 I'm here in Yangon, Myanmar, on the balcony of the U.S. Institute of Peace Office with Ambassador Derek Mitchell, who is the senior advisor to USIP and the former U.S. Ambassador, the first American ambassador, back in Myanmar. As we reflect on the close of our trip here, which is coming at the end of the first year of Aung San Suu Kyi's extraordinary win and the beginning of democracy for the first time here in Myanmar, where do you see the progress and where do you see the biggest challenges? This is an evolutionary process. They made a decision not to have a revolutionary process where things were going to happen overnight. This is only the first year of that process. I certainly have seen progress in institutionalizing, I think, some of the mindsets of change. People are now demanding that there be a free media, that it must maintain, even in the face of some challenges. Free speech is demanded. So people, unfortunately, can speak their minds in every good or bad way, and that led to tensions and religious tensions. But what we've seen, as you say, I think people have decided that this is not the country that we want to live in, that we need to combat rumor, we have to combat division. Young people are taking the lead in this, which is very important. Facebook, in fact, was a main kind of vehicle for getting this information out. Right. And we heard some of the young monks talk about the way in which they've learned to use Facebook as a rapid response, which is a wonderful development. Yes. And the key, I think, as well as the religious leaders, this is a very devoutly religious country, dominated by the monks. So if we're going to make going to make headway, if we are going to be credible with this country, we have to show appropriate respect, and I think cultivate them and work with them as partners, it makes everything easier. One of the things that USIP does in a lot of different countries is look at how do you build peace from the ground up, not just from the top down. And how can we best employ that kind of approach in this really complicated conflict? Yeah. I think the most important thing also to recognize about this country, it's the longest running civil war in the world. We have defined this country as a democratic challenge, for good reason, Ong San Suu Kyi, the military. But I don't think many people understand that the defining challenge of this country is a unifying identity, in essence, ending the civil war and building mutual respect between, you know, dozens, well, not just armed groups, but dozens of different ethnic nationalities, eight major ones, but other other identities. How do you form one? So that is our challenge, I think, as well to assist them with how to build grassroots understanding, the ties that bind between communities. On the other side of the country, there's a deeply disturbing and equally complicated conflict happening in Rakhine state. How do we get past? How do we address this in a way that is accountable, in a way that enables us to move forward and get at what are these deeply held grievances on all sides, a complex conflict that's not always understood in the black and white characterization of it? Yeah. No, this is a critical issue. It's now, I think, the defining issue when people think of Myanmar, it's Rakhine state, it's the Rohingya, and there could not be a more different view inside the country than outside about this. And I think that's going to be a huge challenge. There's the immediate issue of these people's humanity, the humanitarian needs, their human rights needs, those are uncompromisable. On the other hand, the international community must understand that this is not a simple issue, that there are complexities of this issue that, again, go back decades, not centuries to history. And I just implore everybody watching to take a step back, not to compromise on the principles in the horrible situation in the Rohingya, but take a step back and say, what don't I know? What don't I get? And I need to learn more about this. And that means the media, that means the Capitol Hill, anybody who's interested about this should, if they truly care about this issue, even for the Rohingya sake, to really get a deep dive into the complexities. That's the only way we can actually have leverage here, and the people here will take our advice.