means to achieve peace in the entire nation. Some were successful and some were not, but the country was never able to see peace in the whole country. Amid the challenges and successes and setbacks of the efforts in the past, we witnessed rays of hope for nationwide peace in recent years. Realizing that political dialogue was necessary in addressing the deep-rooted issues of the conflicts, the then government of President Ute Hsien started a ceasefire talks with the armed groups in August 2011. In two years, the government signed bilateral ceasefire agreements with 14 ethnic armed organizations. The efforts of all stakeholders involved in the conflicts led to the signing of a nationwide ceasefire agreement NCA on October 15, 2015. The agreement was signed between the government and eight ethnic armed groups. Although not all the armed groups did take part in the signing of the agreement, the door was kept open to all the remaining organizations. A joint ceasefire monitoring committee, GMC, to monitor the de-escalation of fighting and the union peace dialogue joint committee, UPDJC, to facilitate political dialogue were formed following the signing of the agreement. The NCA was an important step towards the establishment of a federal and democratic union. This civilian government of the National League for Democracy emerged in April, this year after winning a landslide victory in the November 15, 2015 elections. As the policy of the NLD is to hold political negotiations based on the ban long spirit and the principle defining solutions based on equal rights, mutual respect, and mutual confidence between all nationalities, the government decided to work towards a lasting peace. At the same time, the new government continued its efforts to bring about the participation of non-signatories in the peace process. In order to step up its efforts of peace, the government formed a preparatory committee of the Union Peace Conference, the 21st Century Ban Long, and established the National Reconciliation and Peace Center in place of the Myanmar Peace Center. The Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee was also reformed where the State Councilor Do Aung San Suu Kyi took the role of the chairperson. On 31st August this year, the first session of the Union Peace Conference, also known as the 21st Century Ban Long, was convened in Nepal. Both NCN signatories and non-signatories participated in the event. In our opening speech at the Union Peace Conference 21st Century Ban Long, the State Councilor Do Aung San Suu Kyi stated that the conference was a unique opportunity for the country to accomplish the great task that remained as a landmark in its history, and she urged the participants not to miss the magnificence opportunity. She stressed that if all wanted to achieve the shared objectives of establishing a democratic federal union, it was vital to hold a 21st Century Ban Long that will enable all ethnic nationals to negotiate frankly, openly, and on equal terms as they did at the 28th Century Ban Long Conference. She also added that the conference was not watched only in Myanmar, but also the whole world to see how far Myanmar can go and whether the nation can succeed in achieving lasting peace. There were no discussions made, no decisions made in the first conference. Nevertheless, it was the most inclusive and transparent conference convened in the history of Myanmar. On 15th of last month, the first anniversary of the NCA was convened in Nepido. The State Councilor and the Chairperson of the NPRC delivered a speech by underscoring the importance of inclusiveness of all parties in the process and to think of the future generations to be free from woes and sorrows that the citizens have endured in the past and to leave the best legacy to the nation and to extinguish the fire burning in the hearts and souls of the people. She also outlined the seven-point roadmap for national reconciliation and union peace. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, peace is so precious to us. We cannot afford to miss this golden opportunity that has come in front of us. In my opinion, I view peace as an international public good. Similar to lighthouses, street lamps, national defense, education, etc., it belongs to all of us. And all enjoy its benefits equally. Therefore, we must treasure it. People in the world are born with different faiths or commas, as we see. Some are born where peace exists in their country. Some witness peace while some saw it disappeared in their lifetime. Still, there are people who do not see peace throughout their entire life. It is the dream of the people of Myanmar to see peace flourish in the whole country. We want to make our dreams come true at the time our transition to democracy. We strongly believe that with the goodwill and genuine efforts of all the stakeholders in the country and the support from well-wishers around the world, we will see peace throughout the country in the near future. In conclusion, the public event today is timely and relevant to our peace process. And I do believe that it will contribute towards peace in our country and the world as a whole. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. If there are maybe one question, someone wants to ask, and then we'll switch to the panel. Thanks. Thank you very much for your presentation. Yes, Mr. Kumar. I'm Kumar from Amnesty International. Yes. My question is something that's developing in the North, northern Myanmar, in Chin state and... Chin state is in the western part of... Sorry, maybe geographically. There are concerns that major military operation is going to take place. And also, no independent observers, media are not going to be allowed in. If that's the case, there is going to be mass killing of civilians there. All right. So how can that fit into your peace process? You can't expect when you kill people and say, come on, let's talk peace. Okay. Thank you. So, Mr. Kumar, let me tell you very frankly, Chin state that you refer is the state that is in the western part of Myanmar. It's a very peaceful state. It is in the western part of Myanmar and it's a hilly region. If you have any specific information about it, please let me know. We will address it. Yes. Okay. Okay. Chin state. All right. Chin state, there are still fighting between the armed forces, the Tamaraw and the KIA insurgents. The government is taking utmost restraint and taking action not to cause any sufferings to the civilians. I will come back to you. And if you have any specific information about it, I can talk with you privately. Thank you. Yes. Somebody do this. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I'm Luis Tam from Management Sciences for Health. I beg your pardon? Yes. My name is Luis Tam. I represent Management Sciences for Health. Management Sciences from the Management Science for Health. Management Science for Health. Yes. My question is in the peace process, how important is the improved provision of basics health and social services to the population who has been traditional underserved? These are these other elements of the peace process that are coming, that are being developed in the country. All right. I will tell you the government as a provider of health service is trying its best to reach all these areas that is affected by the civil conflict. But we have some constraints and limits because the service of the government to provide health services cannot reach easily to these areas. So it is important for all the combatants, for the stakeholders, and also the leaders from the armed group to permit access of the health workers to the areas. That is important. Be sure that the government is doing its best to provide health and education to all the areas in the entire country. That is why the peace process, we are doing so hard to achieve peace in the entire country. Is that all? You want to go? It's all right. Go for it. Hi. My name is Derek Brown. I'm a former fellow here with the Peace Appeal Foundation currently. I'm wondering if you could speak to the relationship between the 21st century pan long as you refer to it and the decisions and consensus you are trying to build there with ultimately the decisions that need to be taken by parliament and how recommendations coming out of the 21st century palm growing that the UBC may be considered both the state level and at the national level. Yes, thank you very much. What I can tell you is that the parliament is supportive of the peace conference. Be sure that. The thing is that there was one question raised during the visit of the state councillor in Japan. Why the peace process is not in progress? She simply answered that it was because of the will of the people, because not all the people wanted to proceed the process. That is the difficulty. That is why she asked the people to extinguish the fires of hatred and anger that are existing in the hearts and souls of the people. That is the message that the state councillor delivered during her visit in Japan. So be sure that the parliament, the lawmakers are very supportive. They fully support the peace process. The entire, many of the majority of the people in the country support the peace process. Of course, there are several people, very few people still remain, still remain to hold or just don't see, don't want to see the peace process going on. I think it is important for us to have as will the process to proceed the process. Thank you. Okay, so we'll make the transition to the panel if we could. How we would, David, on the screen can't see him. Trying to make the smooth transition to the panel discussion now. We have three people who have a lot of experience on the ground and can give us a sense of the various components of, as I say, this very, very complex problem. And what we'll do is I'll introduce all of them to start and then we'll just go one by one through. To my right, my very good friend, Vijay Nambiar, I worked very, very closely with when I was in Myanmar. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1967. So I waited his bio for the first time. He puts us all the shame with his background, I have to say. 50 years in international service. Ambassador of India to Pakistan, China, Malaysia, Afghanistan. In Algeria as well, that's right, in Algeria. He was special advisor to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General. And he has been the Secretary General's special advisor on Myanmar since 2010, which makes him the primary representative for the United Nations to the peace process. The UN and China were both official observers and he was the primary individual sitting in the room as an observer to all the major conversations that were going on bilaterally and multilaterally. So we're very, very fortunate to have Vijay here to provide his perspective on what he has seen and what the state of play is on the ground and what the international community can do to assist. Second to my left is proudly the USIP Country Director and Rep on the ground, Vanessa Johansson, who I knew in various incarnations when I was there. But we were very, it was really fortunate for USIP to grab her and pull her over, steal her from another organization as it were. She's worked since 1996 in Asia, which is long enough. It's still not 50 years, but it's certainly a long time. But worked in Asia in the Middle East on peace building, peace processes, governance, and media development. And she has been, we have extensive programming on the ground and she monitors the peace process very, very closely and she will provide her perspective of what she has been observing in terms of the NGO involvement as well as overall peace developments. And on this screen that I can't see, but I guess we don't have video, we have audio, is David Matheson, who is also a very good and old friend, senior researcher on Burma Myanmar in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. He is now based in Thailand in Chiang Mai and has been an academic researcher and has been with Human Rights Watch since August 2006 and really one of the best, most objective and sharp minds on what's happening on the ground. And he'll provide sort of a very granular sense of what people are thinking about on the ground in communities about this peace process, what has changed, what is the same. So I think we have three different angles to this issue. It is, I think many, some of you probably have grounding in this, so you may understand all the acronyms, some of you may not, so try to, we'll try, I mean I'm not even up to all the acronyms nowadays, they change so quickly, but we'll try to make sense of this complex situation and hit all the angles to this over the next 90 minutes. So first, it's my honor and pleasure to turn to Vijay, provide initial comments. Please. Thank you, Derek. Thank you. Thank you, Derek. Let me first of all, of course, start off by thanking you both for the very close cooperation that the United Nations has had with the U.S. mission under your leadership in Yangon, when you were both special advisor of the U.S. government on Myanmar as well as the head of mission in Myanmar. I think history will probably record your personal contribution to the changes, so I don't need to say very much, but I can certainly say that in general terms, I must say that they were critical and at a critical time for the United States and personally, I have felt the support and the occasional buttressing that the United Nations inevitably needs from big powers apart from the P5 off and on and also the understanding that some of the times when we've had to work slightly in a sense offline, that we were able to keep in touch very closely. For the United Nations and representing the United Nations, this is an important day today because the climate change convention comes into operation today. It's a huge thing historically, I think, and I think that's one general point about the United Nations which makes today somewhat significant. The other point specifically to Myanmar is not so much today as this session of the United Nations General Assembly, which if it follows the current indications and track will probably be the first session in about 25 years where there may not be a resolution on Myanmar adopted by the General Assembly. I mean for the last 25 years, there has been what Myanmar has been calling the finger-pointing resolution. I don't know how important it has been, I think it has been important. In fact, the good offices started certainly since 1993 in terms of an interpretation of the resolution and I recall one of my predecessors was not even allowed entry into Myanmar even though he was a special advisor and he described the office of the special advisor in his role and duties as visiting a dentist. He says it's something that had to be done, it was painful but it had to be done and so from that process in the early 90s and when the good offices moved we've come a long way particularly after Cyclone Nargis and the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's personal involvement and I think that is a history and my my own presentation today, I don't think I should be dealing with that kind of history because it'll take too much time. Even on the peace process I will not delve into the historical part but just talk about the most recent past and what is happening in what I think could happen or the implications are for the coming months and years. Let me relate this first of all of course to the political transformation taking place today which is very real and in many respects unprecedented but one must recall one must remember that it is cannot also be said that it has reached a stage that you can consider irreversible. Why do I say that? It's not that the challenge of nation building in Myanmar is that different from anywhere else it has its specificities obviously everyone knows it has had half a half century of chaotic democratic development in the early stages autocratic and paternalistic military rule economic stagnation dependence isolation natural disaster and of course externally imposed sanctions it's coming out of all that now it has an elected government it started in 2010 under a maybe a flawed election but which started a process of civilization through military officers taking off their uniforms but progressively they've moved and I think steadily till November 8th last year when you had a genuine free genuinely free election which brought in in place the icon of Myanmar as the Nobel Peace Prize winner the the redoubtable Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But I think the reform process is still in a nascent stage and it will depend essentially and quite critically on continuing stable relations of cooperation between the new political leadership and the army the military as long as the threat of fragmentation of the country along ethnic lines remains a clear and present danger sorry army will see this as sufficient reason for it to retain control over the critical departments of the union government under the present constitution like defense home affairs border affairs nor is it likely to concede its hold of the 25 percent of the total number of seats in parliament senior military leaders have given clear indication that unless the government that the army is convinced of visible progress in the national reconciliation talks and regional stability including those posed in Rakhine which of course is a totally different discussion it would be unwilling to agree to any drastic dilution of its role in the governance of the nation critical to any willingness of the army to step aside to step away from the decisive political control would naturally therefore be the launch of a political dialogue that would bring the the ethnic armed groups irrevocably away from the path of military confrontation that is perhaps the reason why the army sees any promise of progress to be in a form of what they call DDR or SSR by these army groups that is the disarmament demobilization and reintegration or security sector reform this they see essentially as a prelude to any negotiation even on the contours of a new federal state given the lack of trust over the years which continues between the ethnic armed groups and the army this goal is unlikely to be achieved at an early stage on its part the new NLD leadership has also identified national reconciliation through a political dialogue as a fundamental priority they see broad-based power sharing between the government the army and the different groups as a way to set up a new inclusive political and constitutional structure that meets the aspirations of as much of the majority community as of the diverse ethnic groups but whereas the NLD would like to see the progress the army progressively divest itself of a national political role the NLD is fairly sensitive to what the the army the Tamada has described as the three principles of non-disintegration of the country non-disintegration of national solidarity and perpetuation of the sovereignty now for the ethnic armed organizations they are sympathetic with the NLD's desire to see the role of the military diminished to see the role is between one composite representation of the ethnic armed groups of almost 15 ethnic armed groups in what is called the NCCT or the nationwide ceasefire coordination team representing all the 15 ethnic armed groups as one delegation and I think it's very interesting for the first time perhaps ever in the history they were all they were all negotiating with the government and the army as a kind of a team working between each other despite their different interests and in fact in March of 2015 they were able to virtually come to a more or less agreed text of a nationwide ceasefire that that particular ceasefire agreement was eventually signed in October by only eight groups was in a sense a slip between cup and lip in many ways but I think it there were other issues and to some extent I think it was a question of as they as they negotiated I think going back to the principles each of the principles particularly the political leadership began to have different views of how to cope with this particular agreement that and I think some of the northern groups particularly found it very difficult the UN FC the United Nationalities Federal Council found that they perhaps the negotiators had stepped a little too far and that accounts for sense of kind of a kind of a stepping back which we see in the we saw this in L'Oquila for example immediately after after the the general agreement on a text in March 2015 I think it was two months later that the ethnic armed groups had a summit at which their differences again once again came forth and it was difficult they used the arguments of non-inclusivity which is also important they were about three or four armed groups particularly the Kokang the TNLA and others who were not being brought into the into the mainstream as signatories for the for the for the NCA the ceasefire agreement and that created the the distinction which is now very very current that is between the signatories and the non-signatories but in fact the nationwide ceasefire did get it get signed the first meeting indeed of the the political the framework of political dialogue took place in fact before the NLD government actually came in place after the elections but in in January and the lady Dao Aung San Suu Kyi herself attended this and in a sense her attendance gave a imprimatur as it were that the new government would follow on the footsteps of the old government in pursuing the peace process more or less I wouldn't say with with obviously with various nuances of change but more or less getting all the armed groups on one track of a peace process and I think this has been the the trajectory which the present government has been following it creates of course the current difficulty of the non-signatories and the signatories the non-signatories being in fact by an over by a large margin the main political the main military forces the more powerful military forces are those who are not signing in fact so this creates a new situation but from the viewpoint of the signatories after the signature of the of the nationwide ceasefire in October the credibility of the process has been maintained at least from the point of view of the government and the army some of the things that happened the agreed mechanisms of the joint ceasefire monitoring committee to deal with military matters and the what ambassador said the UP DJC it's very interesting acronym the union peace dialogue joint committee for the political matters were set up in time and the terms of reference was finalized and approved in time a military code of conduct was worked out within 30 days as discussed the political dialogue framework came in 60 days the first political dialogue convened in 90 days exact the kind of trajectory which they had worked out actually was implemented in good faith one would say by both sides the the and in fact the first union peace conference held in January was attended by the Aung San Suu Kyi before the formation as I said and some of the signatories also enjoyed the benefits as it were that came from having been having signing from signing a ceasefire agreement that is they were granted exemption from the unlawful association act which which in fact under Burmese law the ethnic armed groups you're not supposed to have contact with the ethnic armed groups that contact that exempt that the prohibition of contact was removed in the case of the signatories and in fact many of them were able to set up liaison officers and have public consultations with political parties etc in fact in the shan state this led to the formation of a committee of shan state unity joining two main political parties and some of the armies to help reflect a common concern in a sense therefore what is happening is that the peace process was beginning to get into into into really working mode as it were but I don't think that you can say that it has really reached a stage where it is working mainly because the major major ethnic armed groups are still outside this particular process for the population in some of the ethnic areas some comfort according to organizations like the rcss which is the restoration council of shan state which is one of the major signatories they were some advantages which the people actually got wind or got got an idea of that is so you know frequent exoduses after skirmishers was actually much less the force portering was much less in in these places even some I understand I was told that some demining activities are taking place networking with civil societies was was was begun and some preliminary preliminary effort to address health care education environmental conservation promotion of ethnic culture that was also being considered of course it's obviously just the beginning but they began to see the prospect the hope of that happening and to that extent therefore the process was in fact crying out to be continued at a faster pace but actually it has not happened because mainly the non signatories of the government of the of the nca with regard to the non signatories of course the army the both the army and the government has been saying that they must find a way to commit them to the to the process to see some way in adding inclusivity to get them to join the political dialogue but the question is the uh non signatories want to join the political dialogue on power with the signatories now there is a basic difficulty about that and that is why this insistence on one track has become for example in a sense a kind of a constraint for the the government and the army to insist upon and the answer in sushi has all along insisted that there will be only one negotiating track and from that point of view she was able to at least get because of the immensity of the historicity of the change that came about as a result of her becoming the the the the leader and her announcement of the 21st century panglong i think it was difficult for the ethnic armed groups to be seen as as boycotting such an important initiative so early by the new government elected elect the the popular elected government the second thing is i think there was some deaf diplomacy also taken done because i think the late the lady's visit to china had helped the chinese to also put in pushing a little bit of their subtle pressures on some of the northern groups and particularly the announcement of war that they would attend the the panglong and on the 31st of august this came at a time when the other both non signatories and signatories were meeting in as an ethnic group summit in a place called maja young in some ways they were blindsided they found that while they were discussing what may be the conditionalities of joining the process the the announcement came of war also joining at the 21st century panglong and an important constituents like the k i o found in a sense that they also had to move in that direction there was a little bit of of misgiving but i think by and large the public messaging was politically correct all of them moved towards the having done that uh of course almost uh there was some some details that is this some details but i think those details tend to become politically relevant they were after joining within one day of joining actually walked out of the meeting uh they walked out because of perceived protocol sort of slides and things like that the k i o joined initially and put tremendous pressure and was able to succeed in actually addressing the inaugural meeting which was again a kind of as between the various armed groups this created a certain amount of imbalance and i think that is now informing some of the difficulties that you are now seeing in the in the preparations for the second stage and though there has been some data between the the the the signatories and the non-signatories they are actually getting in contact with each other but one sees us uh uh uh one sees a growing kind of difference a kind of difficulty and the non-signatories are increasingly becoming very uh they are actually suggesting that while the lady is is talking publicly about uh about inclusivity about reaching out to the non-signatories and about seeing the need to make this process credible only by inclusion of the bigger parties the big ethnic groups how they're going to do it she is facing difficulties in terms of formulating an acceptable way of negotiating with the consent with the agreement of the army and that essentially boils down again from various public statements you can see it essentially boils down to this critical factor of ddr ssr i think the the the the some of the non-signatory representatives like the unfc and others have presented a group set of eight points of which they say even in the process after the 21st century that is on middle of october there were some discussions uh consultations and and preparations for the next political meeting broad agreement on the need to have a federal state is of course now accepted i think the government has accepted that they will look forward to a federal state but how that is to be reached what kind of uh the conditionality is what for most of the ethnic armed groups they are still talking about a united federal army and i think that is still something which how will the army will this just what is this a whole reconfigure will there be a reconfiguration of the armed forces and what will become of the ethnic armed the forces the arms the the structures of the ethnic forces what will happen to the question of the the continued holding of arms by the ethnic armed groups so demobilization when will it take place there is no way in which most of the ethnic armed groups particularly the k i o one others are going to give up their arms unless they reach a stage where they are sufficiently uh convinced that this process is going to go in an irreversible process just as the army has a problem they have a problem so where is this mistrust which has been coming going for 60 years where is that going to be resolved this is going to be the critical factor my own sense of this has been that these are issues which have long plagued the relationship and they can only be solved by one on the one hand of course political statements by the government are important a sense that the that the that the political leadership can actually insist with the army that the larger political uh compulsions be adhered to that has to there has to be some uh credibility about that process and of course there must be a larger number a much greater number of informal relationships informal contacts between the government and the ethnic armed groups over the period of the of the negotiations in the case of the earlier government president tensens government i think the chief negotiator was minister ong min who as a former military officer and as a person who over the years has been able to it has been able to retain a certain credibility with the with the ethnic armed groups i think he was able to reach out to them with much greater credibility and with much greater authority his grasp of the issues and his not needing to keep turning all the time to his president for you know for for sort of uh uh let's say for endorsing even minor concessions that he may make informally that helped him move the process forward to an extent i feel that that kind of flexibility does not happen does not is not evident now partly because the nature of the relationship has changed but i think to an extent it is the absence of more informal contacts and i think that is perhaps the most important thing that is needed as you move along to the second stage there are many details of this process which they have been the the the various groups have been talking about i think i don't know if you will have much of a stomach for those details but i think it's essentially a question of the how the military relationship will work and how the the structure of autonomy of power sharing of resource sharing is going to be to be carried out in a manner where there is confidence on the part of the of the ethnic armed groups at present i think there is a sense on on the particularly on the side of the some some of the major ethnic armed groups in places where resources resource rich areas where they are afraid that they may be you know conceding and then suddenly they will lose control i think there has to be a slow process of reassurance that has needed to be done the lady has been in fact the most recent phase i think just about i think 28th of october or she's made some in mid-october she made some points and she has actually changed the the method of reaching out now just last last of this two weeks ago when she has actually raised the possibility of many levels of contact and many levels of negotiations a national level regional level topic level as she says and i think there's some other one more level which she talked about this is a very interesting way of proceeding and she has said that this is directed mainly by her interest in being in being more inclusive to include others also it is clear that as you move forward the old system of one consolidated coordinating coordinated negotiating team on the side of the of the of the ethnic armed groups like the ncct is unlikely to happen now i think as you go along next it's going to there's already several negotiating kind of clusters and that i think already means that there's going to be a lot of confusion in the in the negotiations now when she has come she's added an additional level of perhaps not confusion but of complexity by having levels of discussion at the national regional and which will include separate ethnic armed groups it will require much greater degree of coordination and i this is going to be a huge problem and therefore the only organized institution in this entire setup is really the army so the army does have a relative kind of advantage but i think it's the political leadership that is going to be most important my own sense is that while she is moving forward she is trying essentially to reach out to these non-signatories but the non-signatories still are not convinced that this is actually happening on the one hand even recently last week the kio at the i think the 50th anniversary they said that the lady is talking peace but the army is actually heightening the tension and there is today huge tension on the on the border add to that the complexities environment which is a new problem where in fact the of the commander in chief has had to go to china recently to visit china when it this happened a few days after an ultimatum which the army had given to diva to withdraw from an area was actually ignored so it's going to be this as you go along there's going to be a huge degree of complexity in terms of how the discussion takes place but there is still a political capital which the government the nld government has has today which they can move forward to take to they can use to take forward the the my only problem is how far the external the outside world can be involved for a long time the the army has been insistent on national ownership and i think that will be the main theme of the discussion and the negotiations but increasingly i think they do feel there is need for outsiders to come in a different at different levels and this let's say this added complexity of many levels of negotiation informal negotiation may provide outsiders also some opportunities for for sort of entering this process i think that this is both a challenge and i think it is likely that once external players get into the it gives an additional degree of complexity and there i would not rule out geopolitical sort of interests then coming playing a major role china is an important player in this in this field and they have been very very worried about external other powers getting interested in in their in their in immediately in their border regions and i think that remains to be seen how the process will move forward on the whole therefore i might just i mean i i don't think i could read this now i think i should perhaps say that while the process still holds promise and i i'm i'm confident that it will move forward the i think it will move forward much slower in a sense that the political process will move in in in in in at many levels and i think there is the the reason the the only way in which it can move forward is if the army does not push too strongly its insistence on ddr and the nssr in a manner where or or it also at the same time does exercise much more constraint on the border regions in terms of the the tensions that are operating there sorry i've got taken much more than the 10 minutes still very interesting and a good way to give our foundation and grounding into what we're going to be discussing let me just turn out of an essay follow thank you very much mingala good morning i'd like to cover three issues this morning um i'd like to talk a little bit about what has happened so far under the nld government in terms of peace process developments the other speakers have covered a lot of that ground already so i won't go to too much detail there but just an overview secondly i'd like to talk a little bit about what we might expect in the coming period with regard to the peace process and then thirdly and perhaps most importantly i'd like to talk about some some key concerns that i think are imperative for for us to to continue uh watching and and and following and trying to assist me and my with going forward with this peace process so in broadly speaking as the other speakers have said the peace process has been a major priority if not the major priority for the nld government a lot of tension resources political capital has gone into into this process so far the unfortunately however the the the process so far as you know if we go back to basics what are the goals of this peace process there are essentially twofold one is to to achieve a ceasefire to achieve an interviolence in most if not all areas of the country as the first goal and the second goal is a sort of the deeper longer term process of political dialogue towards federalism constitutional reform and addressing some of the the deep rooted conflicts in the country so so while the process has so far been a huge priority those are those key goals still remain a major challenge to be faced by this government going forward the as the other speakers mentioned you know the the the major event of the peace process so far this this year under this government was the the 21st century panglong union peace conference that was held in napidor in august and september it was as ambassador oonglin mentioned it was indeed the the most inclusive peace process event we've seen so in that in that respect it was it was able to bring together more of the ethnic armed groups than had ever been in the room before with the government and the army and and other stakeholders and and where you and secretary general banky moon was also there speaking so it was a very significant event and it was able to give voice to people and and had some influence I think on building trust between particularly with the non signatures in the process so of course you know it didn't make any decisions and so and so you know we're sort of back to looking at how do we go forward in in negotiating ceasefire ceasefire with the many groups that are not yet have not yet signed a ceasefire and and and in many cases are not yet experiencing a peace or an end to violence in their areas and and and that are not yet included in a broader political dialogue process going forward so so in terms of in terms of what might happen next so first look at the ceasefire as see if I can get some visuals here okay is that working yes so as as mr. Nambia mentioned the the vast majority of the troop strength of the ethnic armed groups sorry the vast majority of the troop strength of the ethnic armed groups is represented by non-signatory so so most of most of the troops held by the ethnic armed groups are held by non-signatory groups in the country and you can see from this visual that the groups that have have signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement the data is very difficult to come by but they the the signatory groups represent about a quarter of a quarter two or a fifth of the of the of the of the troop strength of the ethnic armed groups and the the largest of the ethnic armed groups such as the uws a the wa the kachin the kao the the shan state army north and some of the others are either have a bilateral ceasefire usually a short document that was signed in the last five years with the previous government or or have no ceasefire at all so so you know the major challenge going forward of course is negotiations with with these non-signatory groups so both the government and the the tatmador the miyama army have made it very clear that that signing the the nca that the one nationwide ceasefire agreement is a prerequisite for participation in political dialogue so while most of the groups are are keen to participate in this this very important and and complex conversation they there there is an insistence and that was an insistence that was reiterated at the panglong conference in august that they sign the nca before they participate in political dialogue so i guess one one thing to sort of say about the negotiating challenge going forward is that the non-signatories are not one block they you know there's been attempts at collective negotiation and some in some case quite successful and impressive attempts at collective negotiation but um but uh but they're not one block in terms of their relationship with the government and the peace process and there are there are different alliances and they're shifting alliances so so it really is an enormous challenge for for the the government's new peace architecture the the the national reconciliation and peace center and and peace commission the i guess this i would describe the non-signatories as being in three um three categories or three groupings um the first is the seven member united nationalities federal council um which is led by the the kachin the kao um they have been in um the the the government has has um has made extended extensive efforts at outreach and negotiation with them um as mr namya mentioned they um they have presented an eight point um uh an eight point program or an eight point um a proposal to the government um which is which is under negotiation as we speak i think there's another negotiation on those eight points next week um some of those points are very easily negotiated from the government's perspective and some of them such as having international adjudicators of ceasefire violations are much more difficult um so there are a couple of points in those eight points that really want to bring a much more a much greater international element into this process um a process which thus far has been um is very much a local a locally led um and managed process with um with limited international involvement so um so that's one group the unfc ongoing negotiations there and in a sense um they're the group that um if if any of the the non-signatories are um are uh are likely to come on board with the nca that's it's it's some of the the members of the unfc um the second group of non-signatories um the um that the government has is in negotiations with is the three that have been the subject of conversations around inclusiveness over the last few years um and that have a pretty negative relationship with the miyamma army of being conflict and so on and that's the the um the tnla the ta'ang the arakan army the a and the mnda which is the koukang um group which was in a major conflict um the early part of last year with the government army um so um these groups have no bilateral ceasefires um they are still in conflict um they they had as i said they have a negative relationship they did not they were the the three groups that did not the only of the three only three significant ethnic armed groups which did not attend the panglong conference in august um and um they they will really be you know there are there are huge challenges there um with regard to um insistence on demobilization from the from the government side with those groups so that they will probably be the most difficult negotiating challenge going forward for the government um and then the third the third group the third grouping um is is the war the largest um ethnic armed group the uws a and it's ally the nda which is the mong la group um the the war have repeatedly said that they don't want to sign the nca because they're at peace with the government um and they have a bilateral ceasefire um however they're in regular meetings with the government um they they're they've expressed their their enthusiasm to join a political dialogue process um so um they and they they they hope that that political dialogue process will lead to achieving some of their broader aspirations including um a war a separate war a state um similar to kichin state and and and shan state and so on a separate state for the war um also likely a huge negotiating challenge um there particularly if there's an insistence of the war sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement before um joining the political dialogue process so just to give you a that's just to give you a sense of um of where things um the the challenges ahead in terms of in terms of negotiations in terms of um where things stand with the political dialogue process so um the political dialogue has been launched as we know it was launched by the previous government and then relaunched in august um at the panglong conference um it's uh and just uh as of last weekend a new political dialogue framework um was agreed um by the government and the signatory organizations um the framework um allows for you know it describes um who can participate um what what's on the agenda um the time frame for the different dialogue so it's a good it's a good way of of helping um take the next steps there so um the and a moment i'll show you a graphic that just that explains a little bit further about um how that political dialogue might move forward um but i wanted to just go into a little bit more detail in terms of the um the the um the government's roadmap for peace um as i think was also mentioned by the ambassador my ambassador wonglin um so the government as of um a couple of weeks ago on the first anniversary of the nationwide ceasefire agreement the government um published its uh its new uh peace policy or roadmap i think i have here yeah um so um it's a seven step roadmap um you know very ambitious it appears to be it doesn't have a time frame attached to it but it appears to be a sort of a four to five year plan four or five year plan um and uh you know going through the political dialogue framework review um the fourth step is a um signing what they're calling a 21st century panglong conference agreement which we understand to be a comprehensive peace agreement amending the constitution holding multi-party elections in accordance with the new constitution and then number seven building a democratic federal union um after those elections so so uh just to say that this is um you know it's very positive that the government has expressed his has sort of made public and expressed um where it thinks it's going with this process even if um this plan is uh uh i guess a unilateral um plan it's not one that's been agreed with the with the armed groups or the other parties to the process um the um another thing that's interesting about this framework um those of you that have seen the nationwide ceasefire agreement might recognize a seven step there's a seven step roadmap also um inside the nationwide ceasefire agreement um and this is similar but different um and one of the significant differences um in this one is that there is no mention of security sector reform or demobilization in this um which i think is very interesting that that was um that was left out uh um and perhaps was um was partly done to i don't know look i don't know i don't know but i think i think there are there are many people that are quite happy to see that that that question of course is still a fundamental one and and will need to be discussed but it's not um incorporated as an essential part of moving forward with political dialogue on constitutional constitutional reform so uh just to talk briefly about the the time frame for uh it's very small one sorry um but at least so this is this is what was agreed last weekend in terms of um the the framework for political dialogue going forward um it describes uh about a two-year time frame um with many different um topics and forums and um levels of dialogue um around a range of issues you can see there are five sectors there um um political economic social security and land and environment sectors um the uh civil society organizations are um are now formally part of the process but only in economic um social and land and environment sectors and not in political and security sectors um which is um which is a shame um and the security you can see that the security sector issue that's in there is um is there's really uh there's a plan to do it and but it's only going to be carried out at the union level it's not going to be devolved to the state level or to um other forums um and there's no sort of uh yeah there's no sort of clear framework yet for discussing the security sector it being of course the most sensitive area in the process so um but I mean one one positive thing um as of the you know one positive development with this new framework I think is that um the the both the the the whole piece process including the political dialogue discussion so far there's a sense that they've been very elite driven um very mail driven um and that um and that now that um this process is going to open the process up to some degree to to other actors to civil society actors um to women leaders um to um to ethnic leaders that are not ethnic not necessarily ethnic armed group leaders but who are civilian um ethnic leaders and so on so um so that's it's quite a positive development um there's a plan for a way forward there um so um yeah so to just to state I guess I have sort of five key concerns um considerations I think going forward one is of course the ongoing fighting and um and um David Matheson will talk in a moment about about some of that um but um you know the the ongoing fighting is is I would say one of the road blocks for negotiating ceasefires with with all of the groups and for trust in the existing ceasefire with um with nationwide ceasefire agreement with the other groups um it's it's been mostly in the northeast but of course there's also been fighting recently in in Cain state or Cain state um and elsewhere so I mean and um it in some cases it appears to have actually escalated since the Panglong conference um so um you know there's a feeling that there may be a strategy to pressure the non-signatory groups into signing to militarily pressure the non-signatory groups into signing um the nca um and that's uh that's something that um you know it's it's it's very concerning and hasn't worked so far so is unlikely to work in the future second concern um you know the the nationwide ceasefire agreement is a little over one year old now um but most aspects of it um you know it's a sort of a hybrid political um and ceasefire document um and most aspects of it both political um and ceasefire aspects um are yet to be implemented um and so the you know and that this includes crucially the the um joint monitoring mechanism the joints uh joint joint monitoring committees um in the process so um one year after the the nca was signed we're now seeing as of this week we're now seeing the very first um jmc verification mission um to look into a particular um apparent violation of ceasefire so um so of course ceasefire monitoring is a very sensitive area it's one that um that involves um a lot of negotiation of detail um and a lot of uh what's perceived I think to be prying into um the business of of the the troops on the ground and so on but um but this is something it's absolutely essential to make this um make any ceasefire effective so um so um so so ceasefire monitoring amongst other aspects of the nca um are yet to be implemented and um and should be looked at going forward third concern um the is the capacity of the government's existing peace architecture so um as as everybody has mentioned um the you know the the um there is a new peace art government peace architecture the previous Myanmar peace center was dismantled and the national reconciliation and peace center was established um with a peace commission under it which is essentially a set of advisors um and they are um some some very qualified and experienced people um some of them are from the previous um peace architecture but it's very small um and um and I think I think has um fairly limited autonomy and mandate um to go forward with negotiations as as Mr Nambia mentioned um so um going from an NPC which had 100 and something star 150 I don't I don't remember over 100 staff um to a very small team um with um which is not um not as empowered as as as it probably should be um to to go forward with negotiations um again it's early days so um looking forward hopefully that will that will change fourth concern um looking at this political dialogue um content itself I mean we're looking at trying to negotiate things like um natural resource revenue sharing um of course you know that the shape of the the army in the future what happens to the the ethnic armies um the uh you know basically incredibly complex and difficult issues not only difficult issues to understand but even more difficult difficult to negotiate um so um so just the very um the sort of the very challenge of of of dealing with some of those media negotiations going forward um and and fifth last but definitely definitely not least is um the question of representation um in the process so as I mentioned earlier the process seems to be broadening just a little bit um but it's got a long way to go in terms of civil society participation um both in terms of civil society participation in in um in uh the ceasefire monitoring process as well as um uh in in political dialogue participation of women um and others as well as ethnic leadership um so um in conclusion there's a lot of territory covered in a very short time um but in conclusion um I think I would agree that there is um we can need to continue to support this process there's a lot of hope for the process um but most of the major challenges uh still lie ahead and um and there's a huge agenda going forward to to support this process thank you thank you so much Vanessa really important comprehensive um overview of what's going on David are you on the phone you we've kept you quiet call dropped okay has it been dropping on a regular basis okay I guess we were saying the other day maybe the wires are running through okay David um thank you for joining us this is Derek here we've just heard from VJ and from Vanessa very well and we're really really pleased that you can you can call in we hope we can keep you on the line so we'll just turn to you with whatever you want to say from your perspective of sort of a grassroots on the ground um perspective on peace and how they're thinking about it so over to you David excellent thank you Ambassador Mitchell and good morning everyone uh from Yangon um there's three points I want to make and and I want to thank Vanessa and Mr. Nambiar for an excellent overview of the peace process the three points I want to make is is observations from recent research uh on the ground in various conflict areas uh in the north and unfortunately not a very positive overview um because I think we have to start with an acknowledgement that active armed conflict and panic violence in many parts of Burma in Myanmar have actually increased in the past year the signing of the nationwide ceasefire agreement uh last year and the attacks on the civilian population have been really quite quite dire and I think continued armed conflict is actually thwarting efforts for the peace process to move ahead I'm just going to quickly move through several of the conflict areas and give you a sense of the concerns of a lot of people here have um I I think it's important to start with kitchen state which has seen a lot of violence over the past five years there are still hundred thousand civilians displaced by that conflict and they're almost daily engagements between the Tatmador and the kitchen independence army including the use of air strikes and a lot of concerns this week that there could be an imminent uh Myanmar army offensive against some of the kitchen uh positions in uh being in kitchen state um moving east to shan state we see probably one of the most complicated uh conflict areas in the world um as Vanessa pointed out the number of groups there is is really quite staggering and incredibly complicated the agendas that they have and the histories of their conflicts um starting with the kitchen independence army operating in western parts of shan state the shan state progress party which has been engaged in in almost monthly conflicts in our military for the past seven years um the KLA which is a new incarnation of a long to hang resistance army that has been around since the early 1970s and and which is engaged with the Myanmar military on an almost daily basis um the restoration shan state which is a signatory to the ceasefire from last year which has moved significant numbers of troops into parts of northern shan state and is engaging not just with the Tatmador but also against the TNLA um and moving slightly east to that is of course the united west state army which i would say really is the elephant in the room for the entire peace process and the conflict in Myanmar the biggest non-state armed group in the country and recently embarked on a very disturbing um intervention with the nominal ally the the NDAA in the Mongla enclave um in which the Mongla group seemed far more receptive to talking to the government about peace and which did not align with the war political objectives but also there are very significant military and economic reasons for why they moved into the malaria area and that is because they want to keep this arch of the ball that they have along the china border and down to the Thai border where they have a a southern command along the Thai border which has been there for about 15 years and and that is dramatically increased tensions within northern and eastern shan state uh there's also been renewed fighting in current state um between some uh of the splinter groups of the current national union which is another signatory to the nationwide ceasefire um and pro-myanma military uh militias um and non-signatory groups as well which has displayed several thousand civilians in the past several weeks unfortunately we also see the Arakhan army which was reformed and trained by the kitchen up in the north which over the past year and a half has been sending troops down to southern shin state and uh the rakhine state and actually staging operations ambushes against uh the tamador and the effects on civilians there has also been really quite dramatic um in a general overview of looking at at this renewed conflict on the ground there are several things that that are like to say one is that the behavior of the military has uh modified um in ways that we haven't seen in the past and that has both negative and positive uh elements to it uh the negative uh elements i would say is increased use of air power um by the Myanmar military they're almost daily a strikes up in kitchen and and to regular a strikes against positions in in northern shan state uh but all but we see the Myanmar military in someone's modifying its behavior in in some areas uh we're still getting um very serious reports of human rights violations by the Myanmar military uh but recently um uh the killing of several men in northern shan state was actually admitted to by the Myanmar military and and both personnel including senior officers were actually prosecuted which is a very positive and something that the Myanmar military should be commended for doing but it also leads into uh a lot of us need to do in encouraging them to actually investigate reports of other human rights violations uh in in these conflict areas actually prosecute troops uh that will be perpetrating human rights violations that said i think another important point that i want to make is that one of the issues that is detrimental to the peace process and is moving forward is an analysis of the human rights violations and the repression and the predatory taxation and and other things that the ethnic armed organizations themselves are actually perpetrating it's the local population and and that's not something that has been well documented or even acknowledged but it's certainly something that given the environment on the ground now a lot of communities uh are actually talking about um and in some of the areas particularly northern shan state a lot of communities talk about being preyed upon abused and uh taxed by several different groups on a regular basis not just the Myanmar military but different shan factions TLA uh and others and i think moving the ball we need to acknowledge that that if we don't do ceasefire monitoring there are any kind of accountability for ongoing violations that have to be across the board and and all groups are extrusional killings um in sexual violence perpetrated by by all parties and the Myanmar military has uh actually addressed some of these issues and we don't see the huge scale of forced labour and the preying on the population that we saw maybe 10 years ago um and again that's a positive trend to encourage all sides to actually observe uh the rules of war and protect the civilian population so on on that first point something that that uh i think any analysis of the peace process and the ongoing conflict needs to look at is there is a great deal of comparative analysis of different peace processes uh a lot of workshops and and very positive stuff that's coming into Myanmar and talking to various actors involved in the peace process about comparative conflicts from around the world that i think it's important for not just an international understanding but a domestic understanding um of the conflict um and and that is the the long history of the war in Myanmar over the past six decades and previous efforts that have been made by the Myanmar military and previous governments and the role of civilians within that um there is a dearth of understanding unfortunately of previous efforts and the nature of what organizations have been fighting for so long my second point that i i think is is very important uh is disturbing reports of increased uh and assistance going to displaced uh people in the north especially kitchen state and northern shan state and unfortunately that has to be coming from the Myanmar military in in summer states and much less from the northern nations themselves and i think uh a major uh element of the peace process really should be going on uh all parties to the conflict and the government to commit unsettled humanitarian access in a lot of these areas because uh the people in these areas are suffering quite a lot and that's actually uh sorting out the efforts to to reach an agreement uh my third point and uh i want to end on a very positive note here because any analysis of the conflict in the peace process uh certainly uh in in the past couple months is necessarily very bleak um and discouraging uh what i'm seeing on the ground when i speak to different communities uh in northern shan state especially but also kitchen and other areas is society uh new members of parliament and many others are playing in conflict mediation in conflict mapping and also in interventions with various armed groups which includes very granular uh local incidents where people have been abducted uh or or abused um and and local active civil society and and especially local MPs have actually been intervening with various authorities and improving the situation um now i think it's it's a fact that a lot of their colleges have been excluded in the in the peace process has been uh unfortunately very limited and and there seems to be very little commitment on the part of uh not just the government but the tap water itself but also the leadership of the armed organizations to the very important role that women's organizations should be playing uh there's also a society that works on issues of resources on land the environment and human rights documentation as well as local journalists the actually the men colleagues um here on a regular basis is that those voices aren't being heard it seems to not be being transmitted to yangon and napidaw in in the way that it really should and there has been a lot of support and nurturing of civil society in Myanmar uh by the international community and and i've worked nice the great work that Ambassador Mitchell and his team at the embassy did uh for several years of actually supporting civil society uh this transition and i think that needs to be all augmented and increased um across about listening to these communities more okay you're still there now we lost sound like a good way to end but i i'm getting back okay we'll get them back so that's actually pretty good for me and murray we kept him on that line they're still working on it again okay sorry your call cannot be completed at this time we'll try to get them back um but no we can continue to listen to david forever as with these two on either side of me um i think a couple things come to mind one for those of you who are not initiated in this issue i hope you're not deterred i mean the the danger of introducing this issue to folks in washington is people go oh my goodness this is mind blowing um and and how do you wrap your mind around all the different acronyms and all the different groups but that does give you a sense this is not just the longest running civil conflict in the world but it is the probably the most complex peace process you will find anywhere and we found we would bring folks in from other experiences and you know from napal or those who had done these things in other places and they go you know we thought it was complicated to have two maybe three groups you have to work with 18 20 groups trying to get to corral all these different interests all these different individual identities groups uh acronyms i mean to try to corral that into a single unified peace approach is extraordinarily complex there were efforts to unify that voice it is important that they be unified the danger of splitting between signatories non-signatories is i think a pernicious one that's a that's one but they all have different interests and they have different histories and they have different needs and desires even if overall they're looking for respect and dignity and the rest but it requires obviously a great deal of patience and it requires a great deal of understanding by all of us because there's a lot of stake if they don't get this right then not much else is going to go right in the country includes democracy includes all the desires of constitutional change etc so behooves us to at least start to understand it and recognize that both understanding and patience are in order having said that let me ask the first question i do want to turn to the audience since you've been listening to a lot of folks for an hour but one of the things that da su and one more thing i want to say one last thing is just an individual what david was saying at the end about the embassy and what we were doing on civil society that was largely done by jessica davie who's right over there so i do want to give credit where credit's due the partners that we had whether it was ngo's or people in the embassy should get their due and jessica was absolutely essential in that um aung san su chi now is talking we hear about her pushing a timeline we want to get all signatories in everyone should sign by the next round of the pong long dialogue which will be in february of next year she's talking about irish kind of an ireland approach with a need to be a timeline which i think in essence is a good one so it can't be an open-ended process but i want to get your sense whether i mean what the pros and cons of that are um how do folks think about that is that a reasonable way of looking at this given your experience vj of how open-ended this has been do you need to light a fire under this in order to force folks to move forward um and then have these parallel processes at local levels do you think overall that's that's wise i think but just to give a quick response i think to some extent the the need to to push them to get to commit is is there is obvious because there is a tendency for people to keep holding back at the last but they keep they're very positive but when it comes to actually committing there's always it's it's natural in some ways it's you know the kind of reluctance grown out of years of mistrust and and and suspicion unwillingness to accept that the other side the government is really eventually going to come around and actually you know stand by what they write or what they've signed on so there is a there is a and there is also a sense of you know are we getting getting ourselves into a kind of a trap there is so you need to push them to be make some commitment to an extent but i think much of it is really how it is done rather than that it is done i there's no there's no one who can argue that it should not be done but i think the question of having a kind of sense of personal involvement trust and and showing it in different ways in an informal way i think is very important with the army that has not yet developed i think they are predisposed to believing the lady in some ways and that she is committed to it but i think within the army too i think there are leaders who are coming up and they're already starting to show some indications of believability credibility in terms of commitments even this latest what david was mentioning about the actions they've taken against certain of their of the of the people in the in the the soldiers who have made human rights i mean committed human rights violations etc that is one confidence building measure but i think it is it has to go a little beyond that there has to be a much more let's say consistent informal contact building that was being done by uong min with some of the people i think it needs to be built much faster and unless that happens to an extent the irish formula is really i mean well jonathan power is involved in this so in a sense it is easy to take the but i think man while i just started off by saying Myanmar's experiences are not that different but in some respects it is so easy and it's also because as you said the resize the complexity and the numbers of groups involved i think they have to and also the method in which the negotiators in a sense it's i certainly don't think that there is any eastern method and a western method or anything like that but there are certain cultural norms over there inside Myanmar which need to be moved forward and i think that pushing them having a thing a deadline is good but it has to be a kind of a mix of flexibility and holding them to a deadline okay all right let's do open it up for comments questions issues yes sir and if you could introduce yourself as well as well hello yeah my name is Thanh Luen Thaun voice of america Burmese service so we all know that the national league for democracy government that by Hong San Suu Kyi and Uttan jaw have um uh delegate and a difficult and a sensitive relationship to maintain with the Myanmar army Tamron especially in the peace negotiation process but my observation is that it is it is more or less the same for the previous previous government led by president then say the army not always listen to the what president then saying said and we all know that uh chief government negotiator who army has uh uh go back and forth to uh kind of a batch of negotiation with the armed rebels group and army but uh what we observe is uh one kind of uh fighting resume between a kitchen in the north and a nama army in uh uh 2011 and at the time uh around uh 2011 december resident then saying declare unilateral ceasefire although we all know that army not always listen to him he just showed the gesture just to build up the confidence but what we are like uh or to see for the moment is not from the energy government led by Uttan jaw and on san suu kyi make that kind of or to show that kind of gesture to build that confidence so i'd like to hear your comment on that uh mr nambia especially i it's i i'm a little hesitant to comment on it mainly because the previous government was essentially army in a sense the president was a former army man so there was a kind of a relationship and the the the contact points despite the fact that the the army may have been a little reluctant to accept some they essentially obeyed orders and i think the the odd order coming from the president which was a former who was a former army person actually made a difference even in fact even the even the commander in chief was technically in a sense junior to the uh the president even in terms of the courses they attended so in that sense there is a a hierarchy now you're facing a totally different situation of a civilian government and an army and there you are actually already seeing a certain amount of uh problems relating to the possible dilution or intent by the civilian government to dilute the authority of the army i don't know if there is that kind of equation which has already been established between the president and the da su on the one hand and the lady and the and the army and the commander chief but i think it is growing it is building up for the current situation in kachin for the president to be able to say directly that you should have a unilateral ceasefire i think would probably be unrealistic because i don't think the army is likely to be able to accept in fact the confidence of the army in the new government in being able to manage the peace process has not yet in my personal opinion been established i don't think there's yet that kind of conference that they are in control of the situation there is a sense that they are not fully in control of the situation and the army is worried that if you give because technically this can be a slippery slope and i think that is the reason why the army at this stage is being much more would be and we have actually the un has been taking action is to directly get to the army to the commander in chief and say even if the president doesn't need to tell them if the commander in chief was to take a decision to have a unilateral ceasefire in this particular place that would be a lot more credible and i think that would in fact strengthen her relationship with the civil i mean his relationship with the civilian government and with her and i think that is the political kind of argument we've been trying to use with them with the army saying it is up to you at this stage because your army as a man my army is actually in a phase of change it's unwilling to some extent but it is committed to it and it has publicly committed itself to moving in that direction so i think it is at this stage it's we think i think that it is more important to get the military leadership at the first second and third level to be able to say look at the political complexities you have already taken some views some actions to become more responsible as an army which is working under a civilian leadership you have your concerns fine but you should now behave with a certain amount of statesmanship and therefore unilateral a kind of we didn't we didn't specifically mention or suggest to them a unilateral ceasefire but we did say that you must look at establishing informal contacts to come to an arrangement like you know to lower the the the levels of your tension i think that's the furthest which i think could be realistic at the present moment just david are you back on the line yeah yeah you cut off at one moment do you have any final words or any comments on this particular item the mr. man be out just outlined or anything else in particular well the question was about the relationship to the nld and the military and uh in fact on peace but you were cut off at the end of your comments if you have anything further to say on that your initial comments uh no i think no no i think we should just just keep the discussion going i don't want to block it down okay all right open up for any other question yes sir so set eyes on washington university in st louis to uh what what is the source of funding uh for the military uh interventions by the ethnic groups so where where how do they get their military supplies are there are foreign governments involved in supporting the military efforts and if so to what extent and why i can start david can add i don't have a comprehensive answer on that and i don't think any comprehensive sort of analysis is ever really being done um of it um but i mean sources of funding vary widely um and some some groups in fact have have um you know significant sources of funding like the war um and other groups have very little funding so it varies enormously as to the amount of access to funding and um and resources and weapons and and uh and the type as well but um look uh uh you know the there's been decades of black market trade um which the some of the ethnic arm groups have participated in which is one source um they they tax they i mean they the arm groups have territories um and um and bases and they they um they they they they they collect taxes um from businesses and from uh from from travelers from trucks and cars coming through um so i mean sources of revenue there's all sorts of sources of revenue um in terms of um foreign patrons perhaps i'll let others comment on that we can ask david david you want to comment on this as a researcher and um one um uh important element of this is that the uh dunama military uh military weapons for quite some time it's a huge network of profits that are at the dance industry factories in some military uh they have back and we'll definitely get him to comment on this um let's see if we can get him back quickly then so i can comment a little bit about this question too no just one more time no well the on your specific question on ethnic arm groups i mean i think what finesse said in terms of internally taxes and all the rest the resources in these areas are are substantial i mean you go to kitchens day there's jay there's timber there's gold i mean the thing about me and marz it's an extremely rich country in terms of resources and the chinese have a term for it the beggar with a golden bowl that they're poor and yet they're extraordinarily rich in resources and a lot of the resources are in these um outlying areas the ethnic areas which is one of the sources of conflict you know what you could say it could be one of the spoilers and reaching peace because control of these resources means control of tremendous wealth um and over the years there have been exploitation by businessmen by outsiders as well as mafias yeah and militias and ethnic groups that that operate like that i mean it's you have that kind of money at stake you're going to have that kind of activity that's not to say that all the ethnic groups are simply mafias they're they're also seeking their rights and and uh yeah the tremendous grievance on on issues of identity and respect for equality within a state unified state so it's a it's a checkered issue and these groups also believe that this is their territory could shan say we have a state this is our state we should we originally they wanted to be independent and karen they had ideas of being independent or shan they're not looking for that anymore but that identity that this is we control our own territory and we're not going to let these outsiders in gives them the sense that these resources may be exploited by us because these are ours uh and the center says this is a country the national resources and we want to exploit so it is a driver of conflict it is a result of conflict it is circular in that sense um so whether it's jade gold timber whatever selling that smuggling that moving that has been a large source of their weapons and their their money that is inside and outside the country uh outsiders that support it i mean there are there'll be various groups when it comes to the wa and some along the border there's been talk of the chinese support the wa used to be the part of the burmese communist party until they got rid of that moniker they gave up an insurgency and became the wa a different kind of identity but strong connections historically and um linguistically and culturally with those across the border so there's variety of there's a lot of uncertainty of where all of it is coming from but clearly these networks had formed over many decades and they still exist to support these groups and they're an obstacle of peace among some that's and a question of how do you get a resolution of peace because then you have to deal with these big financial questions where people have enormous interests in the status quo so i think there are some in the government that think oh they don't some of these folks really don't want peace because they're making their money so that's where the law the mistrust comes from that needs to be built up as as vj talked about through good faith efforts of dialogue over time so that's my answer to it but you do maybe just add one um i mean i think one one curious aspect i guess though also is that there are a lot of um illicit legal businesses that are owned by the ethnic armed groups and and and in in some of the negotiations over the last five years that establishing those businesses has been one of the parts of the agreement with a specific ethnic group so so that's there's a whole other layer to it and i think um you know now that the the eight signatories to the nationwide ceasefire agreement are a d well they're now legal organizations there'll be more um there'll be more leeway for them to do that um you know there are i mean there are there are shops there are petrol stations there i mean you see you know you go to um that some of the border areas that people will point them out to you you know this this belongs to the rcss this belongs to the knu etc so yeah there's a there's a there's a whole sort of legal side of it as well or quasi legal side um to to armed group revenue to creates a lot of mistrust within the government as well towards outsiders all of them who can you know the suspicion that big powers are trying to support division of the country you mean it's very much part of their identity of of vulnerability and insecurity about outsiders as this is just one point i wanted to make as if this is not enough there are additional layers of complexity in terms of the larger political principles as it were you're seeing on the one hand progressively in many of these areas rights of communities are being ethnic groups as groups are being put what about the rights of individuals how do you juxtapose the rights of individuals and the rights of communities so that is that kind of you know there's it's how because as you get closer and closer to a political uh discussion a dialogue i you're going to the party not the armed groups alone because many of the armed groups are really as i said groups of who are in a sense elites and establishments you have to move down the layer to the your common people and that's going to come that's going to come very quickly the second thing is you're talking of inclusivity in terms of organizing people around the table but then what about the exceptionalism which individual communities have particularly the richer groups in in in some parts how about juxtaposing that with the need to eliminate property great you know abysmal poverty in some parts how do you use that and some of them want to be treated some of these groups want to be treated as separate and they have the the there are vast riches in in kachin for example now it can't remain only for the for the kachins to be to utilize just because of the accident of history they are part of the larger nation how do you use that to equalize it these are huge problems which are going to come down the way and that's the political and that cannot come unless you have one a political dialogue and you have a political dialogue where people from all community i mean not just communities people from all levels even within communities are able to speak and speak to the larger issues of social justice it's not justice between one region and another but justice between different levels of people so it's going to be it's going to be a huge thing and the only way to discuss it is through the open democratic process where people you know a press and and institutions a lot of institutions thank you thank you i must have missed this but did any of the distinguished speakers mention the roginia one thing i wanted to say at the start and we can address this is the conversation about peace process is not meant to ignore the other problems of the country and particularly in rakhine state with the rakhine which is a huge issue for the country huge issue in terms of you know human rights and concerned about atrocities and all the rest it is not particularly a peace process issue and maybe it's a quite a complicated issue we can have a whole other conversation about that it is an elephant in the room i know but it's not necessarily in this room i was worried about that but it does get to the issue of rakhine rakhine is another ethnic group and they themselves are like kachan and others who believe that they were independent one time they were they're viable their identities at stake in the rakhine jars are a function of that they feel the rakhine are affecting their identity their ability to have their own control of their territory and so you have as we talk about divisions and the fractiousness and the complexity you have ethnic linguistic differences in the religion and you have race all these things are playing into it the rakhine jar is subset in essence of those questions which are also going to have to be wrapped up in a broader term national reconciliation i guess which is beyond peace peace has to do with these particular civil conflicts and fighting among ethnic groups but then excuse me how do you deal with legacies of religious difference of racial difference and things like the rakhine jar i'm sorry institution of discrimination is a big problem i mean there's no question that it is an issue which has been raised time and again by institutions like the united nations in our discussions all through and the fact is one of the major elements in this whole issue of institutionalized discrimination relates to what is happening in rakhine there's no doubt about that it is an important issue that needs to be taken in fact it's some kind of slowly with the activities of the arakan army now particularly some of the public statements they've been making even in the context of the recent developments are a little frightening also because it can actually enhance the polar it can aggravate the polarization between the communities over there now this is not to suggest that it is it's being the government is addressing these and they of course the huge stereotypes that have been built over the years over the over the years particularly in recent history but i think daosu has has mentioned that this would be an important priority she has actually established a commission which is a national commission but which is in fact chaired by the former secretary general of the united nations kofi anand now it is a complex issue it's an issue where human rights issues our values have to be have to be in a sense juxtaposed with traditional sort of you know traditional attitudes within communities in order to have them mediated in a manner which doesn't break up the break up the stability of the state but at the same time builds a kind of in certainly in rakhine there is a drastic need for a kind almost a new social contract between the communities they have lived in the past but there has been you know there is a complex history of migrations from the subcontinent particularly from from the indian subcontinent and that has to be brought into the discussion bangladesh and others have to be brought into the discussion and i think that's the way in which they're proceeding yeah but i mean if we're going to use the you know kofi anand the basnia you know the negotiations went on when the while the genocide continued continued and the rakhine people they're in the higher situation i understand they're in concentration camps they can't work they can go to school no food i mean they don't have citizenship rights 21st century civilized humanity are we really civilized and it wasn't the united nations founded in order to prevent what's happening to the rakhine from you know happening i'm sorry i'm just being a little bit you know i mean this is yeah i mean i yeah just i mean it's absolutely rakhine and rakhine issues absolutely a topic that deserves um a whole other conversation i think um but i just wanted to make a quick point about this and that is i think there i think there are a number of um places in which the the peace process between the ethnic groups and the government and and the broader question of national identity citizenship um what's going on rakhine they they do intersect and both in terms of the root causes the discrimination um national identity and so on um and i think um and it's interesting to note i just wanted to point out that in the um plan for the political dialogue in the um i think it's in the social issues sector um in march to july 2017 there is a plan to discuss religion as part of the political dialogue process so i think that will be a very interesting um conversation that will um that will raise a lot of these sort of long-term um issues with a broader broader group of people um so it is being addressed through the political dialogue i don't know how successful it'll be addressed yeah that's the broader religious question you're right the issue of the rakhine is an extraordinarily important issue for our attention the u n pays a lot of attention to this believe me on the ground he did yeah it's very actually the group went yesterday along with the group of head submission the president coordinator was in rakhine into the very very villages which are affected by the latest disturbance yeah it's just it's not technically peace process the difference as well is that with the peace process these groups are the government wants them part of the country they're considered part of the country the in history these groups want to be separate but with the rakhine unfortunately they're not accepted by a vast majority of the people even as part of the country they're viewed as illegal immigrants by many people the name rakhine isn't accepted i mean they have they're stateless there's been a history and there's not a migration from that so it's dealing with that question where most of the people even many in the ethnic areas the ethnic minority or ethnic nationalities don't even consider them part of a process they shouldn't even be in the country they should go back i mean exactly they think they should go back to Bangladesh that's where they view them having come from this is the mindset this is why we can't get into this discussion that you start discussing it the complexities of this issue in the history of this issue are there and we will do that here we want to do that as a as part of a series here but i made a mistake not addressing this early on that this is a serious issue we're not going to address it here because it's a whole very much a sui generous issue but that doesn't mean it's subordinate to peace we're not as important as peace it is extremely important and if things go badly as we're watching day by day in rakhine state with it that can also set back the entire situation inside the country so a lot is at stake in rakhine yes let me get to we're running out of time but let me have one final question hi dan solovan with refugees international i shared david's concerns about the the blocking of humanitarian aid but also in the longer term about curious what the the discussions are within the peace process and more broadly about the long-term returns of idps and then we also saw recently the first pilot returns from thailand and so both in terms of idps and refugees and returns um what where conversations are on that and what we can expect going forward thanks i don't have much information but clearly the idea is that the kind of confidence in the process has not reached a stage where voluntary returns will be will start happening in any in any meaningful manner i think the the in fact even the question of developing certain areas in the former black zones etc has become a problem inside the country because the government when the government decides to or whenever the government has made certain moves to have some development in those regions which have just just on the border the ethnic armed groups themselves have problems because they think that this is being used by the this will be used by the government as a way to to show itself in better light with vis-a-vis the local communities and therefore there is that itself is becoming an object of tension i think the confidence but between both sides that this process is reaching a self-sustaining kind of basis has not yet happened and unless that happens communities are not really going to come you're going to then it will it has to take it has to take place at a certain stage in the process which has not yet been reached at least that's my my understanding of the situation of course the question of attending to the immediate humanitarian issues of the people where they are that continues to be a problem that i think that that is being addressed the government is also addressing it international community donor groups are addressing it and to have for example issues like demining we talked they've been a lot of talk about demining but actually that has not really started in real life that is the first step towards getting people back then there are some in some respects there are an entire generations that have developed outside the country many of them well if they return to the places of their former you know of their former domicile you'd find that properties etc have changed hands at least two or three times and so in a sense the new generation doesn't find any place they want to go back there are these kind of problems which i have at least experience with local communities leaders of local communities etc it's a it's a stage which will which will take place it will happen but i think this is going to happen once there's much greater confidence in the stability of the peace process okay we're a little bit over time but there's so much more we can say on this this is a start this will be to be continued in essence in the conversation yeah for final comment maybe turn to the ambassador for please i would like to make a comment this event has really deepened and enlightened my knowledge on the peace process in our country thank you very much bj and also Vanessa one thing no one will deny is that the process is so complicated we all know that the quote however all the stakeholders and also know that it is important to remain in the union in the past that are in the past the adnegan groups are even tried to succeed from the state that was in the 1947 constitution but at present this is no more and that they are not asking for it anymore it is important for us to maintain the union that is why the nl government is trying so hard and also working very closely with the armed forces the tumble draw tumble draw from the very beginning of the independence as a very formidable our institution and we must realize that it has it has it took control of the country for over five fifty years it is important for us to understand the role of the tumble draw that is why the nld government is working so hard to bring the tumble draw into the nation building for the outsiders for the well-wishers please do realize this role of the tumble draw and please support our country and please also on one on one hand if you have any if you have any encounter with the people from the tumble draw make them convince that this is the part of the nation building this is very very important we cannot we cannot leave the tumble draw to be like the past we must bring them together in the nation building this is so important for us that is the message that i wish to give and this is how we are trying so hard to bring the tumble draw together in the nation building process thank you very much thank you very much mr. ambassador that's a great way to end this so thank you all for coming