 Good morning, everybody. How great to see everyone. Thank you for joining us. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president of the United States Institute of Peace. And I hope as many of you know, USIP was founded a little more than 30 years ago dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, that peace is practical, and that it is essential for our national and global security. And we work on the ground with local partners seeking to equip them with the tools, the knowledge, and the information that helps them to manage conflicts so it doesn't become violent or to resolve it when it does. And I am delighted to be here today with a group of people who have been doing exactly that in a country that is going through a very critical transition where conflict has been the norm for decades now. So today's discussion with Ambassador Mitchell and Chris Milligan comes at an important time. They've both recently participated in a very historic transition in Burma, Burma Myanmar. We're working on which to call it, right? The NLD land-styled victory last November has really changed the political equation in Burma. And it finally gave duly elected civilian leadership the chance to really reshape the country's governance. I think all of us are well aware, however, that there are many challenges. This is still an important pathway that remains to unfold. And who we have here today are speakers who have witnessed this transition firsthand. They all have very valuable insights into the challenges and the difficulties that lay ahead. And so we're honored to have with us today John Stivers, the assistant administrator of the Bureau for Asia at USID. He will be delivering opening remarks. Ambassador Derrick Mitchell, the former US Ambassador to Burma, there from 2012 to March 2016. So he's just recently stepped down. And I'm very pleased to announce that Ambassador Mitchell will be spending part of his time here as a senior advisor at USIP to our Asia Center. We're delighted to have you with us. Chris Milligan served as the USA Mission Director to Burma from 2012 until last week. So this was the power duo that guided us through a very critical four years. And we also have with us Patrick Murphy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia, who will be giving closing remarks. And I'd like to note that a number of us just got back from Asia, so everybody's in a different time zone. I'd also like to give a special welcome to Jessica Davy, former OTI representative, former colleague in Burma, who worked with Derrick and Chris at the US Embassy. And I'm hoping she'll be able to share a few words as well. And I know that all of us here in the room are waiting to see how the peace process will evolve under the new NLD government. The newly minted State Counselor, Anson Succi, has pledged to convene a new national peace conference drawing on some of the approaches of her father, and she's vowed to bring all stakeholders into the dialogue. How she does this, what will be the institutional structures, what will that leadership look like all remains to be seen. And what we do know is that Burma will need strong international support right now to consolidate the transition. And that's why USIP has made Burma one of our priority countries, knowing that if we really want peace to hold, it's important to see these processes through. And we are committed to working with the religious leaders, with interfaith efforts, the security sector, and to support the peace processes in the best ways that we can. So before sitting down with Derrick and Chris, we'll hear their views on Burma's political transition and the role that the embassy played during this critical four years. I'd like to first welcome the USAID Assistant Administrator for Asia. John Stuyms gave you a different title there. USAID Assistant Administrator for Asia, John Stuyvers. He just returned this weekend from a momentous trip to Burma with the new USAID Administrator, Gail Smith. So please join me in welcoming John to the podium to share his reflections. Thank you. Hello, good morning. Thank you, Nancy, for that kind introduction and for hosting this event. It really is an honor to be here today with so many distinguished Burma watchers and leaders and people who have focused on Burma for a very long time. I can attest to the success of our USAID program in Burma is due in large part, almost all part, due to the coordination and leadership of Ambassador Mitchell and Chris Milligan. That relationship really is a model, I think, for how our embassies should operate overseas. They've set the foundation for our continued work in Burma and moving forward in the future. USAID has had a monumental impact in Burma since reopening there in 2012. In that time, USAID has assisted over 2.8 million people, including some of the poorest and most vulnerable, with better agriculture technologies and finance, health, and certainly support for civil society. The 2015 election was an important and absolute key step for the future of the country. USAID was the lead donor, providing over 18 million in support of the November 2015 elections that resulted in the first civilian-led government in more than 50 years. The challenges of a conducting election were absolutely enormous, with 53 million people, over 100 languages, and more than 90 political parties, conflicts, and the worst floods in 50 years occurring just months before the election. But we know that democracy is more than just elections, which is why our support for this next phase of the democratic transition is so important. Our overarching goal is how can we help translate the political win until benefits for the people? And the people of Burma have high expectations of this new NLD-led government, which, and the country faces development challenges on every front you can imagine. There are hundreds of new parliamentarians with little governing experience, and numerous economic, social development challenges on really every part of society. The government has prioritized key issues, such as national reconciliation, further institutional reform for political power structures, economic growth, agricultural development, and health care as its top priorities. We also continue our strong support for civil society partners as the transition advances. Word about national reconciliation. The U.S. is helping ethnic leaders to better engage with one another, participate in official ceasefire negotiations, and better understand the interests of communities affected by the conflict. Our assistance continues to increase the participation of civil society, ethnic leaders, and government representatives in the peace process. We remain deeply concerned about the humanitarian and human rights situation in Rakhine state, including the treatment of the Muslim Rohingyas. Failure to address the root causes of the conflict can really undermine the democratic transition, increase instability and insecurity, and impede Burma's relations with the United States and the international community. USAID, for its part, continues to provide significant humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations throughout Burma, including in Rakhine and along the border in Thailand. Looking forward, USAID's goal is to continue to engage the people proactively on the principles of inclusivity, transparency, accountability, and citizen empowerment with respect for the history and culture and the customs of the countries. We stand ready to support and be a friend of this new government as they come in with brand new ministers, again, hundreds of new parliamentarians with little experience in governing, but a lot of experience in activism. We just returned from Burma with our administrator, Gail Smith, and in some of our meetings with the government, with the ministers, it's the engagement, first of all, that are highly qualified in all of their fields, but as they focus on these huge challenges, they need our help, they need our technical assistance, and they're looking and they're open to ways to help, and they're asking everybody. There's people from the back rows who are chiming up in meetings in just a very vibrant and engaging way, and certainly they're looking for our help, they're looking for help for other donors, they're emphasizing the importance of coordinating in an effective manner with the international community because a lot of people want to help, and one of the main themes, I think, from our visit was if you have too many priorities that you don't have any priorities, and so it continues to be essential that we focus on some of the things that we do best from the US perspective and coordinate with other donors in terms of helping the government deliver on some of its promises that it's made. So as we move forward, overcoming these challenges is gonna be fundamental to the success of this country, and USAID and the US government continues to do what we can to help with this transition and help the people continue this fantastic transition. So I just wanna say thank you to Ambassador Mitchell and Chris Milgan who've provided such strong leadership. This is a new phase now for the country and certainly for our leadership there in Burma. So thank you all for your great leadership. I've seen it firsthand, and now I'd like to turn it over to Nancy. Thank you. Thank you, John. Thanks for coming in shortly after your trip, and thank you for bringing your many years of experience on the Hill to the leadership job that you're doing at USAID where John oversees the Asia portfolio which spans South Pacific to Burma and all points in between. So now I'd like to ask Derrick and Chris to join me up on the podium. I'll sit here. As I've noted, they've both just returned from four years of running the embassy and the USAID mission at a time of really, really important transition. Ambassador Mitchell brings a lot of experience of working in Asian affairs across the State Department, CSIS, NDI. Chris has worked in transitioning environments from Zimbabwe to Indonesia to Iraq. When I was at AID, he was my go-to guy for how we're supposed to be making this work. So having the two of you there in Burma, I think was probably pretty spectacular selection by the US government. So we're gonna ask you two to each make a few opening comments and then we'll move to questions. So Ambassador Mitchell, would you like to kick us off? Sure. First, thank you so much, Nancy, for asking me to be here this morning and for asking me to be associated with USIP. It really is an honor. This is a place that's very operational. That's my instinct, is to be operational, even though I was with think tanks in the past where you sit and you write and you talk, here USIP is out in the field trying to make a difference and trying to shape, which is what we were trying to do in Burma. I'm also pleased this morning because this is a kind of reunion. I look around here, not just a reunion of all the USAID people who have worked in the field, but USAID and state and embassy people who I worked with out in the field. This is weak. We have about six or seven of the team in town and I'm just so pleased to see all my old friends and old colleagues who continue to do amazing work on the ground. We were lucky. We were there at a remarkable moment in history in a remarkable country. We knew that at the time. We knew that we were in the midst of a really important moment. That was important to US interest. It was important to the country itself, to those of us who were interested in the country for many years, for several decades. It was the culmination of things that we had either worked on or observed and promoted for so long. And the thing that I kept thinking about is when I became ambassador, which was never really anything I expected, was don't blow it. Because there's such a pregnant moment. There's, you know, you had Secretary Clinton going, you had President Obama going. There was a lot at stake for ensuring that this moment will continue its momentum. And we weren't going to make the difference. We knew that. It wasn't going to be up to the United States or the State Department at USAID. But there are many ways that we could have made it more difficult. We could have said the wrong thing at the wrong time. It was, we knew it was a very, very sensitive moment rebuilding the mistrust, or the trust that had been lost over many decades of alienation between our peoples and our governments. And whether, you know, we had to deal with the government, we had to deal with the opposition, we had to deal with the military, we had to deal with the ethnics, we had to deal with the civil society folks, all of whom came at issues in different ways. Some similar, but they all had their different interests. So we had to think about, how do we talk about this? How do we think about this? How do we ensure the United States can navigate in an environment, transitional environment, in which there is a land mine in almost every step that you take. Because every step you take here will antagonize potentially someone there or someone there. Not that antagonizing is something that, you know, is altogether negative if you're doing the right thing. But you do want to stay on the right side of these issues. So, you know, I kept being prodded from very early on by Jessica Davy, among others. What is our strategy? You know, what is it that we're looking at? What are our goals? What is our vision here? What are we trying to get done? At one level, it's pretty simple. You can say we want to bring human rights and democracy and, you know, openness. But, you know, we sat down and because it was so sensitive, we had to be careful of every word that was said from the embassy. And that meant that every individual, whether you were state department or AID or defense attaché or the econ office or whatever, that you were an ambassador for the country. And if we said something wrong in the wrong way, it can have a negative impact. So, we realized we had to get together and think about some of these issues carefully, how to talk about them, how to think about them, and then how to put them into play in the field. And what we also realized was that the operations were strategy. That what AID did, in fact, was supporting our policy because we needed to deliver on the promise of being a partner in reform. That was our mantra, we will be partners in reform. And if we were just words, and if on the ground we weren't delivering reform or delivering on a new way of thinking or contributing to agriculture or other development, then people will say, well, the United States is all talk, what are they really doing for us? So, one year was about assessments, the next year is about delivery. And then we moved on to the real key, which was the elections. And everybody sort of talks about the elections as the real sort of definition of our partnership. But that was a culmination of years of partnership in the embassy, working on peace. We had working group on peace. We had a working group on Rakhine State. We had a working group on interfaith harmony after what happened in Mectila and so that we all were discussing what was going on. And we understood that AID being on the ground and working these issues from their angle had something to offer and state from its angle had something to offer. And other parts, DEA may have something to offer. So we wanted to get them all in one room, make the most out of everybody's knowledge and hammer out a singular approach. I'd never worked in an embassy before. So I didn't know how it was supposed to go. I didn't know, I got a sense when I went to that so-called Ambassador Charm School, that there was this, I'll be very honest about it. There's a bit of a, let's say a hostility but a negative attitude towards AID. A little friction, a little tension there. And I didn't quite understand it. Maybe it was earned, maybe I don't know. You can tell me how it was in other places. But I went in with the idea that we are one team. We have one mission. We don't have an asset to waste. We can't play games. There's a lot at stake. And I kept hammering that into the embassy. There's too much at stake. We don't have a lot of assets. We're not structured for the Burma of today. It took a lot of time to get the assets in the country we needed. The USAID moved pretty quickly but with PDYs. So how do we ensure that we get this right, the best that we can to give this a chance, to test this moment? So just very quickly, maybe I'm going too long, but our strategy was essentially five key elements or so. Which number one, national reconciliation. The defining challenge of the country. How does this place hold together by political means, not use of force? Because the military had always said, you need us to hold together. And that meant peace, but it also meant harmony among the peoples because there's very little trust in the society. So national reconciliation was right at the top and we measured everything we did. The AID and otherwise, are we contributing to national reconciliation? That is a strategic goal for the country over time and we wanted to ensure that everything we did contributed. Number two and related was democracy, human rights, ensure people had a voice, ensure there was civil society, ensure if we worked with the military, it was civilian control, pushing forward our values, and of course democracy leading to the elections. The third was related to democracy needing to deliver. If there is more openness in people and there is democracy, they need to see the benefits in their daily lives, which meant economic development, business opportunities. Fourth was a more AID specifically called resilient communities. Which I didn't quite understand at first. But that was basically health and education. Ensuring that manmade or natural disasters are enabled to, communities able to maintain momentum in the face of those disasters. And then fifth was ensuring that Burma was a good citizen, international citizen. That meant cross border issues, nonproliferation, trafficking, et cetera. So all of these things linked to one another, but we tried to give it at least a labels. And we put this on the wall of our embassy. So everyone knew. We got people in the embassy to talk about it. Each of them, how they fit into this, how they contributed to it, and ensured that everything we did had those things in mind. And that was the way, at least at the leadership level, I thought about ensuring that the embassy had a singular approach to this transition to give some method to a place that needs everything. We can go in all kinds of directions, trying to deal with the country, but trying to at least shape it as it went. Chris, and I will turn to him right now. Chris operationalized it. Chris took it from that to the AID side of things, how AID organized itself. And so I would turn to him for how he took what I just laid out. Thank you, and Nancy, thank you so much for this opportunity to talk today, and also for what USIP is doing in Burma. The credit for Burma's success, of course, goes to the people of Burma. But the US government managed to get assistance and diplomacy right in Burma. And this is an opportunity to think through why did we get it right, and what did we learn that we could apply in other countries? And when I think, I left Burma on Friday evening, and thought about this on the airplane. And I thought about four main things. Strategic vision, the right people, flexible resources, and structured coordination. We reopened the USAID mission in 2012, but we did not have a development mission. We instead, we were using the tool of development to deepen and sustain reforms. And that's very different than a development mission. That meant that there were things that made good development sense that we did not invest in. We invested in the reforms. And that sounds semantic, but it's a strategic decision. And that influenced how we worked and how we engaged. So for example, that's obvious when you think about a democracy program or economic reform program. But that also meant that in health, we weren't delivering just health outcomes. Our health programs actually had to help on national reconciliation. So we were able, for example, to get ethnic organizations working with the union government for the first time on joint surveys and planning to use the tool of development for national reconciliation. And fortunately, as you've just heard, we had an ambassador who got it and was as passionate about assistance or probably more passionate about assistance than many people I know at AID. The right people. We would not have succeeded without having the right people early on that had substantive knowledge of the country and who could mentor the newcomers and help us make strategic choices. And that right person was Jessica Davy. She was there not only in her role as OTI, but as a senior counselor really for the USA admission and the embassy. When we had tough choices, we would always default to her until we could grow our own capacity. And that was critical. The right resources. It takes three to four years for the US government to go from planning a budget for the resources to come and hit the ground. And many times, the US government's budget system doesn't keep up with the fluid foreign policy environment where we work. We were very, very fortunate when we had to grow resources to get a type of resource that was flexible, which is on-earmarked ESF. And that's very rare. Had we gotten earmarked resources, we would not have had the flexibility to move resources quickly to the opportunities on the ground. But the final point is the one that I think really made an enormous difference. That was structured coordination. Coordination doesn't happen organically, particularly in a high-paced environment like Burma where you don't have time. You have to structure it. You have to value it. And I think when we think about coordination, there's three levels that we focused on. One was inside the embassy. The ambassador noted some of the structures we put in place. I think everyone knows that when you look at social trust indicators, Burma is near the bottom in Asia. I think the US inter-agency is probably down there too, right? And so how do you build that trust? We set up thematic teams that the ambassador mentioned. And they were co-led. So people didn't have turf. We had annual papers that put out different scenarios and red lines and got people thinking strategically, not from their office, but their thinking about the mission. And they met regularly to make decisions. So this was very good for breaking down inter-agency barriers at post and getting people to work together. We also, in order to help coordinate the inter-agency in Washington, established an assistance working group. We had a lot of goodwill offers of assistance that were supplied to them from Washington. But we couldn't take them all because we had little bandwidth. So having an assistance working group at post meant we could help coordinate this goodwill and apply it to the reforms and to the high priorities or sometimes say, no, I'm sorry, it's just not the right moment. It's not gonna advance to your government interests. That was critical because we would have been overwhelmed and not been able to maintain our strategic focus. And thirdly, with other donors. I think the model of donor coordination on elections was tremendous. Of course, we began working on elections in September, 2012. But what we set up throughout the embassy was a three-tiered structure. So we would have the donors and development people working together to coordinate the assistance, make sure there was a duplication, running into issues. The political elements of embassies would also meet as part of this. And then once a month, and sometimes more frequently, the ambassadors would meet as well, as all part of the joint structure. So we had political messaging across embassies, unified voice back to government. We had the political analysis being shared and we have the assistance side all working together. Also, through leadership in the donor community, we pushed hard to avoid the politicization of assistance. For example, when two large donors were thinking that budget support would be a good idea prior to the election, we were concerned, and so were many others, that this would produce a lot of funding at the grass-roots level very quickly. It could politicize development assistance. So we were able to meet, bring in political analysts, have a roundtable, the rest of the discussions, and try to preserve the integrity of all donor resources in that very sensitive run up to elections. So this structured coordination was internal to the embassy, it was also the interagency, and then externally. So I'll just conclude that it sounds simple, it's hard to do sometimes, but it's really about being back to basics. The right people, the right resources, strategic vision, and structuring that coordination. Thank you. Thank you, Derek and Chris. And I know from when I visited Berman, saw you both in action, that it was evident that you all were able to forge the kind of relationships and joint vision that was making a difference. And at a time where the UN has declared conflict as the largest threat to development, and at a time that we are grappling with how do we deal with the fragility that affects so many countries that comprise our largest global threats to peace and security, the criticality of having that kind of systems approach to dealing with these threats is more important than ever. So you've both just described how you made that work in Burma at a really critical time as this fragile system moved through a transition. Do you have any further words on how do we best translate that into our interagency before we move on to Burma to enable that to be replicated? I mean, you named four elements, you talked about. Well, one thing that was established early on, a job I had before being ambassador was a special rep, which was a special job that was tasked to bring together the interagency to focus on Burma, but ensure that there is a singular approach and to coordinate. And that's a difficult job, particularly as it became the sexy issue as things started to change. So everybody wanted their piece of the issue and they all were gonna go in their own stovepipe. And that's going to be, I think that is a big challenge back in headquarters to try to manage back here so you don't have to manage it back in Rangoon with people just deciding, oh, I'm coming tomorrow and I'm going to work on whatever was in health. I think at one point, one of the agencies said, oh yeah, the government said we can work on health issues. So we're going to work on health issues. And if you do that, then anything we do in the embassy, trying to coordinate it is going to be foiled. We can plan all we want, but if people are coming out from here and getting money and doing their own thing, you can't hurt all those cats. We find out these things too late. So what's necessary here, and I don't know if it can be done on a daily basis without a special rep. I hope it can be given the daily inbox. But if there's a country where there is that kind of interest to ensure that whether it's the director of the region, the deputy director, or even the desk officer, they get everybody together to say, okay, here's what we're doing in the country. Here's our strategy. You tell us if you're going to be there what your interest is and we want to talk to the embassy about it so that we can ensure there is strategic focus and that there's not just stray voltage running out, people running all over the country, and then the embassy has to catch up to them and we spend more time managing ourselves than we do focusing on the strategic goals inside. I try to do that as the envoy as a special rep by having regular meetings of everybody, 40, 45 folks in a room briefing them and then hearing back for them their plans and then basically telling them we're not ready for that, hold off on that, we'll do that and ensuring the embassy was on board. Absolutely, I think that sharing the information back here was critical. I think that there was a balance in where policy was being made and many times I've been in situations where the voice from post was not as appreciated as greatly as it was here. And so there was a lot of respect for the voice of post and that fed into the policy process and that was good. The other thing we tried to do was to have all agencies at post speak with one voice through one channel so that we knew when we were working that we were representing a collective position and not having separate channels up to Washington that would then create a lot of conflict. So the balance between Washington and the field was I think a good one. The fact that as Ambassador Mitchell noted, we were able to keep people informed so that the good intentions but unintended consequences didn't always occur. And then having people speak with one voice from post were I think enormously helpful. Well, I think that the trust that you talked about is essential and unfortunately not always there and also both of you crossed the lines from the usual diplomatic lane and development lane to understand how they interrelated and that's what we all need to work more on. And I wonder if you could tell me, because all countries going through conflict and transition are complicated but Burma seems especially so and how was your approach able to help navigate the complexities, for example, of the situation in Rakhine State? Chris, you and I traveled there. I was really impressed upon how much more complicated that situation is than one sees from sitting here in Washington, just the layers of that conflict. Right, it is very, very complex. And I think the international community's approach right in 2012 after the initial violence wasn't successful in promoting an advancement on some of the key issues because I think our narrative in Rakhine was one which only focused and rightly so but focused on human rights and humanitarian assistance issues and those were the critical things. But we didn't include that in a broader narrative about all vulnerable communities in Rakhine State. And so a lot of doors closed. We weren't able to work with moderates because we just had a single message. When we had a better understanding of Rakhine State I think we've been able to work with the international community to maintain a focus on human rights and a focus on humanitarian assistance issues but also to broaden it to a narrative on Rakhine State that empowers moderates at the expense of extremists. So the situation in Rakhine State means very, very grim. And we are extremely concerned about it. But what we are focusing on are initiatives, openings that we can use to create greater progress. So besides maintaining humanitarian assistance and assistance to moderates who are promoting tolerance we're also looking for those opportunities where communities are starting to work together. And so we're now, for example, helping resettle 20,000 individuals from IDP camps where the government is actually funding the resettlement. Other donors are funding some of the reconstruction of the housing. But we wanna help with the livelihoods but in a way that is doing no harm, in a way that provides livelihoods not only for the Rohingya communities but also for the poor, Rakhine and other communities around it in a way of doing no harm. So what we tried to learn over the past four years was a broader focus that enables us to create greater opportunities for communities instead of just hammering on a one-note message which didn't get us very far, I'm not sure. I'm asking you. No, I would echo that. I think the issue of context. And my mantra out there was facts without context is not truth. So you could have the facts maybe right if this is happening, that is happening in the other. But if you don't see the context of what's happening if you don't see it the way that people on the ground or in the country see it you don't have to accept their view entirely but you have to understand it in the context in which they're thinking what they think. You're not going to get it right, which is why you need people to go and see it for themselves, to hear the many voices on the ground. And then the way we respond, we were, as I say, at a very sensitive moment where everything we said could be viewed poorly by this or that. And I said, look, let's stick very close to principle. Let's just stick to the principle. They're very clear principles of humanitarian access. That's an absolute principle. Equality, equal rights, equal protection for people. Due process under a reasonable law, not bad law, but there are things that clearly the people on the ground, the Rohingya and Kaman and other Muslims and the Rakhine people themselves deserve. So we try to view very closely to that in trying to deal with a sensitive issue and then demonstrate to the people on the ground, the government, the Rakhine, others that we understood. We were listening. We got it. And the moment that they understood that we knew the full narrative, we understood the context. We understood their sensitivities and their sense of insecurity and vulnerability to what they saw as an influx. And this got me in all these things that go into the name Rohingya for them. To us, it's just a name. To them, it's infused with all kinds of other baggage that we don't recognize. The moment that we can tell them, we're listening to you, we understand that's your perspective on this. That's when we can have a good conversation with them about how the way they're going about it in a very unhumane, basically self-destructive way as well as destroying these people in these camps, how it was counterproductive. We can have a conversation. So the most important thing is to understand the issue in full, not in part. And I am afraid that back here a lot of the facts may be true that we get, but they're not the full truth with context of what's happening for us to deal with it in a smart and thoughtful way. And if we don't show that we get it, then we're less likely to be able to help solve it because they will dismiss us. They will put a wall down, they'll say, you don't get it, go away, get out of our country, don't talk to us about it because you don't get it. But if we say, well, we understand what you're saying, then we can have a conversation. So that's, I think, how we try to deal with it and it's going much more slowly than we would like. And it is, I would say, a black spot during my time there. It's something that surely regressed during my time, which I very much regret, may have been worse had we not addressed it the way we did. I'd like to think that's the case, but it's certainly not satisfactory. And I hope though that things can get back on track. Before we open it up for questions, Derek, you had mentioned in your comments the elections and the importance, I think both of you talked about the importance of working with the other ambassadors, the other donor countries. Can you just say a bit more about what did that look like going into the elections and what were some of the critical issues you had to navigate? Oh, what do you start? As Chris suggested, we were thinking about this from the very start. I mean, the elections were the ultimate test. The whole process of re-engagement was a test, really, and some people said, oh, you're betting on success. I said, no, we're not betting on anything. We're in their shaping success. We're trying to engage to try to shape success and not stand on the sidelines. And we saw a lot of change occur of a certain type, but other things were not changing. Structure of the country really hadn't changed. The Constitution, the military's role, a lot of things hadn't changed. So even as we saw freedom of the media and more openness and more activity of civil society, et cetera, it all came down to the election as to whether the government was truly sincere in putting power in the balance. They hadn't put power in the balance. They simply allowed for some liberalization of the society, which is only going so far. So we always knew that this was the ultimate test of everything we had done starting 2011. Starting 2012, certainly, but really starting, it was in May 2015. No, May 2014, about 18 months before the election, we got together and said, we have to start organizing now for this election in 18 months. So we, as an embassy, got together. And after, we won't have to go into it, but there was a census process that was quite controversial. And we said, we don't want to repeat the controversy of the census because the election is going to be multiple times of sensitivity and importance. So we sat down and figured out how we need to be organized, what we need to do, how do we set ourselves up for the election in 18 months? We did it as a group with everybody who possibly could touch it. And then we decided we need to get together with the other embassies because they're putting money into the election. We need to coordinate with them. I need to get together with the ambassadors, which I did in June. We said, let's have a working group with our donor agencies talking to each other, with our political parts of our embassies talking to each other, and put together what Chris said was put together over that time. And there were no end of problems. How do we talk about the election? Do you use the term free and fair? We came up with another, another more, we thought, more precise evaluation of elections rather than free and fair, which as an NDI person, former NDI, you never use the term free and fair in assessing an election. It's too broad. So, and then how do we assess? How do we deploy? How do we, you know, how do we coordinate? So it was really, and trying to think of all the specifics, maybe Chris can remember all the specifics, but we were constantly going to the election commissioner with concerns about everything from whether there'll be a by-election in December to, you know, the way the election will be held on election day, who will be allowed to vote, registration, the voter list issue, observation. I mean, there's so many little elements to it. And we addressed all of them with many close calls with the election commission on a regular basis alongside other ambassadors. So it wasn't just a U.S. thing. It was a U.S. and U.K. and Denmark and U.N. and others, which was also, I think, an important visual. Yeah. Jessica, you were there as a partner to these efforts. I'd love, as we open up the Q&A, if you'd like to make a few observations as well. Jessica was an OTI, Office of Transition Initiatives, which is a U.S. aid office in Rangoon. And of course, thank you to Ambassador Mitchell and to Chris for the very generous words. I think the comment that I'd like to offer aside from the very obvious, that replicating this kind of diplomatic and development approach in any sort of political transition environment really is dependent upon leadership. And we were extraordinarily fortunate to have the two of you. But I would also challenge us to think about, it's not just the leadership at the top, but it is how in order to maintain that clarity of strategy that's absolutely necessary, it is mid-level management and mid-level leadership that matters equally as much. And we were also very fortunate to have a very talented and skilled Deputy Chief of Mission in Virginia Murray and Ambassador Mitchell, Virginia Murray and Chris challenged everyone, whether you were an agency head or a section head or just a team leader or a technical officer to understand the strategy and to challenge anyone you supervise to understand that strategy and to know that you were representing that strategy anytime you, in anything that you did. So the internal efforts that were taken, I think there were several of them beyond just the leadership and Chris and Ambassador Mitchell both mentioned some of those. I wanted to offer one comment on some of the things that we did externally outside of the US mission. Because I think those steps are often overlooked in political transition environments. And foremost among them is the principle. An implication of the principle engagement strategy is that it's not just what we do, it's why we're doing it, the strategy, and how we do it. And I remember any new incoming officer, any new employee at USAID or the embassy was challenged by Ambassador Mitchell, our DCM and by Chris to model the change we wanted to see. We were asking a lot of the government of Burma. We were asking a lot of communities in Burma, essentially to change power structures, to change how things were done. And that is the essence of all political transitions. And if we're asking them to make those changes, to be more accountable, to be more transparent, to be more inclusive, to be more accessible and open to civil society, we needed to model that same change. And that became something that was as important in our day to day work as managing a contract or being a good technical officer or getting out as many cables as you possibly could. We all had and knew that we had a responsibility to be available to civil society. We may or may not have done it as well as we could have or should have, but we certainly tried hard. We understood that it was our responsibility and an expectation that we would be available and that we would model the same kind of transparency, accountability and inclusivity that we were asking of the country and the people and the communities that we were trying to support and empower. And I think that was very important. And that also contributed, I think, essentially to a feedback loop. Again, I think it's overlooked in many political transitions, but we spend a lot of time focusing on our internal management arrangements, how we're doing on our strategy, and a lot of times with the relationships with key people in civil society or key institutions in government. The accessibility, the challenge that we be available to a broad spectrum of the people of Burma meant that we were receiving information and feedback not only on our own performance and our own manifestation of the strategy, how we were doing on our strategy, which then allowed us to course correct. And I think that served us particularly well in our kind state, but also as we were trying to manage expectations from civil society about the pace of change in a country like Burma, being available, getting feedback from them, and then immediately through working groups and through internal meetings, allowing that information to influence our strategy and our day-to-day actions, course corrections was absolutely essential. And I think very few missions are able to or prioritize investing that much time in a feedback loop, essentially being available and accessible, and then recycling that information into the strategy day in and day out. Thank you. Great, Jessica, thank you. I want to check to see if we have questions in the audience, I'm sure we do. Are you taking the mic around? Yes. We'll start with this first-hand gentleman here on the aisle. Good morning and welcome back. I have two questions. One is... Can you identify yourself? Oh, my name is Sid Rainey. I'm not associated with any of the institutions here. The first question is thinking of being on the ground. What were the greatest cross-cultural challenges that you experienced? And this might be from your staff as well, in terms of the way you went about doing business. First question. Second question, and it relates to climate change in general. How is a country like Myanmar at this moment, considering what the world is stepping up to do around climate change? How is a country like that poised, given it's an economic development agenda, to participate in climate change activities? And is it something that would be just a pipe dream for them? Thank you. Well, the challenges of cross-cultural communication are true everywhere, and there are no less in Burma than anywhere else. And again, I have to understand where they come from. I always like to put it in context of just thinking about where they are geographically, what their geography is and what their history is. This is a country that's sitting between the two largest countries in the world, as well as 170, 180 million Muslims across a poor's border in Bangladesh, and they feel very proudly Buddhist. Even though they're multi-religious, multicultural, there is a sense of Buddhist nationalism throughout the country, but there's also a sense of tolerance among most of others. But that sense of vulnerability to outsiders, where there are 51 and a half million people surrounded by three billion, you have to understand that mindset, first of all, of vulnerability and insecurity. Secondly, the history of being a post-colonial country. I mean, it's similar, but different. In fact, they're colonized by Western country, large country. That sense of not wanting to be colonized, of wanting to have sovereignty, of being extremely proud because they feel they are vulnerable to outside forces, to big powers. I had a sense that was very deeply ingrained in the people there. And of course, the differences among them, the divisions among them were also deeply ingrained in both the sense that they are our brothers, but also we fight them because we don't trust them because of many, many years of fighting. So in talking to them, we have to recognize as the United States, you talk in terms of both nationalism of how we want you to succeed. It is in our interest that you, this country, succeed in talking in their terms about unity, about strength, about pride, about maintaining an identity, independent identity as a country. Harkening back to their own history and proud history where they had democracy, but not lecturing and not wagging our fingers and criticizing it every point, but recognize the challenges they face. Again, understanding that history and talking in those terms, but it's always very sensitive. If you get something wrong, if you seem like you're lecturing, or if you seem like you're talking down, or you're pressuring too hard, I don't care if you're a civil society person, a political prisoner, or you're the government, they will bristle. They will say, no, we will do it ourselves, we'll do it our way, and don't you tell us what to do, big power, if you're not careful. So I was always very careful to understand that these are very proud people. Very vulnerable in their own minds, given their history and their geography. And therefore, that's why we talked in terms of partnership, that everything we did, we talked, if we had a criticism, it was because we learned a lesson as the United States, we're not perfect. You can see from the headlines, we have problems of racism, we have problems of division, we have our democracies and the panacea to everything. It's hard, but here are the lessons that we learned, and maybe we can help you think this through in your own context. And the great thing about being there was that there is, I think, a reservoir of very positive feelings towards the United States. It could be because we were separated so long, it's what they couldn't have for so long. They do look up to what we have achieved and who we are to some extent, but we have to be careful with that, to be respectful of them, even as we pursue our values and our principles in our interests. On the cross-cultural, Burma is the most complex operating environment I have ever worked in. It makes other countries seem simple. It is very, very culturally diverse, and in many times, cultural identity is linked to territory that's contested as well. And so, the first thing I did was just listen, because it is a learning experience. And listening to many voices on the ground. One of the things that we were very mindful of was that the development programming, even though it's about reforms, is in a very culturally diverse country where the word development itself is a bad word to many people who've seen development be used to undermine their own legitimacy at times. And so the first thing to do is listen, listen to the voices, and then try to maintain a balance so that we are not seen as favoring, for example, the Obama Center over the other, Coran or the Kachin or others, and then listening. On climate change, Burma is already feeling the impact of climate change, and I can go and talk to a farmer who probably doesn't even, maybe this is a radio, when he'll tell me all about climate change, because they see increased storms coming from the Bay of Bengal. They've increased droughts. We had historic floods last year that displaced 1.6 million people. And so they know very much the effects of climate change. But as a rapidly going country, at a growth rate of 8%, what can they do about a potential emitter? Because Burma can now rejoin and reintegrate in the region, it is poised actually to have access to new technology and new ways and do things differently. Before when it was closed off, it could not do that. So hopefully it has more access to the technology, to the information, to expertise, to have more, if you will, smart growth when it comes to climate change. Because they're very well aware and they're seeing firsthand the impacts of what climate change is doing for them in that country. Great, thank you. Right here, yeah. And let's take a couple of questions. So we'll tee up, yeah. Beatrice Kamp, I was Consul General in Shanghai and also Ching Mai. So I would like to ask about China. You mentioned other embassies, but what was China's role in this? And if I can add Thailand as well as a sort of second question issues on the border and the tensions with Thailand. Great, and why don't you just pass it right? There you go. And then we'll take a third back there. Hi, Kelly Curry with Project 2049. In your discussions about how things were, how things developed in your cooperation and your development partnership, you left out, I think, one partner. I didn't hear you talk about Congress at all and the role that Congress played both in shaping the policy, shaping development priorities and policy priorities from the U.S. side as well as how you managed to manage that relationship. That's a good question. And then, yes. Dan Sullivan with Refugees International. Up till recently it was with United to End Genocide. Just today, United to End Genocide, Fort Fly Rights released a report about the state of human rights and particularly the Rohingya and recommendation that sanctions be renewed that are up for expiring this month with the president's authority. But a lot of questions I could ask with that, but I wanted to actually focus in on the question of the 20,000 returning, the people who resettled, the Rohingya resettled. The last special rapporteurs report said that a large number of those were involuntary. So I'm just curious to hear more about your thoughts of how is that going and what's the best way forward short of actually reforming the citizenship laws to actually get some freedom of movement in returning. Thanks. Maybe I can add to that, that if you can wrap into your comments just a few weeks ago, the Council on Foreign Relations published a report by our USIP Senior Advisor Priscilla Klap that looks at the many, many sanctions that have each been put on, for good reasons at the time, but onto Burma by the US. But now you've got this web of sanctions that how will that affect Burma's future going forward? These are all big questions. Tackle it, guys. Yes, these are big questions. China's role and Thailand's role first. China obviously, it's about 2,000 kilometer border. They have great interests in what happens inside the country, both because they have the long border and there's cross border smuggling and there's health and drug issues and resource issues that are associated with it. In terms of coordination with others, if that's the part of the question, they really didn't. We had coordinating mechanisms. They were invited or as an open invitation and there were various conversations that say you should be part of the peace support group, so-called, of donors and embassies and they never really chose to play in that way. They did their own thing in their own way. Had a very good relationship with the ambassador. There were three ambassadors from China when I was there, one who was leaving as I left, as I said, came, one who stayed for much of my time and then someone who came on for a couple of months just before I departed. I think that's unfortunate. I think there's, you know, we have heard through their ambassador their desire to work more with the United States on things in the country and my response has been that there are coordinating mechanisms and it shouldn't just be U.S. and China, it should be China with the whole community because if not coordinated then it won't be, I don't think we'll get the biggest bang for a buck and that's certainly what the government wants. They want us coordinated and working together. So that's an open question whether China will do more. They're certainly playing a role on the border in the peace space. There are questions about contributions on whether guns or other things that are being run but whether that's out of Beijing or just local smuggling remains to be seen. A lot of questions there regarding China's role. Thailand, they're, you know, they play mostly through the ASEAN lens. They didn't play in these coordinating mechanisms either. They are allowing still, though there's more pressure than ever to end the camps on the border. There's always been discomfort with it but for various reasons allowing it but now with things inside the country having some momentum, there's a pressure to get those camps closed and people move back in. It has to move at its own pace in its own time but the ambassador was a good friend but we didn't really work closely together at a substantive level. They really were kind of working through ASEAN in their own bilateral ways than with us. The congressional relationship is a critical one particularly because of sanctions and legislation but also because that is just representative of a long time strong interest and in some ways ownership of the policy over many years. So from day one when I was the envoy I saw Congress as a necessary partner in this. Whenever I came back as envoy I briefed everybody who would listen to me on the Hill. Anybody who was interested I would talk to about what we were doing and why and if we were going to make a change or evolve our policy we would discuss that. I think there was a little bit of neuralgia when we eased on the investment sanctions that not the extent of the easing in July 2012 was shared with Congress, or May 2012, shared with Congress equally all of Congress. But all together when I was doing it certainly we talked to Congress because they have a very important role that can put a line in legislation and tie our hands as they do AID in some ways that I'm not sure is very helpful. But all together they do have to be a partner in this. So I talk to Mitch McConnell's office all the time, John McCain's office all the time, HVAC, HACFO, the Foreign Operations Assistance Folks, Paul Grove who takes a very personal interest in this. On a regular basis as much as they wanted to talk I would engage with them because I think it was again very personal to some very powerful figures up there and it was important that we move together. And I would say very much that the, whatever success there has been in our policy and what has happened to date is in part congressional credit for that, that they have been partners in this through this process, many of them. Some have been more skeptical from various, but others have been quite the partners have been very, very helpful and they should be taking credit as well for both the sanctions that we inherited as well as the easing that resulted in the progress we've seen on the ground. I agree. In fact, we should probably have another chair here for our congressional colleagues because of the partnership. And like many places I've been, we encourage codels and staff tells because once you're in Burma the situation was changing so rapidly. Some things are made the same. Some things are intractable and some things were changing rapidly. And it was a very positive experience to have members and staff come and to see firsthand the challenges and opportunities on a kind state. So, rightly so, the 20,000 we wouldn't really call a resettlement. These are 20,000 individuals who are actually not physically moving very far. Most of them, most of them are actually being allowed to rebuild their place of origin, which is a few feet from where they were being in a long house. So, it's really technically not a breakthrough resettlement but it was the easy way of allowing some individuals to construct a house. And it was the idea of the former chief minister who saw that humanitarian assistance and the continued provision of humanitarian assistance was driving conflict in the state because many ethnic Rakhine are extremely poor. Many of them work on fishing boats and have to migrate. And so the provision of assistance to their neighbors was a driver of conflict. But this initial 20,000 were the easy ones because they really didn't move very far. The harder job it remains and those are the ones in the Sitwe camp, about 100,000. But what can we do? What should we do? First, the important thing was getting the international community organized as well. We have now monthly meetings of heads of mission that bring in the development side, the thematic side. So, one, that we're sharing information, but two, have a better understanding of what people are doing. Three, develop common operating principles for all actors working in Rakhine State. So, that's been a positive development. Two is to invest and build in local capacity on the ground, whether it's the INGOs, but also the UN has put more leadership on the ground there, which is very good for establishing the relationships that are required to enable to diffuse conflict at time. But thirdly and most importantly, there are a lot of good ideas coming from both communities. And so, recently, an organization called CDNH brought Rakhine and Rohingya together for two days, and they came up with concrete recommendations about how the communities can work together, such as investing in common markets or practical measures for increasing freedom of movement. And so, what we should do is get behind local ideas coming from those on the ground about what they see as possible. And that's gotta be done in a very delicate way, so it's not the international community overwhelming it. So, there are some elements where a limited progress is being made. And so, it's supporting those grassroots efforts while maintaining a focus on the larger principle messages as well. Can I comment? I don't wanna look like we ignore the sanctions question, which is a hard one in a way, in a sensitive one. But this is, as I said earlier, the structure of the country hasn't changed. I mean, the fundamentals haven't changed. There's now a new leadership, so there's new responsibility for the problems of the country. But obviously, there's substantial change as well. Much of what we had promoted for 25 years is an election that would be respected, the results of which would be respected. There was an election in 1990, the results weren't respected, had another election, they were basically the same result, almost exactly the same result. And now it was respected, and there's new leadership, and they're in power. And now they need to deliver. As you said, democracy needs to deliver. They need to demonstrate, because the expectations are sky high, that every road is going to be paid. Well, maybe we'll see what their expectations are. But you talk to taxi drivers and others, and they seem to think magical things will happen with this NLD government. And we know from our own experience, when we, if you put too much emphasis on one leader, it's not about one person coming in magically making everything better. It's going to take time, and the problems are extremely complex and deep. So we have to be careful as we think about sanctions, that yes, there are questions about the structure. There are questions about the military in particular, and about some people that may have an extraordinary control over the economy, because they had it in the previous regime, and they've inherited it in the new regime. You don't want to sort of encourage that same system by just making everything, by allowing everybody to rush forward. But sanctions, as a symbolic action, I think that time has passed. We have to think about sanctions as a very, very practical issue. Whether it delivers reform or not, will these sanctions actually help the country deliver on economic development? Will help this government deliver or not, or is it restricting our ability to support reform? Does it truly support reform, or is it blocking reform? Is it helping this government succeed, or not helping this government succeed? So if there are legacy issues, legacy sanctions, we should be reexamining all of them. Does it make sense for this moment, where on the one hand you want leverage, on bad actors, and the other hand, you are sending a signal to business, or you're tying the hands of AID in some cases, in ways that will prevent delivery that's necessary right now? Well, and this is that classical moment that we've seen over and over again in other countries where you've had the big election, and then all too often people walk away because that was success, and then the delivery doesn't happen to meet the expectations. So this will be that really pivotal next, however long we have, six, 12, 18 months. Let's take one last round of questions. We'll start here, and then go to the back, and then end right in the middle there. Thank you very much, and welcome back to both of you. I'm Michael Martin from Congressional Research Service. Let me pull up on that theme, Ambassador Mitchell. Because your presentation, you also didn't focus on much on two critical groups in the political dynamic of the country. One, the military. Second, the ethnic armed groups or organizations. And with that, moving forward in terms of national reconciliation on the one part in the peace process. And second, in the context of the 2008 Constitution and the governance reform that needs to take place, to what extent do you see potential amongst the military and the ethnic armed organizations to actually make progress on those two areas? And section, since you tied it in, what role do you see sanctions playing in trying to facilitate movement on those two critical issues in the country? That is the peace process. And second, governance reform with or without the 2008 Constitution. Thank you, and then over on this side. Hi, my name's Vanessa Dick. I'm with the World Wildlife Fund. So I want to congratulate both of you on your tremendous leadership during such an exciting and very challenging time. I appreciate the fact there was such laser focus in terms of strategy, but I'm wondering how that strategy might evolve or change going forward. I'm particularly thinking about Myanmar's natural capital and how it's both, can be at the root of conflict and also a key for unlocking economic sustainability. So yeah, hearing how that might change some foreshadowing would be great. Okay, and last question right here. Hi, my name is Megan Ryan. I'm from the Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations at the State Department. So I have a question about new leadership at Embassy Rangoon. So one of the biggest challenges seems to be uniting all of the ethnic groups that have had divisions for so long. And this is an extremely sensitive issue. And one of the parts of this, one part that Aung San Suu Kyi has been very cautious on is intolerance towards religious minorities. So I'm wondering what your perspective is on this cautious approach. Is this reasonable or is the country ready for something to deal with this issue more head on? Three great questions, Jen. Yeah, on the issue of the military and ethnic armed organizations as part of reconciliation, obviously they're central to the issue of national reconciliation. I did mention that as being the peace process and military's role in the country. How do we encourage them? How do we engage them to make them? This is the essential point of how we help the peace process writ large. And I think in part what we are going to, well, it's not we anymore. With the government and the embassy out there, and when I was there, what I encouraged, our part in the peace process to be was focusing on civil society, focusing on those who are more likely to be in the edges, who should not be in the edges of the peace process. Obviously the military and ethnic armed organizations are at the center because those are the ones who will have to make peace. But if it's just a dialogue among people with guns, you're going to get a result that's not savory for the future of the country. What they're having, what the dialogue really is, is not a peace dialogue. It is basically a, what do you call it, a national building. Yeah, it's a national dialogue about the future of the country. They're basically building a new country in that dialogue. What will be the distribution of power? What will be the distribution of resources and economic and political terms? I mean, so that can't be just an agreement between those two. And in fact, I worry about those two. My biggest worry about the country, to be honest, is that it becomes a federalized crony state over time. It's just they federalize the crony system where you have ethnic armed groups who have access to resources and such, who simply gain the spoils, they make their deals, and becomes a corrupt system that's decentralized rather than a truly political, federalized democracy. So I encourage when I was there, and I'll turn to Chris as of Friday. I'm not sure he's in charge either of it, but we're trying to encourage civil society involvement, youth involvement, women's involvement, in peace to ensure that we put the American voice, which can be quite powerful, on the side of ensuring these voices are in the room, or have influence. It's at a very early stage. We'll see how it evolves. And clearly this is a moving target even for the new government of how they're going to structure this dialogue about this new nation that they're going to form. Sanctions in those terms, I don't see a role for sanctions per se in that, but we obviously have remaining sanctions on the military to ensure that we don't engage with them economically, so that they withdraw from the economic sphere and become a truly professional military, that they are under civilian control. I think those are reasonable sanctions myself about not contributing to the military economic complex, which is quite substantial. If you go to the museum, the military museum, they have a whole room filled with all the stuff that they make as it's just basically a state within a state, they need to find their role in a democratic system and a political system, and certainly we should not be in the business of supporting that kind of role for the military. So to that extent, okay, in the peace process, I'm not sure where sanctions are, but in fact I think there's still a line item that says we cannot contribute to an initiative, a peace initiative, a dialogue that involves the military in the room if the military uses, gets tea or coffee or cookies because there will be American funds going to the military. I'm on the record, I think that is utterly absurd. You can't make peace without the military. So to have anything that restricts our ability to support a dialogue that involves the military is absurd and counterproductive and should be withdrawn and abolished. We can discuss, clearly we don't want to be helping them do bad things and continue to do operations, but if they're involved in dialogues and in peace discussions, tying our own hands, I don't understand, that's old think, and that's what I'm talking about, reassessing these things for a new day. In terms of natural resources, that is essential, it's sort of central to both a driver, as you say, and a result of lack of peace. It's destroying the fabric of the country in other ways because it's also leading to drug addiction and the rest. I think we can help with ideas of how to do extraction responsibly. They have, they're a rich country in that way. The Chinese have a great phrase for it, they call Burma the beggar with a golden bowl. They have, they're a rich country except they're poor. I mean, they have the resources and they should be able to extract them and use them, channel them for the benefit of the people. They simply haven't done it, but maybe we can help them think about how to use their resources wisely as part of a sovereign wealth fund, et cetera. The Norwegians are helping to some degree with that, but I think that's where we ought to be focusing smartly, and I do think that Aung San Suu Kyi does get the issue of religious minorities. She is making statements and telling her people, her authorities, I mean, they just arrested, well, anyway, I think they've, I'm not following as closely as I used to, but there are things that they have done to send a signal to the government that they will not allow for extreme voices against religious minorities. So I'm hopeful on that, but it may move more slowly than we'd like. We didn't have a standalone objective on natural resources, but obviously in a country such as Burma, it was cross-cutting in many things that we did, not all aspects of natural resource management, but the ones that were about conflict or the ones that were about human rights. So for example, we assisted civil society and government create a new umbrella land policy as a start because the land laws in Burma go back 70, 80 years. They're overlapping and they basically don't enable rights for many. And it also is these to mismanagement of land resources. So we have tried, but throughout all of it, it's about enabling civil society to participate in these reforms, to voice their voice. We didn't get to issues such as biodiversity, which is so unique in the country. I wish I could have. We didn't have the bandwidth. We had to focus on the reforms. But because Burma is now able to re-engage, it can partner now with international organizations that are specialized on issues such as biodiversity. It can access regional programs in a way that it couldn't before. So will there be expansion or not? That's gonna be up to the Ambassador Marcial and the incoming mission director. But from my point of view, assistance has this important role to continue to play on deepening and sustaining the reforms in the country. And the reforms won't succeed if the new government doesn't succeed. And Ambassador Mitchell talked about the challenges they have, the expectations being enormous. When I ask people off to the election, who would you vote for on Sasuichi? Why? I got all different answers. I got one answer that was, she's going to actually make the traffic better in Yangon. So the expectations are high. The new government has to deliver on jobs, has to deliver on better healthcare. It has to do that for its own success and stability. And at the same time, it has to be able to deal with spoilers and those who want to take advantage of these issues that the country has been grappling with for decades. The lack of social trust, communal relations, the national reconciliation, the issues in Rakhine state, those are all issues that could also determine the success of the new government. So how does assistance work with our diplomatic means to help this? Because ultimately it's about helping the people of Burma succeed in their reforms. There was a lot of criticism during the transition that the incoming government was very close hold and wasn't communicating. And I think Burma has a history of transitions that haven't worked out. So I think it's natural to actually make sure that everything was disciplined moving forward. But I'll tell you, recently, when the U.S. State Administrator, Gail Smith, was with us, we went up to Napidol. And I was impressed. We had meetings with government, with ministries together, actually having a frank discussion on issues, proposing ideas. Even the permsec level, we're engaged at the table in a thoughtful way across ministries. And we saw this from time, from ministry of ministry of ministry. And then in the evening, we met with parliamentarians and they were all very outspoken about their priorities. And so what I've seen, in really the first few days of this new government, I thought was, it surpassed my expectations in the sense of the ability to engage in a frank discourse with us on issues. So I'm hopeful. I think the traffic in Yangon is actually better, isn't it? Yeah. We're only here the last several weeks has gotten better, so check. One less car, I know. Thank you so much. Ambassador Mitchell, Chris Milligan, thank you both. Thank you for being here today and sharing your observations both about Burma and about how you as a team were able to operate during four years. And it does occur to me that this would be much more difficult in a one-year high security can't get out of the embassy environment, which is food for thought as well. But appreciate your comments and very much appreciate what you did. So thank you for being here. Please join me in a round of applause. Thank you. Yes. That's so great. Yeah, and stay seated. And to close out the event, I'd like to invite Patrick Murphy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia. Please join us at the podium. Come on up. There's stairs there. You can do the bureau's leave. I'll do the hop. And the hop, the big hop. Thank you, Patrick. Great. Nancy, thank you very much and to the U.S. Institute for Peace for gathering us all together. And congratulations for all of you taking the time to come together on a country that is very near and dear to many and certainly important to U.S. interests. It's not lost on me that several of you have written Ph.D. dissertations on this country. So it's a little bit daunting. There's a lot of expertise here. And we have just, I think, been enlightened by two of the most terrific experts on the country. And I want to congratulate both Derek and Chris on their outstanding service for being tremendous partners together. I've been in partnership with them in past years as well. In fact, I'm a little jealous. I see a bit of a bromance on display here, almost as if I was displaced. But Chris and I were just reflecting on our way in that it seems like yesterday that we had his swearing-in ceremony over at USAID. A very careful selection to head out to the New Burma and open a USAID mission. And we had such high confidence that Chris had the right pedigree, great experience, a great career. We've known each other for a quarter century since graduate school and I just couldn't have been more thrilled. Expectation is one thing and then delivering is another. And what a tremendous few years Chris and his team have had in Burma. They are to be congratulated. Tough times, many challenges, but they took advantage of many opportunities to advance our relationship and the well-being of so many Burmese. I hope all of you will take a few minutes to check out the US Embassy's Facebook site. Over the weekend, the embassy posted a farewell video that Chris put together and it's really quite moving. Clearly, Chris has very heartfelt observations on his time during this historic moment. And I'm a bit envious. Over the years, I've been able to make it to all of Burma's states and divisions, but Chris did it in a different way with his bicycle. Very well done, very well done and clearly well appreciated by the Burmese people. And Ambassador Mitchell, I would say the same. We've partnered very closely together since the beginning of this experiment and leadership matters. Having the right person somewhere at the right time is just so critical. And I knew when we had that selection process, we needed someone not only with a degree of Burma expertise, but also the diplomacy that it would take to work with a regime, a regime of reformers and a regime of many reluctant individuals, but also to manage a diplomatic mission, a US Embassy mission that we knew would change in dramatic ways. And mission, well done, on the part of Derek and I'm delighted that he will be available here in Washington for me as a resource and a consultant of sorts going forward, great expertise. Really delighted to have worked with him. And I think for all of us, it's just incredible to see Burma on this path. It was just unimaginable a quarter century ago. It was unimaginable 10 years ago. And it's already, it is very, very exciting. The election in some regards last November is a bit of a zenith. We hope there are more to come, but we really do have to reflect on how important that national election was. It was a peaceful transfer of authority. And generally speaking, there's a lot of buy-in in the country. And we now have a civilian led government and it's an extraordinary, incredible moment in the country's history. Part of me honestly wants to say, mission accomplished. After all, the vast majority of our sanctions were implemented after 1990 with almost a singular objective. And that is a government that reflects the will of the people. Yes, sanctions were put in at different emotional times because of egregious human rights abuses on the people, on the democratic movement because of concerns with relations with proliferating countries. There are a whole host of strategic and national interest reasons, but it really did boil down to that essential fact. And now the Burmese people have what they've aspired. Of course it's not that easy, however. So I'm not in a position to say, mission accomplished. Achieving democracy remains a work in progress. National unity remains elusive, as it has since the 1940s, since the very day the country achieved independence. And of course Burma, when it comes to development, is half a century behind. Most of its neighbors, certainly the rest of ASEAN. So we have a lot of work to do. What we are now doing is trying to help this experiment succeed. Help this democratically elected civilian-led government make progress on a whole wide range of issues, including further democratic reforms, promotion of human rights, economic development, and national reconciliation. Transitions are hard. They are really hard. Many of us have been involved with transitions elsewhere in the world, and they're very difficult. They're difficult for populations, for governments. They're difficult for us. As a government, to shift gears and to provide and bring to bear the tools that a partner like Burma needs. And you've heard it very well articulated, especially by our outgoing ambassador. This new government is under great pressure to deliver. And that's what we want to do. We want the Burmese people to conclude that democracy makes a difference, that it matters, that it was worth decades of hard, hard struggle. Struggle that I watched and experienced firsthand. Living in the country during what we now use, euphemistically call the dark days. And the new government has a lot of top priorities. And it's a lot of competition. A lot of competition for that infamous bandwidth, for capabilities, for resources. The priorities include democratic reform, further democratic reform. That includes constitutional changes, not an easy matter. But also job creation and economic growth. I want to make just a few observations on where we are policy-wide and point to a couple of challenges. A little caveat. I know I won't be able to address every issue associated with the country. Some of you have called out to the panelists and not hitting every single point. It's a complex place. There's a lot to address. But I don't omit anything intentionally. It's all very important. Our support now is and needs to be a reflection of interagency coordination. And you've heard, I think on display, the great coordination between the two key entities, State Department and USAID. This was essential for the election process. And it wasn't just the month of November, 2015. It was a full three-year period, spent dedicated to coordinating within our government, with the Burmese stakeholders, but also with international partners, civil society, to prepare for that process and achieve good, successful results. During that time, USAID provided $18 million in assistance to strengthen institutions, support civil society, political parties, the media, and the government to conduct a inclusive, transparent, credible electoral process. During that time, we promoted international standards. We worked very hard, and I think we succeeded to increase voter participation, improve the function of the Burmese parliament, much like our Congress. The legislative branch there is very critical and strengthen the capacity of the political parties to represent all of their citizens' interests. This is nascent. This is not yet perfection, but some important things were done. So now the elections are behind us. How do we go forward? There are many new players on our side, on the US government side, that have expertise. The essential part being the coordination that we've heard about for the last hour. So USAID will continue promoting a stable transition, supporting the peace process. Perhaps the most challenging of efforts that lie ahead, mitigating inter-communal and intra-communal conflict, strengthening economic development, and fostering healthy and, yes, resilient communities. Like Derek, I've come around to that vocabulary. USAID has convinced me that it is an important approach. Resilience is very critical, not only in Burma, but across the region. Who are the other players? And let me first say and acknowledge that inter-agency coordination is necessary, but it's not always easy. Now I'm just coming back from the field. I served in Thailand for the past three years as our deputy chief of mission, and about a third of my time there is Sharjah. We had 75 US government agencies or sub-agencies there. Coordination was achievable because it could be mandated. That's a bit of the chief of mission authority. If you're not going to play as a team member, we can muster up an airplane ticket for you to go work elsewhere. So it came about, you also have geographic proximity. Here in Washington, it's a little bit different. I don't quite have that authority to vote anyone off the island. The thought may occur from time to time, but we have to work differently here. We have an environment of resources that need to be divided, and there's a lot of buy-in and agency turf, if you will, we're geographically dispersed across the city, which is harder to overcome than it may sometimes seem. But we spend a lot of time on that, coordinating and working together for this very much-vaunted whole-of-government approach, and it's very critical with a nascent democracy like Burma. We're going to see more from our Department of Defense. This approach, however, will be limited and calibrated. I think the environment speaks for itself why we're not business as usual when it comes to military-military relations, but we really need the Burmese military, which has been a key institution, like it or not, in many, many ways, since independence, and we want to incentivize and promote further democratization and a transition to full civilian control. That's going to take a lot of work and has to be done, for now anyway, in a very limited and calibrated fashion. This is closely coordinated with Congress, absolutely, and with the new NLD-led civilian government. We want to model effective civilian-military relations in a democracy and advance human rights, and that's going to be a very big undertaking for us all. Our Treasury Department has been involved for a couple of years and will continue to be evolved with technical assistance engagements to further the government Burmese efforts to counter economic crimes, strengthen revenue policy, and administration. The technical assistance to the Myanmar Financial Intelligence Unit is also ongoing, which is a unit responsible for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing. Treasury has also helped Burmese Internal Revenue Department set up a large taxpayer office in Rangoon. That's something that's quite new, providing assistance in its basic form and design. These are the basics of the new Burma. Our Department of Labor has a labor initiative in conjunction with civil society, with trade unions, business, and the government to improve labor standards, which have been a big shortcoming for decades. Our Department of Commerce opened a foreign commercial service less than two years ago inside the country to help U.S. companies navigate a very complex but growing market, and that's an agency that's going to be important going forward. Just a quick word on constitutional reforms. This is part of the reform process that is still ongoing. We're pretty concerned. The new government is pretty concerned about Burma's constitution that has some elements that contradict fundamental democratic principles and prevent the people from truly electing their leader. They have a government that reflects their will, but their options for specific leaders, I think as many know, is for now limited. We want to encourage the kind of dialogue that has been undertaken by the new state council, a counselor, and Burma's military leadership, Commander-in-Chief Minong Line. We know that that did not reach the kind of agreement on the constitution before the new government took place, but it's a dialogue that needs to continue. Our own president, President Obama, has said the people of Burma should be able to decide whether and when to amend the country's constitution to alter or remove these provisions. I think that's all I'll say on that matter. It's not our constitution. This is a process that's up to the Burmese stakeholders, but we want to be helpful as we can to consolidate the reforms and the transition to democracy. Ansan Suchi is a key figure. She wears many different hats now, and it's at the end of the day quite a delight, of course, to see her achieve her own aspirations and dreams. I reflect more than 20 years ago in the 1990s when I first met her. She was still under house arrest at the time. Engagement during a brief period for some diplomatic envoys was possible, and I apologized to her at the time. I was a mere desk officer, the Burma desk officer, and I said, given the circumstances of our policies, of the reluctance of the Slork and the SPDC to engage, we weren't able to really, truly deliver top level engagement, and being true to her, I think, nature, she was very dismissive of that limitation. I was delighted to talk to me, and she said, you know, there's a great thing about being at the bottom of the totem pole. There's always room to move up. I was inspired by that. It's now not lost on me as I've made a modest move or two over the years up the totem pole, that now I think to spend that kind of quality time with Ansan Suchi, you need to be a leader of a country or a cabinet member, so she too has moved up and beyond on that totem pole, but it's great to see. A couple of challenges. In addition to constitutional reform and consolidating democracy, it's been touched upon, but I wanna highlight how important it is for us, and that's the peace process. We're very committed to it. We've heard good talk. I won't comment on the specifics. That is up to the new government about a pan-long type arrangement, but it's heartening to hear early talk about a process that's inclusive, and the way it began back in the 1940s. We support the full implementation of a durable ceasefire agreement, the conduct of a national political dialogue and overall national reconciliation in the months, and it may take years to come, but we really, truly at the end of the day, support something that's very inclusive, and that process has not been fully inclusive thus far. Ansan Suchi has said this will be a top priority, and we encourage that. There's ongoing conflict. Those of you who follow this closely, I'm sure know very well, in Kachin, in Sean State, in Rakhine States, this kind of conflict is worrying. It could undermine the peace conflict, so we need that durable ceasefire arrangement and an inclusive process going forward. On the human right side, let's talk about the positives first. The NLD is governing the country. It's pretty incredible. Once upon a time, this was a movement that was harassed, beaten, forced underground. This was nothing but a dream, and now they run the country. In Parliament, there are about 110 former political prisoners. It's really quite something, and their long struggle is to be admired. They have made a commitment. These former political prisoners, the new government to make further progress on human rights, and we've seen early political prisoner releases, we've seen statements that are encouraging. We want to continue to help and foster and strengthen that kind of process. Both the new president, Tinshaw, it's hard for me to use that name. I know him by his nickname. I've known him for a long time. A true gentleman, and I think very dedicated to these issues, both he and Ansan Tsuchi and her state counselor role have made very public, high-profile commitments to human rights. That's important to us in our process. Finally, just a quick word on one of the more problematic conflicts I've heard a little bit about it today, but I want to highlight how important it is to us as a matter of policy, and that's the situation in Rakhine State. It's quite challenging. 100,000 internally displaced persons, continued restrictions on the freedoms of movement, employment, basic services for members of the ethnic Rohingya population. We're very committed to working with the new government to address long-standing core challenges. It won't be easy. I think you have heard the perspectives that this situation has an impact nationwide. The new government really needs to get Rakhine State right for the whole experiment, country-wide, to work. We've provided last fiscal year $85 million in humanitarian and other assistance to vulnerable populations throughout the country, including in Rakhine State, and along the border of Thailand. I know there was reference to the situation there, and we're gonna continue doing so. Our efforts include resettlement of the most vulnerable persons that are referred through the normal processes by UNHCR, High Commission on Refugees, and we do support voluntary repatriation to Thailand, to Burma, from Thailand and elsewhere when conditions are right. We will insist on that principle of voluntary repatriation, not involuntary, not premature repatriation. When it comes to this population in Rakhine State, since the beginning of fiscal year 2015, we have resettled nearly 3,500 Rohingya here in the United States. That's been an important contribution. We've also provided $5 million in complex crisis funds to provide livelihoods, early recovery, trust building support to approximately 5,000 Rohingya and Rakhine households, or approximately 25,000 internally displaced persons. I've mentioned Rakhine, not just in the context of the state, but the ethnic minority Rakhine population. Development opportunities for all are critical, dialogue inclusive, understanding of all of the challenges of populations in Rakhine State and throughout the country. Chris is right. This is a complex environment and a diverse environment and we want to encourage Burma to benefit from strength that derives from diversity. I think just a closing, let me offer that there's going to be a temptation to micromanage Burma from afar. I think we want to be very cautious about that. What we want to do is support the stakeholders who own their future, who own their destiny now. We want to encourage them, we want to strengthen, we want to make sure they have all of the tools. There's also going to be, I think, a temptation to see stumbles as some sign that this is failing. I think we also want to be careful and cautious there. It's going to be bumpy. Ambassador Mitchell and I were saying that five years ago. This is going to be very bumpy. Country has enormous obstacles. When you look at what has been missed, what's been shoved under the carpet for half a century, they now have to, the day of reckoning is here and it's a lot to ask of a new government. And we are best poised to be a partner to encourage others around the world to partner, including governments, including international organizations and civil society and work together to help this succeed. We're not blind to the fact that some of the challenges come from within the country, from actors and others who would like to restore the kind of system from which they derived a lot of benefit. So we have to be mindful and our policy will continue to reflect that going forward. But this is a country that's on the mend and the trend signs are encouraging. Nancy, thank you again to USAIP and for all of you to be here and working with us past, present and future on Burma, Myanmar. Thank you very much. Thank you, Patrick. And thank you, Derek.