Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general

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Websites/Multiple Documents

Title: "BurmaNet News" Border archive
Description: Archive to October 2016
Source/publisher: Various sources via "BurmaNet News"
Date of entry/update: 2012-04-18
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: "Northern Alliance" - Google search results
Description: "About 736,000 results" (4 December 2016)
Source/publisher: Google
Date of entry/update: 2016-12-04
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: *Youtube search for Burma OR Myanmar - conflict* (video)
Description: About 110,000 results (August 2017); 138,000, October 2017)
Source/publisher: Various sources via Youtube
Date of entry/update: 2017-08-20
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Title: Free Burma Rangers
Description: "... The Free Burma Rangers is an organization dedicated to freedom for the people of Burma. "De Oppresso Liber" is the motto of the Free Burma Rangers and we are dedicated in faith to the establishment of liberty, justice, equal rights and peace for all the people of Burma. The Free Burma Rangers support the restoration of democracy, ethnic rights and the implementation of the International Declaration of Human Rights in Burma. We stand with those who desire a nation where God's gifts of life, liberty, justice, pursuit of happiness and peace are ensured for all... MISSION: The mission of the Free Burma Rangers is to bring help, hope and love to the oppressed people of Burma. Its mission is also to help strengthen civil society, inspire and develop leadership that serves the people and act as a voice for the oppressed... ACTIONS: The Free Burma Rangers (FBR), conduct relief, advocacy, leadership development and unity missions among the people of Burma... Relief: ..."...FBR has issued some of the best documented reports on internal displacement/forced migration
Source/publisher: Free Burma Rangers
Date of entry/update: 2004-05-21
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Description: The largest body of high-quality reports on the civil war in Burma, especially focussed on the civilian victims - currently over 600 reports dating from 1992.
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, Karen, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Title: Karen National Union
Description: Our Policies: "The Burmese military dictatorship spreads lies and misinformation about the KNU. We don?t recruit child soldiers, we don?t attack civilians and we are not trying to break up Burma. Read the truth about our policies here..."...Objectives: "The KNU Mission Statement is to establish a genuine Federal Union in cooperation with all the Karen and all the ethnic peoples in the country for harmony, peace, stability and prosperity for all. Read more here..."...Our Fallen Heroes: "Many brave Karen have given their lives in our struggle for freeedom. Find out more about them here..."...Our Leaders: "KNU leaders are democratically elected. Find out more here..."...Structure: "The KNU has a democratic structure, with regular elections. We also provide local services and administration in Karen State. Find out more about our structure and our democracy here..."...KNU History: "The Karen National Union is the leading political organisation representing the aspirations of the Karen people. The KNU was founded in 1947, its predecessor organisations date back to 1881..."
Source/publisher: Karen National Union
Date of entry/update: 2011-03-28
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: KNU Web-page
Description: Aims, statements, history etc. Last updated 1998
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: Search results for "Burma Insurgency" in FAS
Source/publisher: Federation of American Scientists
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: Shanland
Description: Contains pages from the Shan Human Rights Foundation, Shan Herald Agency for News, Shan State Army, The Shan Democratic Union. Lots of historical and constitutional docs on the site
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Title: Transnational Institute Burma Project
Description: Important papers on Burma/Myanmar including: Financing Dispossession; Ending Burma?s Conflict Cycle?; Conflict or Peace? Ethnic Unrest Intensifies in Burma; Burma?s Longest War: Anatomy of the Karen Conflict; Ethnic Politics in Burma: The Time for Solutions; A Changing Ethnic Landscape: Analysis of Burma?s 2010 Polls; Unlevel Playing Field: Burma?s Election Landscape; Burma?s 2010 Elections: Challenges and Opportunities; Burma in 2010: A Critical Year in Ethnic Politics...
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-09
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Title: China promises to support Myanmar peace talks with rebel groups
Description: "China promised to continue to support Myanmar’s peace talks with ethnic minority groups and to boost its coronavirus aid on the first stop of the foreign minister’s six-day tour of Southeast Asia. During Monday’s meetings with President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, Wang Yi also urged Myanmar to speed up construction work on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor – a key element of the country’s Belt and Road Initiative. “China will support the new Myanmar government in revitalising the economy, improving people’s livelihoods and accelerating the industrialisation process. We hope that both sides will work together to effectively implement the agreement on building the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and promote connectivity at the western, northern and eastern ends of the corridor,” Wang told the president, according to a report by state news agency Xinhua. China shares more than 2,100km (1,300 miles) of border with Myanmar’s north, an area that has long been troubled by the fighting between government and ethnic minority rebel groups, making China a crucial player in peace talks between the government armies and ethnic armed groups. Wang said Beijing would do whatever it could to support the peace negotiations, adding: “China supports Myanmar government’s commitment to national reconciliation in the country … and will continue to provide assistance within its capabilities, as well as upholding justice and safeguarding Myanmar’s legitimate rights and interests in the international arena.” In response, Win Myint told Wang that Myanmar was keen to cooperate with China on vaccine distribution and would continue to support Beijing’s positions on Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang, according to Xinhua..."
Source/publisher: "South China Morning Post" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2021-01-15
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Title: Aung San Suu Kyi Announces Reboot to Myanmar Peace Process
Sub-title: Despite her promise to welcome new voices into the peace process, many fine-grained obstacles to progress remain.
Description: "In a New Year’s address to the nation on January 1, Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi promised to take a new approach to long-delayed peace negotiations aimed at ending the country’s tangled web of civil conflicts. According to a report in The Irrawaddy, Aung San Suu Kyi, whose second five-year term begins in March, announced plans for a “New Peace Architecture,” which would welcome participation by political groups, civil society organizations, and the public. She said that the aim was to broaden the scope of who had a say in the ongoing talks, with the hope of consolidating inter-ethnic trust and inducing more ethnic armed groups to join the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in time for the 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence in January 2023. “We recognize the important role of public participation [in the peace process],” Myanmar’s leader said, according to The Irrawaddy. “This depends on how much we can pave the way for all stakeholders to participate.” The NCA was signed in late 2015 between the Myanmar government and eight ethnic rebel organizations, while two more joined in February 2018. But the peace process continues to exclude some of the country’s largest and most prominent armed rebel groups, and since the signing of the NCA, fighting with some of them has reached levels not seen in years..."
Source/publisher: "The Diplomat" (Japan)
Date of entry/update: 2021-01-08
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Title: Japan: Cancel Financial Grant to Myanmar Police
Summary: "The Japanese government should immediately cancel plans to donate money to purchase vehicles and communications equipment for the Myanmar police force, Human Rights Watch said today. The police...
Sub-title: End Assistance to All Military-Controlled Entities
Description: "The Japanese government should immediately cancel plans to donate money to purchase vehicles and communications equipment for the Myanmar police force, Human Rights Watch said today. The police force, which operates under the auspices of the military, outside the control of the civilian government, has a well-documented record of serious human rights violations. On July 2, 2020, Japan’s Foreign Ministry announced a grant of 100 million yen (US$930,000) to the Myanmar police for the purpose of purchasing vehicles and wireless equipment for “protecting dignitaries.” The Foreign Ministry claimed the donations would “strengthen the Myanmar police’s ability to carry out public security measures,” create “social stability,” and contribute to Myanmar's “socio-economic development.” “It’s inexplicable that the Japanese government would try to curry favor with Myanmar’s abusive security apparatus by providing financial assistance to the police,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Instead of supporting Myanmar’s police, Japan should be helping the victims of rights abuses and ethnic cleansing by working with other donor governments to hold the security forces accountable.” Myanmar’s police acted as a pillar of repression during Myanmar’s 50 years of military rule, arbitrarily arresting dissidents and student activists, engaging in widespread torture, and creating a climate of fear in the country, Human Rights Watch said. The police remain abusive and unconstrained, in large part because the military-drafted constitution maintains military control of the police. The police operate under the authority of the Home Ministry, which is led by a minister who the constitution mandates must be a serving military officer, and operates under the de facto control of the military..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-24
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Title: Gravitas: Is China arming terrorists in Myanmar?
Description: "Myanmar has indirectly called out China for arming 'terrorists' on its soil. WION's Palki Sharma tells you how Myanmar fears that this situation could endanger Indian development projects along the Myanmar-Mizoram border..."
Source/publisher: "WION"
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-04
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Title: Rebooting Myanmar’s Stalled Peace Process - Asia Report N°308 | 19 June 2020
Sub-title: The polls approaching in Myanmar are an opportunity for the government and ethnic armed groups to re-examine their positions in the country’s peace process. All parties should use the election-related hiatus to ask why talks have not succeeded and how to make them more productive.
Description: "A flurry of negotiations among Myanmar’s government, its military and ethnic armed groups belies deeper problems in the country’s moribund peace process. The government and armed groups that have signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) are eager to hold a Panglong-21 peace conference before electoral dy­namics take precedence later this year. As a result, two prominent armed groups that had suspended their participation have formally re-entered the peace process. Although these are positive developments, even if it takes place the conference would be largely symbolic and do little to address the fundamental obstacles on Myanmar’s road toward sustainable peace. By putting formal negotiations on hold for at least six months, the election and subsequent transition period constitute a unique opportunity for a rethink. All parties involved should use this window to examine blockages that have hindered genuine progress so far, multiply informal meetings to rebuild trust and examine ways of reinvigorating the peace process from 2021. and the overwhelming Burman dominance in political institutions. The discontent is most evident in Rakhine State, where the political marginalisation of the Rakhine ethnic minority under the NLD has boosted support for the Arakan Army insurgency. Armed conflict and insecurity are likely to result in the cancellation of voting in some constituencies in minority areas, particularly in Rakhine State, which will only deepen local minorities’ alienation. The election period, however, will also be an opportunity to reflect on how to take the peace process forward. The formal negotiations will likely be put on hold for six to twelve months, until after the next cabinet is sworn in (scheduled for late March 2021). The current government, the military and ethnic armed groups should use this period to review their own strategy and goals, ramp up informal dialogue and examine crucial issues that have so far been put aside, such as the growth of the illicit economy and the mounting might of military-aligned militias. Even if the COVID19 pandemic delays the Panglong-21 conference, there will still be a significant period during which formal peace negotiations will not take place. This downtime constitutes a unique opportunity for all parties to reflect on how to restart the process with a more constructive approach in 2021. If the NLD forms the next government, as appears likely, it should use its second term in office to reinvigorate its leadership of the peace process. Overcoming the deadlock in negotiations toward a political settlement requires a fundamental shift in approach. As a first step, Naypyitaw should overhaul institutions like the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre, to rely less on former government bureaucrats and instead draw in new negotiators and advisers from a range of backgrounds, such as business, academia and civil society. The key to substantive progress, however, lies in renewed political commitment from Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD to the peace process, a stronger sense of empathy with the grievances of ethnic minorities, and a clear vision for where the peace process is going..."
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (Belgium) via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-19
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Title: To revive the peace process, all sides need to compromise
Sub-title: The peace process has made little progress since the National League for Democracy took office and stakeholders will need to embrace a new approach if the guns of war are to be silenced under the next government.
Description: "The Union Election Commission’s announcement that the general election will be held in November means that the two months of campaigning will begin in September and end two days before voting takes place. The election campaign period has implications for the peace process. Political parties, including the ruling National League for Democracy, will be focusing on their campaigns and will have little time to devote to complex negotiations involving the government, Tatmadaw and ethnic armed groups. The election will be followed by the installation of new governments and peace process will not be able to resume until April next year at the earliest. This is why the NLD government is pushing to hold another 21st Century Panglong Union Peace Conference before the election campaign period begins – the last opportunity to do so before its term ends. Government spokesperson U Zaw Htay predicted at a regular news conference on May 30 that part three of the Union Accord would be signed at the next peace conference if it is held in the coming weeks. Zaw Htay said the accord consists of three parts. The first part includes topics not included in the original agreement that could be the subject of further negotiations. The second is the phases to be implemented after the 2020 election, and the third involves agreeing on the fundamental principles of a federal Union. The reason for addressing post-election matters is to provide some assurance that the peace process will continue regardless of the election outcome. Although the NLD is widely expected to win enough seats to nominate the president and form the next government, the accord will provide a greater certainty to all parties. The post-election aspect of the accord is also a sort of a roadmap for the peace process, and represents a commitment from the NLD if it does win another term in office..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-18
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Title: COVID-19 Is Just the Latest Setback in Myanmar’s Troubled Peace Process
Description: "In the early weeks of 2020, the signs pointed to progress in Myanmar’s convoluted effort to finally end 70 years of ethnic strife in its border areas. On Jan. 8, representatives from the government and the 10 ethnic armies that are party to a 2015 cease-fire deal convened in the capital, Naypyidaw, where they reached an eight-point agreement on the next steps to continue implementing that cease-fire. They also vowed to meet for a fourth national peace conference by the end of April, to build on three earlier summits held between 2016 and 2018. That fourth summit would have signaled the timely revitalization of Myanmar’s troubled peace process, which Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader, has dubbed the “21st Century Panglong,” after the agreement that her father, independence hero Aung San, signed with representatives of several ethnic groups in 1947. Making progress in the peace talks after several recent setbacks would have provided a boost to Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, as they prepare for a general election later this year. But plans for the peace conference now threaten to be derailed by the coronavirus pandemic. Myanmar confirmed its first cases of COVID-19 on March 23, prompting the government and ethnic armed groups to postpone all meetings and push the summit back to July. Government spokesman Zaw Htay told reporters on May 30 that the government still plans to hold the summit next month, albeit with strict social distancing measures in place and a reduced number of delegates. Myanmar currently has some 230 official cases of COVID-19. July may represent the last chance to restart talks this year, with elections looming. The government has effectively ruled out holding the summit during the election campaign, set to run for 90 days between August and October..."
Source/publisher: "World Politics Review (WPR)"
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-09
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Title: Myanmar Army Rejects Cease-fire Proposal From Arakan Army And Allies
Description: "The Myanmar military has rejected a proposal by three ethnic armies to begin cease-fire talks in a bid to kick-start the country’s stalled peace process, instead vowing further retaliation for armed offensives and ambushes, a military spokesman said Tuesday. The Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies — the Arakan Army (AA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) — extended the invitation to begin peace talks in a statement issued Monday. De facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s four-year-old government has long sought to end Myanmar’s multiple ethnic wars with historic peace talks. But those talks have sputtered, while only 10 of the country’s 20-some ethnic armies have signed a 2015 nationwide cease-fire pact that is seen as the foundation of peace talks. The Brotherhood Alliance trio, which has not signed the agreement, also announced Monday that it was extending a current unilateral cease-fire from June 1 to Aug. 31, and issued an appeal for both sides to protect civilians, end the civil war, and assist with coronavirus prevention activities. The announcement came three days after the AA launched a retaliatory attack on a border guard outpost in Rakhine state, killing four policemen and capturing six others. The AA also seized three family members of the officers, but later released them. The AA ambushed the outpost to strike back at government soldiers for an attack on the AA in Paletwa township of abutting Chin state, which the AA also claims as its territory. In March, the Myanmar government declared the AA, a predominantly Buddhist force that seeks greater autonomy for ethnic Rakhine people in the state, an illegal association and terrorist group — raising the stakes in a conflict that begin with AA attacks on government border posts in late 2018 and early 2019..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia (RFA)" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-03
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Title: The Role of CSOs in the Myanmar Peace Process
Description: "This report is the culmination of a year-long research project into the activities of civil society in and around the ongoing Myanmar peace process. This includes the negotiations taking place in the Union Peace Conference (UPC, also known as the 21st Century Panglong Conference (UPC/21st CPC) the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), and the Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM). It also includes civil society peacebuilding outside of the peace negotiations and parallel structures. The research project aimed to identify: • the drivers of conflict in Myanmar, • the civil society actors involved in peacebuilding in Myanmar, • the types of peacebuilding activities performed by these CSOs, and to classify these activities into types, • the contributions of these activities to official and unofficial peacebuilding, • as well as any factors enabling and constraining civil society peacebuilding. The research was funded by the Joint Peace Fund Myanmar, and was conducted in partnership between the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) and the Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative (IPTI). The research team conducted interviews with 160 individuals from 123 organizations, including from civil society (including CSO networks and local and international CSOs), donors, members of parliament, as well as representatives of EAOs, members of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), members of political parties, and government representatives. The CSO sample was built by asking CSOs to nominate other CSOs working on peacebuilding, hence the sample is shaped by these individuals’ understanding of peacebuilding in Myanmar. The research was guided by the Civil Society and Peacebuilding (CS&PB) framework, developed by Paffenholz and colleagues. In the context of Myanmar, the term peace process is generally used to refer to a sequence of high-level peace negotiations and associated consultations and other supporting institutions. This process began in 2011, under the government of U Thein Sein, and led to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in 2015. The structure and sequence of the current negotiations were set out in the NCA and the Framework for Political Dialogue (also negotiated and signed in 2015). These negotiations are projected to lead to a permanent ceasefire, disarmament and demobilization of non-state armed groups, government and constitutional reforms. Since 2015, the main forum for these negotiations has been the UPC (21st CPC). The UPDJC acts as the secretariat for the UPC and has responsibility for important aspects of the process such as pre-negotiations and consensus building on issues to be brought before the UPC. This means that many issues are essentially decided by the UPDJC, with the UPC frequently acting to confirm decisions taken in the UPDJC (although this is not the sum total of its role).. The Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM), is the “consensus committee” for the UPDJC. It takes responsibility for issues that cannot be resolved in the UPDJC. Together,these three institutions make up track 1: the official or mainstream peace process. While this research framework places the mainstream peace process as the“center” of peacebuilding activity,this is more in the interest of conceptual clarity. Peacebuilding away from the negotiation table can be equally important..."
Source/publisher: JPF via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-02
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Title: Myanmar’s Meaningless Unilateral Ceasefires
Sub-title: The many unilateral ceasefires seem meaningless — they have not stopped or even lessened the fighting so far.
Description: "In Myanmar, unilateral ceasefires have been interchangeably announced by the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) and a group of ethnic armed groups – known as the Northern Alliance – composed of the Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA). The first unilateral ceasefire was announced by Tatmadaw on December 21, 2018. The Northern Alliance followed by announcing their first truce on September 9, 2019, after the Tatmadaw extended the truce for a third time. Both sides have announced unilateral ceasefires five times so far (See the table below). The unilateral ceasefires of both parties look to cover plenty of days as they announced them at different times. However, the simultaneous ceasefires, covering both sides, are limited in duration. The total length of simultaneous ceasefires – in September 2019 and May 2020 – is only 33 days. (See the illustration below). But even during the unilateral ceasefire periods, the Tatmadaw and Northern Alliance could not managed to lessen or stop the fighting. Instead, tit-for-tat fighting raged on in Shan, Chin, and Rakhine states. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. Although the country is grappling with the global coronavirus pandemic, the fighting between the Tatmadaw and AA in Chin and Rakhine states continues and has produced thousands of displaced persons. In addition to the AA, the Tatmadaw has clashed with the Karen National Union (KNU) that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in October 2015..."
Source/publisher: "The Diplomat" (Japan)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-30
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Title: Myanmar NGOs Call on National Rights Body to Take Up Abuses in Conflict Zones
Description: "More than 20 rights NGOs have urged the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, which was revamped in January and has been criticized as toothless, to focus on reported rights violations committed during the COVID-19 pandemic by military troops in conflicts in Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states. In a joint statement issued Wednesday, the 22 rights groups contend that the MNHRC is failing to address widespread human rights violations committed amid the coronavirus pandemic, especially in conflict zones in Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states, home to ethnic conflicts of varying intensity. “We haven’t seen any acknowledgement of human rights violations during the pandemic as we had seen before,” said Aung Myo Min, director of human rights education group Equality Myanmar. “The commission has been particularly silent on rights violations related to COVID-19 outbreaks,” he said. “It has also been inactive in providing guidelines for preventing rights violations or acknowledging violations that have occurred.” Aung Myo Min said that a government-imposed internet service ban in nine townships in northern Rakhine and Chin states is a violation of human rights because residents cannot access to information about the coronavirus pandemic and how to protect themselves from it..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia (RFA)" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-29
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Title: From ‘vulnerable’ to ‘valuable’: Burmese Diaspora and Forced Migrants as Distant Peaceworkers
Description: "...Instead of the usual top-down approach of the hegemonic peace-building paradigm, this research paper employs the bottom-up approach. This is done in order to analyze the role of the forced migrants in peacebuilding process. The internal conflict in Burma during the past decades has created a wave of displaced people, many of who became forced migrants into neighboring countries. Thailand, in particular, is home to a large portion of these forced migrants, in both camps and urban settings. Such migrants, moreover, are oftentimes vilified and/or victimized. As the forced migrant population lives in exile, the hegemonic peacebuilding schemes often fail to acknowledge their role in the peace processes in their home country. With limited financial and civic resources, these migrants often face the hardship of daily living. This struggle then becomes their foremost priority. Consequently, their transnational participation in peace processes is often neglected. However, peace processes, at their root, aim to create a societal expectation for peaceful conflict resolution and a stabilization of society by reintegrating the affected parties into civilian life. With this in mind, this qualitative research examines the capacity of the Burmese forced migrants in Thailand. Emphasis is placed on the transnational role and the influence of the migrants’ collective agency in peacebuilding processes. The paper examines two more points: what kinds of opportunities are currently available to support migrants’ peace-building initiatives at home; and, what kinds of challenges are present to deter their possible contribution to peace-building in their home country...."
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-17
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Title: Myanmar military denies KNU claim of force build-up
Description: "The Myanmar military has denied a Karen National Union (KNU) claim they have been building up their troop deployment in Hpapun district of Kayin State. A statement dated May 15 issued by the KNU claims the Tatmadaw (government forces) are building up their forces in the area controlled by 2nd, 5th and 7th Brigades of its military wing Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). In this statement, the KNU claims that in exploitation of the current ceasefire between them, the Tatmadaw is building up their forces especially in Mu Kyaw district (Hpapun district) controlled by 5th Brigade of the KNU and adjoining areas controlled by 2nd and 7th Brigades. It also says that the building up of forces up to twice normal strength and building new outposts in these areas undermine the confidence building which is crucial for strengthening the ceasefire. KNU General Secretary Pado Saw Tado Mu said, “There are two parts. The first part is building outposts. In this part, there are new more outposts including the BGF (Border Guard Force). And another part is personnel deployed at these outposts. We found that more personnel were sent and deployed at these outposts. And then they deployed more heavy weapons such as howitzers that were never deployed in these areas. This is not a good trend for us. It is the significant things which can be pointed out.” Tatmadaw True New Information Team Secretary Brig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said that they did not send and deploy any more troops and any more new heavy weapons in these areas but their military columns which were performing their security duty were attacked by sniper fire from KNU troops. “Firstly, I’d like to say, they claimed they opened COVID-19 checkpoints and then they shot at our military columns with sniper fire in Hpapun. Secondly, we absolutely did not do anything in sending and deploying more troops and new heavy weapons in the areas controlled by their 2nd, 5th and 7th Brigades as they are claiming. We have already had Joint Monitoring Committee - State-level (JMC-S). I would like to say it will be more helpful for both sides and ongoing peace process if we can resolve this issue through dialogue. There is absolutely no military buildup as they claim.” Although the Tatmadaw said disputes between two sides could be resolved through JMC-S mechanism, ethnic armed groups said that this JMC mechanism was not practical and workable and called for it to be rectified. KNU General Secretary Pado Saw Tar Doe Mu said that peace process was currently stalled because of COVID-19 pandemic and dialogue between them had difficulties so that they were trying to explore means to resolve this incident..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-16
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Title: Cardinal Bo appeals for ceasefire in Myanmar
Sub-title: Myanmar Cardinal Charles Bo is backing a call by the United Nations chief and Pope Francis for a global ceasefire, including in Myanmar.
Description: "As the entire world is currently engaged in a war against a deadly invisible enemy that is taking lives across the globe in tens of thousands, Myanmar’s military has been ramping up its offensive against the country’s armed ethnic militias. This is why the country’s cardinal is raising his voice again, lending support to the call by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Pope Francis, for a global ceasefire, in favour of humanity’s more urgent war against the Covid-19 virus. With conflict Myanmar is vulnerable “The pandemic’s consequences are catastrophic for public health and for social and economic life. This is no time to escalate the conflict,” urges Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, in a statement released on Wednesday. “I am convinced that continued military operations, precisely when the whole nation is suffering a crisis, will have catastrophic consequences for our nation,” warns the cardinal, who is also President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC)..."
Source/publisher: "Vatican News"
Date of entry/update: 2020-04-27
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Title: Conference Report Power, Welfare and Democracy Lessons from Indonesia in Comparative Perspectives, especially Myanmar and Scandinavia
Description: "Scholars at the University of Oslo (Norway) and Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia) have since 2012 conducted collaborative research on “Power, Welfare and Democracy (PWD)”, based on previous studies with research organisations in civil society, and funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta. The PWD project has examined the character and challenges of democratisation in Indonesia, and how it relates to power relations and social welfare in society. The project has included a baseline survey on the development of democracy; a thematic study on politics of citizenship; a thematic study on welfare regimes; a thematic study on local regimes; and comparative anthropological studies of UN-REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). As this research project comes to an end in 2017, a two-days conference will be held at the University of Oslo to summarise major findings and to discuss the implications for domestic and international policy making..."
Source/publisher: University of Oslo (Norway)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-29
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Title: Fighting between RCSS and Tatmadaw still raging
Description: "Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA) spokesman Col. Sai Om Kay said that they had been fighting with the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) on Loi Tuan Mountain, Mong Kong Township, southern Shan State on February 27 in the morning and the fighting between them was still raging until today. The fighting started with artillery fire on February 27 at about 8 a.m. and the fighting is reportedly still raging fiercely until the afternoon of February 28. “The fighting was almost all day yesterday and now Tatmadaw is still firing intermittent fire of heavy weapons,” spokesman Col. Sai Om Kay said, referring to Thursday. The RCSS/SSA said that four battalions with approximate strength of 400 personnel had an engagement with RCSS troops in Loi Tuan pass in Mong Kong Township, southern Shan State and it was started by firing heavy weapons and the fighting was fierce. Shan State legislative Assembly legislator from Mong Kong constituency (1) Sai Pan said that they heard the firing of heavy weapons and they had to watch and monitor the fighting between these two armies. “They fought yesterday and today. We could hear weapons firing until this afternoon. We cannot get accurate information on this battle as they fought in the jungle but nearby villages said that they heard heavy weapons fire,” he said. Political analyst Than Soe Naing said that the fighting between them appeared because of lack of trust building between them and having suspicion against each other though they had territory demarcation between them..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-29
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Title: Myanmar’s Transition to Democracy: Challenges Ahead
Description: "Myanmar’s history has been intertwined with the issues of postcolonial state building since it gained independence from British colonialism in January 1948. The policies and administration pursued by the British proved instrumental in deterioration of contact and cooperation between the diverse ethnic peoples of Myanmar while ethnic conflict was fostered. 1 The historical struggles of ethnic minorities for recognition and representation are vital to understanding the current transition to democracy and struggles for legitimacy in Myanmar. Undoubtedly, the initial phase of independent Myanmar, following the assassination of General Aung San on the eve of independence, was characterized by unstable but occasionally democratic governments punctuated by interventions by the Myanmar military. The last significant bid for democracy ended, however, following a military coup by General Ne Win on 2 March 1962. 2 The new military ruler led the country, first under his Revolutionary Council and then under his Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), into a 26-year era of isolation following his ‘Burmese way to socialism’, an admixture of Buddhist, Marxist and nationalist principles that ethnic minorities in the country interpreted as ‘Burmanization’, which saw Myanmar decline “from a country once regarded as amongst the most fertile and mineral rich in Asia to one of the world’s 10 poorest nations.”3..."
Source/publisher: Southeast Asia Research Centre (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-27
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Title: New age rebels winning the fight in Myanmar
Sub-title: Arakan Army's highly mobile and lethal tactics have made a mockery of government's peace process
Description: "As Myanmar’s government sues for peace, its autonomous military, the Tatmadaw, faces a new type of insurgency it seems increasingly ill-prepared to counter and combat. Myanmar’s “new” insurgents are highly mobile and, unlike the country’s older generation rebel groups, maintain few fixed positions, using instead hit-and-run attacks that have rendered the Tatmadaw’s traditional frontal assaults increasingly ineffective. The situation is in many ways similar to the one the United States faced in the Vietnam War: an invisible enemy which strikes from the shadows, making counterattacks more likely to hit civilians than enemy combatants. That’s all conspiring to undermine the Tatmadaw’s leverage and clout against ethnic armed groups that rely on local population support to sustain their insurgent fights. Previously, Myanmar’s myriad rebel groups aimed to control large swathes of territory protected by fixed and often well-armed installations. The Karen National Union (KNU), long firmly entrenched on the Thai border, maintained several bases along the Moei river and a well-fortified headquarters with permanent buildings housing its civilian administration and military command units..."
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-24
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Title: Military Capitalism in Myanmar: Examining the Origins, Continuities and Evolution of "Khaki Capital" (ISEAS Trends, 2019)
Description: "Military enterprises, ostensibly set up to feed and supply soldiers,were some of the earliest and largest Burmese commercialconglomerates, established in the 1950s. Union Myanmar EconomicHoldings Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) are two profit-seeking military enterprises established by the military after the dissolution of the Burma Socialist Programme Party in 1988, which remain central players in Myanmar’s post-2011 economy.• Military conglomerates are a major source of off-budget revenuefor the military and a main employer of retired soldiers. Yet few veterans receive more than a small piece of the profits from UMEHL. The vast bulk of formal dividends instead disproportionately benefit higher ranking officers and institutions within the Tatmadaw. Military capitalism entrenches the autonomy of the Tatmadawfrom civilian oversight. Despite this, obligatory or semi-coerced contributions from active-duty soldiers are a source of cash fow for UMEHL, effectively constituting a transfer from the government budget to the military’s off-budget entities. The most significant source of livelihoods support for most veterans is the service pension dispersed by the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MoPF).• Despite delivering suboptimal welfare outcomes for most soldiers and veterans while eroding the legitimacy of ceasefires, successive governments since 1988, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s NationalLeague for Democracy (NLD) administration, have entrenched military capitalism by encouraging commercial activities of armed groups that enter into ceasefire agreements..."
Source/publisher: Yusof Ishak Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-23
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Title: Shan Armed Group May Sign Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire
Description: "A northern Shan rebel armed group, the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP), says they may sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) this year if necessary to work with the Myanmar government towards political reform. SSPP leaders held a meeting from Feb. 4-18 at their headquarters in Wang Hai, northern Shan State, to discuss the possibility of signing the NCA and finding compromises with the Myanmar government. “If we need to sign [the NCA] for our group, we will do it. But first we want to discuss it with our members of our alliance,” said SSPP Colonel Sai Su. The NCA was first signed in October 2015. Col. Sai Su also said that if the government and the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, are wise, they will choose to compromise with the ethnic armed group coalition known as the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) and all of its members will sign the NCA. The FPNCC includes the SSPP, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Mong La’s National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Kokang’s Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Arakan Army (AA). According to the SSPP, the FPNCC does not have a common stand on signing the NCA and the groups need more time to discuss it. Col. Sai Su said that if the SSPP signs the NCA, they will explain the decision to ethnic Shan people. The SSPP was a member of the now-defunct United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), which worked to draft the NCA, but resigned from the group in 2017. The SSPP then joined the FPNCC, which continues to negotiate with the Myanmar government regarding the NCA..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand) via reliefweb (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-21
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Title: Pulling the strings
Sub-title: Masculinities, gender and social conflict in Myanmar
Description: "The Union of Myanmar is a complex country context marked by ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity. It has been affected by decades of an authoritarian, isolationist regime and numerous interconnected conflicts, ranging from national-level ethnic political and armed conflicts and a pro-democracy struggle, to broader social-level land conflicts. It has also seen conflicts at the household level, such as domestic violence. In Myanmar, as in other countries, these numerous forms of violence affect men, women, boys, girls and those with diverse gender identities in different ways. There is increasing awareness that gender is important in understanding conflict and working towards peace and social cohesion. A growing number of development programmes are dedicated to addressing this. In practice, such programmes have largely focused on women’s participation in political and peacebuilding processes. This focus on increasing women’s meaningful participation in arenas and activities formerly dominated by men is an important aspect of peacebuilding. However, there is another ‘side’ to the gender inequality dilemma, which is less well understood – one that deals with the experiences of men and boys. Social expectations around masculinity are often overlooked (or oversimplified). Masculinities, that is, the social expectations of men to act or behave in certain ways because they are men, can be drivers of conflict or violence. However, limiting work on this to ‘men-engage’-type approaches focusing mainly on mobilising men to prevent sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) can mean overlooking how social expectations of masculinities can also lead to increased vulnerability for men and boys, which is often not recognised or addressed by peacebuilding programming. Understanding masculinities is important, because these masculinity norms – these social expectations – can be mobilised to manipulate the taking of violent actions. For instance, society may invoke the expectations on men to be protectors of their community from perceived external threats, including land confiscations for development projects. Where this means confronting more powerful actors such as state agencies, frustration and pressures can turn into violent action..."
Source/publisher: Paung Sie Facility, International Alert (London), Phan Tee Eain
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-17
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Title: The Role of CSOs in the Myanmar Peace Process
Description: "This report is the culmination of a year-long research project into the activities of civil society in and around the ongoing Myanmar peace process. This includes the negotiations taking place in the Union Peace Conference (UPC, also known as the 21st Century Panglong Conference (UPC/21st CPC) the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), and the Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM). It also includes civil society peacebuilding outside of the peace negotiations and parallel structures. The research project aimed to identify: • the drivers of confict in Myanmar, • the civil society actors involved in peacebuilding in Myanmar, • the types of peacebuilding activities performed by these CSOs, and to classify these activities into types, • the contributions of these activities to ofcial and unofcial peacebuilding, • as well as any factors enabling and constraining civil society peacebuilding. The research was funded by the Joint Peace Fund Myanmar, and was conducted in partnership between the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) and the Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative (IPTI).3 The research team conducted interviews with 160 individuals from 123 organizations, including from civil society (including CSO networks and local and international CSOs), donors, members of parliament, as well as representatives of EAOs, members of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), members of political parties, and government representatives.4 The CSO sample was built by asking CSOs to nominate other CSOs working on peacebuilding, hence the sample is shaped by these individuals’ understanding of peacebuilding in Myanmar. The research was guided by the Civil Society and Peacebuilding (CS&PB) framework, developed by Pafenholz and colleagues.5 In the context of Myanmar, the term peace process is generally used to refer to a sequence of high-level peace negotiations and associated consultations and other supporting institutions. This process began in 2011, under the government of U Thein Sein, and led to the Nationwide Ceasefre Agreement (NCA) in 2015. The structure and sequence of the current negotiations were set out in the NCA and the Framework for Political Dialogue (also negotiated and signed in 2015). These negotiations are projected to lead to a permanent ceasefre, disarmament and demobilization of non-state armed groups, government and constitutional reforms. Since 2015, the main forum for these negotiations has been the UPC (21st CPC). The UPDJC acts as the secretariat for the UPC and has responsibility for important aspects of the process such as pre-negotiations and consensus building on issues to be brought before the UPC. This means that many issues are essentially decided by the UPDJC, with the UPC frequently acting to confrm decisions taken in the UPDJC (although this is not the sum total of its role)..."
Source/publisher: Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) (Yangon) and Inclusive Peace & Transition Initiative
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-17
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Title: Schedule Two of the 2008 Constitution
Sub-title: Avenues for reform and decentralization and steps towards a federal system.
Description: "Ever since the Panglong Agreement was signed on February 12, 1947, only two weeks after the Aung San - Attlee Agreement on Burma’s Independence of January 27, 1947, the issues of federalism, minority rights and self-determination have been central to Myanmar politics, confict and military-civilian relations. Accordingly, relations between the center and the periphery are at the core of the constitutions of 1947 and 1974, as well as the 2008 Constitution. Yet, by any standards, the Myanmar state has been unitary, and indeed centralized to an extreme degree, since independence in 1948, leading to 70 years of confict. To a large degree, the confict explains the other defning trait of the Myanmar state: for most of the last seven decades, it has been dominated by the military. Relations between the military and state institutions have been shaped by the relationship between the central government and Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs). The issues of democracy, federalism and the role of the military cannot be separated, and together they form the basis for modern Myanmar politics. In this context, it is not surprising that organizations representing the interests of ethnic nationalities spent the last two decades of military rule, after the emergence of the democracy movement of 1988 and the NLD’s victory in the 1990 elections, calling for a “tripartite dialogue” among the NLD, the military and themselves. It is no coincidence that these were also the decades when the military was drafting the 2008 Constitution. The current peace process was initiated by President U Thein Sein in 2011, the year Myanmar embarked on its transition to democracy. Although democracy and the pursuit of peace are undoubtedly two of Myanmar’s most pressing issues, the fact that two distinct processes – which will be referred to in this paper as the political process and the peace process – developed from there raises a number of issues..."
Source/publisher: Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung Ltd (Yangon)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-17
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Title: Unlocking Civil Society and Peace in Myanmar
Description: "Civil Society: Civil Society is defined broadly as the space between the family and the state, but does not include political parties, professional unions and associations, private businesses, and Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs). For the purpose of this Discussion Paper, research was directed predominantly, but not entirely, to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) at Union and sub-national level and their emerging networks. Research also included ethnic literature and culture associations. It is important to note that many people “wear several hats” in Myanmar, meaning that the affiliations of individuals are not always limited to one organisation. The roles of as key stakeholders often change roles over time. Due to their importance in Myanmar, faith-based networks are also included in civil society. Civil society is not synonymous with communities. It is inherently heterogeneous; its diversity relates to a range of different ethnic, linguistic, religious, gender, and class identities among which ethnicity stands out as a particularly prominent marker of identity in Myanmar. Social cohesion: A cohesive society is one that works towards the wellbeing of all, creates a sense of belonging, promotes trust, and offers everyone the opportunity to prosper and advance peacefully. Peacebuilding: Peacebuilding is defined as initiatives that foster and support sustainable structures and processes that strengthen the prospects for peaceful coexistence and decrease the likelihood of the outbreak, reoccurrence, or continuation of violent conflict.1 Within this Paper, civil society engagement in peacebuilding refers to civil society-led initiatives that seek mitigate inter- or intra- ethnic, faith, and communal tensions and promote social cohesion. Peace process: For the purposes of this research, the ‘peace process’ is defined as the national tri-lateral negotiations related to the ethnic armed conflict. Peace process architecture relates to government-led initiatives since 2011, spanning bi-lateral ceasefires, the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), the Union Peace Conferences (UPCs), Joint Monitoring Committees (JMCs), and the national dialogue process. For the purpose of this Paper, participation in the peace process has been categorised into direct participation (contribution to decision-making and supporting roles within peace architecture), and indirect contributions, which are equally critical, that lie outside of the peace process and political structures. Gender: The socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that determine our understanding of masculinity and femininity. The question of gender difference and the construction of masculine and feminine is not universal, but culturally specific and strongly influenced by other factors such as ethnicity, religion, race, and class.2 Youth: Myanmar’s National Youth Policy defines young people as between the ages of 15-35. The United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2250 considers young people to fall between 18-29 years..."
Source/publisher: Paung Sie Facility
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-15
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Title: Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi Decries ‘Political Problems’ Behind Failure to Settle Ethnic Wars
Description: "Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Wednesday that the country’s unresolved political problems are the root cause of failure to end hostilities between the government military and ethnic armed groups as Myanmar continues to strive for permanent peace. “The governments of the successive periods have tried their best to put an end to the armed conflicts and restore peace to our motherland, but have not yet achieved the goals of peace,” she said in her capacity as chairperson of the Central Committee for the Development of Border Areas and National Races at the 73rd Union Day ceremony in Panglong, also known as Pinlon, in Myanmar’s southern Shan state. As state counselor, Aung San Suu Kyi has made ending Myanmar’s armed conflicts and forging peace the cornerstone of her administration, but the peace process has been stymied by ongoing fighting between Myanmar forces and rebel armies in outlying ethnic regions and by the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state. Her civilian-led government has held three sessions of the 21st-Century Panglong Conference attended by delegates from the government, military, and ethnic armed organizations..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-14
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Title: sidelined or reinventing themselves?
Sub-title: Exiled Activists in Myanmar's Political Reforms
Description: "Myanmar’s tumultuous post-colonial history has been characterized by decades of direct and indirect military rule and corresponding political mobilizations that have ranged from armed ethnic and ideological insurgencies to mass protests, student movements, and non-violent pro-democracy uprisings. The nationalization and mismanagement of the economy, the militarization of the state, political surveillance and oppression, and the closure of universities are all factors that have triggered the flight from Burma of millions of Burmese. Several main waves of exit can be distinguished, following major political events—(1) the 1962 military coup; (2) the installation of direct rule by the Burma Socialist Programme Party in 1974 and the U Thant funeral crisis; (3) the 1988 mass uprisings; and (4) the 2007 “Saffron Revolution” protests, respectively. The largest o the extreme sensitivity surrounding this subject, in the past very few organizations inside Myanmar were able to operate openly on human rights issues. Exile organizations based in Thailand and India are widening the scope of their existing capacity-building initiatives for the documentation of local human rights issues and improving the knowledge and skills of those who defend human rights, while also expanding their (underground and above-ground) networks across the country..."
Source/publisher: Kerstin Duell
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-10
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Title: Myanmar’s Top-Down Transition: Challenges for Civil Society
Summary: "The political landscape of Myanmar has changed signifcantly since former dictator Than Shwe paved the way for a series of wide‐ranging reforms in 2011. A nominally civilian government was sworn in...
Description: "The political landscape of Myanmar has changed signifcantly since former dictator Than Shwe paved the way for a series of wide‐ranging reforms in 2011. A nominally civilian government was sworn in and political prisoners were freed. Most visibly, long‐term opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has ascended to power after her long‐banned opposition party – the National League of Democracy (NLD) – won the historic elections of 2015 by a wide margin. The country’s vibrant civil society also benefted from the lifting of restrictive laws on media and public mobilisation. Despite these remarkable transformations, Myanmar’s transition has seemingly slowed down and the space for progressive social and political action has contracted once again. Particularly worrying is the situation in the country’s borderlands, where long‐running sectarian conficts have escalated since 2011. In order to understand the challenges that persisting authoritarianism, state violence, and civil war pose to civil society in Myanmar, this article situates contemporary social and political action within a historical analysis of political transition. It asks about: (a) the nature of political transition in Myanmar, (b) the challenges that the trajectory of political transition poses for civil society actors, and (c) the implications for international development and peace‐building initiatives. This article argues that Myanmar’s political transition should not be understood as a process of democratisation that is driven by pro‐democratic forces and which might eventually lead to liberal democracy. Viewing the country’s transition through the lens of democratisation is not only misleading but deeply problematic. Political reforms were planned and executed by the country’s military: the Tatmadaw. The emergent hybrid civil–military order safeguards authoritarian rule and military dominance. This top‐down nature of political transition poses signifcant challenges for civil society. In combination with fragility and confict, liberalising the public sphere has not only benefted progressive social and political action but has also enabled the growth of uncivil society,3 whose pursuit of exclusionary identity politics fuels sectarian violence..."
Source/publisher: IDS Bulletin
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-09
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Title: Resistance Struggle Not Over Yet for Myanmar’s Karen, KNU Chief Says
Summary: "The Karen revolutionary struggle is not over, as the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and the political dialogue it calls for have yet to be implemented, Karen National Union chairman General...
Description: "The Karen revolutionary struggle is not over, as the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and the political dialogue it calls for have yet to be implemented, Karen National Union chairman General Mutu Say Poe said in an address to his fellow Karen to commemorate the annual Karen Revolution Day. Friday marked the 71st anniversary of the beginning of the ethnic Karen revolutionary movement in 1949 following the central government’s denunciation of the group as an unlawful organization after months of protests demanding equality for the Karen people. “Currently, we are still in the mode of revolutionary resistance,” the chairman said in his address on Friday, citing a lack of progress in the peace process. The Karen resistance movement has long demanded basic rights, equality and self-determination. The KNU is the most senior of Myanmar’s various ethnic armed groups, having resisted central government control for seven decades. Padoh Saw Kwe Htoo Win, the vice chairman of the KNU, said the group had waged a 63-year campaign of armed resistance because previous governments had ignored its call to resolve the Karen people’s political demands peacefully, through political dialogue. He said the previous governments and junta had only agreed to discuss a ceasefire, not to hold political dialogue..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-01
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Title: KNU Denies Targeting Myanmar Military Officer Killed in Mine Blast
Summary: "The Myanmar military has accused the Karen National Union of using an anti-vehicle mine to kill a battalion commander in a targeted attack in Karen State’s Papun Township on Monday, an allegation...
Description: "The Myanmar military has accused the Karen National Union of using an anti-vehicle mine to kill a battalion commander in a targeted attack in Karen State’s Papun Township on Monday, an allegation the KNU denied. The commander was serving as part of a unit providing security for a road-building project that the KNU opposes. Lieutenant Colonel Aung Kyaw Soe, commander of Light Infantry Battalion No. 708, died when the anti-vehicle mine exploded at 3 p.m. on Jan. 27 near Nat Taung Village in Papun, said Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman for the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw). The following day, military vehicles transporting goods to security forces and engineers constructing roads in the area were hit by anti-vehicle mine blasts near Muthae Village in Kyauk Kyi Township, Bago Region. The military said the attack damaged a vehicle and its shipment of rice. Brig-Gen. Zaw Min Tun told The Irrawaddy on Thursday, “The mine that killed the commander on Monday was planted in the middle of the road and was detonated in a targeted attack.” “[The KNU] should refrain from such actions. If not, we will have to act for security reasons,” he said..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-31
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Title: Myanmar’s peace god
Sub-title: The guns of civil conflict fell silent during the visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping – a pause in fighting that not even State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can achieve.
Description: "WEEKS before the visit by President Xi Jinping, local media outlets were focusing on the relationship between China and Myanmar. I especially enjoyed two cartoons drawn by Myanmar cartoonists before Xi arrived. One showed a fat Chinese man dressed in red talking to three men sitting on the floor. “When we visit, we don’t want to hear any noises,” he’s saying. The three men, who are wearing uniforms and have rifles beside them, reply, “Yes”. The other cartoon is in two blocks, one above the other. The top one shows rats running in circles and antagonising each other. The bottom image shows the rats all smiles with arms around each other’s shoulders as a big red cat clad in the flag of the People’s Republic of China enters the room with a stern expression. Support more independent journalism like this. Sign up to be a Frontier member. The cartoons were caustic comments on the recent quiescence of ethnic armed groups. In the days ahead of Xi’s arrival, the guns of war were indeed silent..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-30
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Title: Myanmar’s National Dialogue Must Be for All NCA Signatories Ahead of Peace Summit, EAOs Say
Summary: "Organizing a national-level political dialogue before the next peace conference will be one of the key issues to discuss during next week’s meeting between the government and the ethnic armed...
Description: "Organizing a national-level political dialogue before the next peace conference will be one of the key issues to discuss during next week’s meeting between the government and the ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA). The national dialogue began in 2017 but not all the signatories were able to convene. These included the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) because of objections from the Tatmadaw (military) about the location and the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) in Rakhine State, citing security concerns. The RCSS and ALP were missing from the dialogue in 2017 and 2018 and their input was therefore missing from the process to establish a federation. With the formal peace process stalled, the national political dialogue has been abandoned for nearly two years. Sai Ngern, the head of the EAOs’ negotiation team on the political dialogue framework and a secretary of the RCSS, said every NCA signatory “must be able to organize the national-level political dialogue under a new framework”. “We tentatively plan it to be able to hold talks in late March. It will be on the agenda of the talks with the government on Jan. 28-29,” he told reporters after the 10 NCA signatories’ Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) meeting in Chiang Mai on Saturday..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-22
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Title: Rebel Groups Told to Unite to Save Myanmar’s Peace Process
Description: "A week after formal peace negotiations resumed, General Yawd Serk, who represents Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) signatories, urged all sides to work collectively to move the peace process forward. The NCA signatories’ Peace Process Steering Team, currently led by Gen. Yawd Serk of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), meets from Friday in Chiang Mai to discuss future tasks in the peace process ahead of the implementation of the eight points agreed at the Joint-Ceasefire Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM). The meeting, a gateway to the formal peace talks, was held on Jan. 8 in Naypyitaw, joining peace negotiators from the ethnic armed organizations that signed the NCA and the government. Gen. Yawd Serk said: “In laying down future tasks, we have to do so in agreement” with the time set by the JICM for the convening of the fourth 21st-century Panglong peace conference, which is scheduled for no later than April. He said reaching “the goal of building a federal Union” depended on the groups’ constant engagement in the peace process and keeping “the affairs of the Union in the forefront, rather than the affairs of one group”..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-20
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Title: THE TIMES THEY ARE NOT CHANGING
Description: "“As ever, it is civilians who bear the brunt of the accompanying abuses that the Myanmar military soldiers inflict on the local populations. Furthermore, they do so with impunity. Documented for decades, yet without any real change, the Myanmar military which commit rape and sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, torture, forced labor and many other forms of violations against local ethnic populations, escapes justice.” A new decade has begun in Myanmar[1], yet the same problems that have blighted the country since independence, ethnic inequality, Burmanization, and military attacks in ethnic areas remain. Renewed fighting in Karen State, continuing fighting in Shan and Arakan States, and the struggle for ethnic nationalities to assert their identity have all been present in the first two weeks of this year. Yet the powers in Naypyidaw remain stuck on the same track, pushing a broken peace process and blaming ethnic groups for continued failures. At the Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM) held in Naypyidaw on 8 January, 2020, which was attended by leaders of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) signatory ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), the government, and the Myanmar military, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi put blame on the EAOs for the failure of the peace process. In her opening remarks, she stated, “Concerning the case of having more armed conflicts, we would like to remind you of the fact that taking advantage by means of stronger armed forces or playing with the fancy of finding other new solutions will never bring solutions to the problems of our country.” The meeting, unsurprisingly, ended without substantive progress..."
Source/publisher: Progressive Voice (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-19
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Title: Members of Rebel Outfit NDFB-S Enter India Through Myanmar Border, May Leave for Delhi for Peace Talks
Description: "Amid relentless protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) across the northeast, leaders and cadres of the banned insurgent group National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Saoraigwra (NDFB-S) came back to India from Myanmar as part of the ongoing talks with the Government of India. A top leader of the rebel outfit told News18, “All the 50 members of the NDFB-S left Myanmar early on Saturday. The Indian Army escorted the leaders and cadres from the International border to an undisclosed Army base.” “The outfit’s chief, B Saoraigwra, and his family members along with his security personnel crossed the international border at Tamu (in Manipur), while NDFB-S’ (self-styled) general secretary B Ferrenga, council members and other cadres entered India through the Longwa international border (in Nagaland),” he added. Though the Director General of Assam Police, Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta, refused to comment on the development, a senior intelligence officer said, “All this is being directly monitored by Ministry of Home Affairs. We have not been informed officially yet. The top leadership of the group will be taken to Delhi as part of peace talks.”..."
Source/publisher: "News 18" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-12
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Title: Breaking free from fear in Kachin
Description: "While Myanmar’s state counselor and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi focused her energies last month on personally defending her country’s appalling human-rights record in The Hague, bewildering ever more erstwhile supporters for papering over atrocities, “Rape as a Weapon of War and the Women Who Are Resisting: A Special Report” recently released by the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) reflects a more accurate portrayal of the true nature of the ethnic conflict embroiling the long-troubled country. “Sexual violence has become a hallmark of the prolonged civil conflict and an indisputable tactic of the Burma Army against ethnic women,” the report states. “After several failed domestic and international agreements, the Burma Army continues to rape with impunity, but women across the ethnic states are tired of living in fear.” Working with local ethnic pro-democracy groups, FBR trains, supplies, and later coordinates with teams providing humanitarian relief. After training, these teams provide essential emergency medical services, basic necessities and human-rights documentation in their home regions..."
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-11
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Title: Government’s “total peace” in 2020 realizable? 
Description: "The opinion piece of January 1, 2020 The Global New Light of Myanmar wrote that “Our new year resolution should be “total peace” in 2020” is an appropriate and welcome aspiration and everything should be done to realize this noble intention. While it is correct that the people should be involved in achieving the desired peace, harmony and reconciliation that would come with it, ground work has to be laid out so that the public could participate in a matured manner. This means that the people should be appropriately informed, given freedom of expression and freedom of choice in a variety of issues confronting the country. In other words, the powers that be must not mislead and politically exploit the mass for its political gains. The case in point is the NLD regime’s mobilization of the mass on the eve of ICJ lawsuit just very recently, where the regime and its media outlets told the people that they were also been sued. Actually it is only the government or political decision-making apparatus that the lawsuit is directed at and in no way the people..."
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-10
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Title: Peace Process and Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan
Description: "As the restarting of nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA)-based peace process gears to restart after more than a year of standstill, it is important to note that the government intention is to link the projected achievement of peace along the line with its Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan (MSDP) launched to cover the time span from 2018 to 2030. The ambitious government plan launched in August 2018, now over a year old, is a 66-page document, which incorporates existing and draft plans and policies, sets out 3 pillars, 5 goals, 28 strategies and 251 action plans. The three pillars are “Peace and Stability; Prosperity and Partnership; and People and Planet”. Under Peace and Stability, there are two goals. One is “Peace, National Reconciliation, Security and Good Governance” and the other, “Economic Stability and Strengthened Macro Economic Management”. Under Prosperity and Partnership, “Job Creation and Private Sector Led Growth” is the goal. Finally, under People and Planet, there are two goals. One is “Human Resources and Social Development for a 21st Century Society” and the other, “Natural Resources and the Environment for Posterity of the Nation”..."
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-10
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Title: At Myanmar Peace Talks, State Counselor Urges All Parties to Put Country First
Description: "State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi called on all signatories of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) to take responsibility and accountability in implementing the pact, saying its principles apply equally to all stakeholders. She made the comments on Wednesday at the resumption of the long-awaited Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM) in Naypyitaw, at which she was joined by military representatives led by deputy army chief Vice Senior General Soe Win, and ethnic representatives led by Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) chairman General Yawd Serk. The JICM is considered a gateway to resuming the formal peace process, which has been stalled for more than a year since two NCA signatories suspended their participation. The Karen National Union decided to temporarily suspend its participation in formal peace negotiations in October 2018 and the RCSS withdrew from the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) on the NCA the following month..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-09
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Title: Myanmar in Transition Polity, People and Processes
Description: "Myanmar’s political transition from military authoritarianism to an evolving parliamentary system has gained worldwide attention and praise. Local and international scepticism regarding the flawed national elections of November 2010 gave way to outright optimism once the by-elections of April 2012 brought representatives from the opposition party National League for Democracy into the bi-cameral national as well as two federal parliaments. In particular, Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s metamorphosis from long-term political prisoner into national parliamentarian was seen as key evidence of the government’s sincerity in its reform agenda. Since then, the country has embarked on a journey towards fundamental change, encountering severe challenges, setbacks, and renewed criticism but also encouraging developments. This Panorama edition analyses the focal areas of institution-building, principal actors and long-term processes that will hopefully lead toward a democratic, federal state. While development cooperation practitioners and experts in political transitions toil to draw up plans, programmes and budgets, Myanmar’s government and parliaments face an impatient population demanding an end to underdevelopment, poverty, corruption, armed conflict and oppression of dissent, so that there can be focus on daily bread-and-butter issues..."
Source/publisher: "Panorama Insights into Asian and European Affairs" via "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-09
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Title: Myanmar to hold fourth meeting of Panglong peace conference
Description: "Myanmar has planned to hold the fourth meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference within the first four months of this year. A total of eight agreements including holding the peace conference were reached at the 8th Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM) on the nationwide ceasefire agreement held in Nay Pyi Taw on Wednesday, U Zaw Htay, the director general of the State Counsellor Office, told media after the meeting. The 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference was held in August 2016, May 2017 and July 2018, respectively. A total of 51 federal-related basic principles have been adopted into a union accord so far after the third conference. At the meeting, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, in her capacity as the chairperson of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC), called for continued efforts for the emergence of complete federal-related basic principles on creating future union as the 51 ones previously adopted are not enough for the goal..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-09
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Title: Rakhine: the new front in Myanmar's violent ethnic conflicts
Sub-title: Violence flared a year ago when the Arakan Army attacked Myanmar police, forcing thousands from their homes.
Description: "A year ago, four police stations in the conflict-ridden western Rakhine State of Myanmar came under attack from the Arakan Army (AA) leaving an estimated 13 officers dead and nine injured. The response was swift. Myanmar's military (also known as the Tatmadaw) promised to "crush the terrorists", marking the beginning of the latest bloody chapter in the country's never-ending conflicts, waged primarily between the Tatmadaw and various ethnic rebel groups. Rakhine has become notorious as the location of the military's brutal campaign against the mostly Muslim Rohingya, which led to the exodus of 740,000 people and accusations of genocide. What the military called "clearance operations" were partially justified by claims that the Muslims posed a threat to Rakhine Buddhists and their way of life, but the AA, founded in 2009 is an ethnic Rakhine, religiously Buddhist armed group..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-07
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Title: Myanmar and the Dream of the Golden Land
Description: "Burma/Myanmar has moved from stagnation to dynamic reform. Much attention has focused explaining the timing, shape and key personalties of the reform process. What this approach neglects is an examination of the ideological frameworks that shape political culture and action in Burma/Myanmar. The democratic opposition and the military leadership, the two major political forces in the majority Burman population, are actually united by an underlying ideological framework derived from understandings of the colonial era. According to this framework Burma's rich natural resources and strategic location were the reason for its colonization by the British, and mean that Burma is perpetually in danger of neocolonial interference from covetous foreigners, be they Western or Chinese. The former military government argued that the democratic opposition would sell the nation out to neocolonial interests in the West. The democratic opposition and popular sentiment, in contrast, have seen the post-1988 military governments as neocolonial and deeply complicit in selling the nation out to the Chinese. These surface differences mask underlying structural similarities that derive form a shared ideational framework..."
Source/publisher: "Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population" (Naypyitaw)
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-04
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Title: China, Myanmar to enhance economic cooperation, speed up peace process in northern Myanmar
Description: "Visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Myanmar's Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services Min Aung Hlaing here on Sunday, with both sides agreeing to strengthen economic cooperation and speed up peace process in northern Myanmar. Lauding the Myanmar army as an important force in preserving the country's peace and stability as well as the friendship between China and Myanmar, Wang said the exchanges between the armed forces of the two countries represent an important part of "Paukphaw" (fraternal) friendship. China is willing to take the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations next year as an opportunity to jointly push forward the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, build a community of shared future with the Myanmar government and army, so as to push bilateral relations into a new era, he noted. Wang said the peace and reconciliation process in northern Myanmar is significant to the country's social and economic development, hoping that Myanmar continues to stick to political dialogue and firmly carry on peace talks. China will as always maintain close contact with Myanmar and play a constructive role in promoting the peace talks, Wang said. He called on all relevant parties to continue to show restraint, maintain the ceasefire and sign a ceasefire agreement at an early date. The two sides should also strengthen cooperation in the control and management of border areas to ensure peace and stability at China-Myanmar border areas, he added..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-09
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Title: Peace and war in Myanmar
Description: "A visitor to Myanmar can easily spend two weeks seeing the main tourist destinations and depart with the impression of having been in a peaceful nation. Within its borders, however, rages the world’s longest continuing civil war. It began at independence in 1948 and no end is in sight. This is the conundrum of Myanmar today: the coexistence of peace and war. The first national election in 20 years was held in 2010, at the end of five decades of repressive military rule. This election produced a government led by former General Thein Sein that unexpectedly moved quickly to adopt far-reaching political and economic reforms. The longtime leader of the democratic opposition and world-famous icon of democracy Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest shortly after that election. In 2012, she won a seat in the parliament in a by-election. In the 2015 election, her party — the National League for Democracy (NLD) — won in a landslide against the military-supported party..."
Source/publisher: "Brookings Institution (blog)"
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-07
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Title: China’s mobile missiles on the loose in Myanmar
Summary: "Myanmar’s seizure last week of a large cache of mostly Chinese weapons from a rebel camp sparked a brief and predictable flurry of nationalist outrage, underscoring as it did the shadowy role of...
Sub-title: Ethnic rebels unexplained acquisition of Chinese-made FN-6 portable missiles is a political and military game-changer
Description: "Myanmar’s seizure last week of a large cache of mostly Chinese weapons from a rebel camp sparked a brief and predictable flurry of nationalist outrage, underscoring as it did the shadowy role of neighboring China in fueling the nation’s many long-running ethnic conflicts. But the real significance of the November 22 incident had less to do with the seized weaponry’s quantity or provenance and much more with unambiguous confirmation that insurgents in active hostilities with government forces, or Tatmadaw, are now fielding man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, weapons that militarily and politically constitute potential game-changers. Amidst the stack of over 150 assault rifles, machine-guns, grenade launchers and nearly 80 sacks of explosives seized in a village in northeastern Shan state’s Namhsan township troops also retrieved in an apparent first a single MANPADS launcher identified as a Chinese-manufactured FN-6. Abandoning the cache after an apparently brief clash with state forces were rebels of the ethnic Palaung Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), which operates across northern Shan state and dominates the tea-growing hill country of Namhsan..."
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-29
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Title: Nothing to celebrate at Kachin Thanksgiving
Description: "Four score minus seven years ago, on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, the leaders of four of Myanmar's main ethnic groups -- the majority Burmans, plus Kachin, Chin and Shan -- committed to creating a country conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. The year before independence from Britain in 1948, the legacy Panglong Agreement created conditions for a multicultural country including "a separate Kachin State within a Unified Burma … [I]t is agreed that such a State is desirable". Despite the reforms of recent years, the people of Myanmar are still waiting for the unified society agreed to in Panglong by Myanmar's independence hero, Aung San. Desire to see the promise of Panglong materialise remains strong among the country's minorities, as well their sympathisers worldwide. These include the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), who provide humanitarian support to Myanmar's minorities and advocate for "freedom, justice and peace" while shedding light on the abuses of the Myanmar army. My fateful mountaintop encounter three years ago with FBR founder David Eubank, on my first trip to Kachin while on a frontline tour with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), provided the catalyst for my second trip last spring to this ruggedly beautiful land..."
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-28
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Title: Beyond the Horizon: Local Perspectives on Peace, Justice and Accountability in Southeast Myanmar [EN/MY/Karen]
Description: "Today, at the Myanmar Press Freedom Center in Yangon, the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) launched its latest report, ‘Beyond the Horizon: Local Perspectives on Peace, Justice and Accountability in Southeast Myanmar’. This report explores the issue of transitional justice by examining the legacy of past human rights violations and the current human rights situation in Southeast Burma/Myanmar, as well as the perspectives of 95 local villagers on the peace process and access to justice. In 2015, the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement created possibilities for positive change after decades of conflict. However, the consequences of past abuses continue to impact the daily lives of local people, often combining with new forms of abuses to compound their economic marginalisation. As the peace process is now at a deadlock, it remains unclear to what extent it will be able to address these issues. Although most respondents reported that they now feel safer, problems persist. Traditional forms of abuses, such as killings, sexual and gender-based violence, physical abuse, forced labour and extortion still occur. In addition, the rights of rural Karen communities over natural resources and land are being totally disregarded. The Tatmadaw is also increasing its presence across the region, and skirmishes between armed actors undermine the local people’s trust in the peace process. Respondents reported that, during the pre-ceasefire period, they were often prevented from accessing justice by their rightful fear of armed actors, a lack of judicial independence and rule of law, and the absence of civilian jurisdiction over Tatmadaw abuses. In the current ceasefire period, villagers are also being denied justice because the parallel justice systems existing in Southeast Burma/Myanmar are inconsistent, lack resources and are plagued by corruption.
Source/publisher: "Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG)" (Chiang Mai) via "Reliefweb" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-17
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Title: CULTURE OF POLITICAL DIALOGUE: Fading hope to resolve ethnic conflict?
Description: "With the rise of armed conflict violence, branching out into assassination, random shooting, abduction, extrajudicial punishment, the country seems to be “widening the space of armed confrontation or civil war and narrowing the peace negotiation process,” a phrase now popularly used by Burma or Myanmar political analysts, watchers and observers alike. But let us first looks into some recent developments within the country’s political landscape and determine if this is really the case. On November 10, in Rakhine or Arakan State, Myaypone Township, Wetyu village a fisherman and his wife traveling back home on motor-propelled boat was shot at by the military or Tatmadaw killing the four-month pregnant wife instantly and slightly wounding the husband. A tragic trigger-happy Tatmadaw trooper’s had cost an innocent local’s life. In response to it on November 11, United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA) issued a statement condemning the act as a racial hatred move and vowed to revenge, while conveying its heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased..."
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-16
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Title: Success of peace process hinges on federal union: U Zaw Htay
Sub-title: The success in implementing the peace process depends on enshrining a federal democratic union in the Constitution as a guarantee of the people’s aspirations, U Zaw Htay, spokesperson of the President’s Office, said.
Description: "“Ethnic people believe that they can achieve their political rights in full only if there is a federal constitution, which they have consistently demanded,” he told a press briefing on Friday. “A federal constitution is needed to get a full political guarantee. It must be a union stipulated by all, not by a one-sided decision.” Although Myanmar has had different political systems in different eras, it has not established a federal union acceptable to all ethnic people, so peace remains elusive, he said. “We all pledged to build the union at the Panglong Conference held in 1947. Although the leaders and system changed, we couldn’t build the union. The federal building process has not been completed. There are barriers,” U Zaw Htay said. As these problems can only be solved politically, meetings such as the 21st Century Panglong Conference are needed. Ethnic armed groups, political parties, civil organisations, the Tatmadaw (military) and the government must all agree on a federal union..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-16
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Title: Peace talks hits snag between Myanmar govt and Northern Alliance
Description: "PEACE talks have hit a snag between the Myanmar government negotiators and the Northern Alliance, which is made up of four ethnic armed groups. Both were due to convene for talks, following their last meeting in Kyaingtong city in the Shan state on Sept 17, but it was postponed indefinitely, according to The Myanmar Times. U Lamai Khun Ja of the Myitkyina-based Peace Talk Creation Group said: “They do not have any problems. Neither side is ready to meet." Continuation of talks between the two groups was scheduled in October but later postponed to this month as the government wanted to prepare for the fourth anniversary of the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). The next round of talks would be the third since fighting broke out between the military and some members of the alliance members in Shan State in Aug. No commitment has been made on the next round of talks, including the time and location, by either side. The alliance comprises the Arakan Army, Kachin Independence Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA). None of the group has signed the NCA..."
Source/publisher: "New Straits Times" (Malaysia)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-14
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Title: Why has Myanmar’s peace process stalled? Because it divides ethnic groups
Summary: "“The fighting has been going on in this area for so long that abnormal situations of war and fighting become somewhat normalised, day-to-day, life for people. No one should live a life like that...
Sub-title: The Myanmar government created divisions between ethnic armed groups, preventing effective dialogue and perpetuating conflict. Unless the government can earn the trust of ethnic groups, peace talks will continue to stall.
Description: "“The fighting has been going on in this area for so long that abnormal situations of war and fighting become somewhat normalised, day-to-day, life for people. No one should live a life like that.” Kham Awn, of the Shan Women’s Action Network, was describing life in northern Shan State, Myanmar. The area has seen renewed violent clashes between ethnic armed groups and the Myanmar military in recent months, displacing thousands from their homes. A new report by Amnesty International documents war crimes by both the military and ethnic armed groups. But Kham Awn’s description could just as easily describe daily life elsewhere in Myanmar, especially in areas of Rakhine State, in the country’s southwest. On October 26, the Arakan Army (AA) stopped a ferry in Rakhine State and took at least 50 people hostage. After holding them for over a week, the armed group released 25 civilians but kept the remaining hostages, who it claims are security personnel. Myanmar’s police have since detained and begun to interrogate the released hostages. Though Myanmar’s peace process trudges on, a consistent lack of trust between the government and ethnic armed groups, fueled by violence and posturing, continues to prevent real progress. The Myanmar government’s approach to the peace process has divided ethnic groups, whether intentionally or not, undermining the negotiations, eroding trust, and perpetuating the conflict. Unless the Myanmar military ceases all offensives and the government commits to earning the trust of ethnic groups, peace talks will continue to stall..."
Source/publisher: "ASEAN Today" (Singapore)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
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Title: China contributes millions to Myanmar peace process with armed groups
Description: "CHINA recently contributed US$1 million (RM4.1 million) to fund the Myanmar government-led peace process with armed rebel groups in the country. The fund was presented by China's Special Envoy for Asian Affairs, Sun Guoxiang, in his visit to the country, The Irrawaddy reported. Of the total, US$400,000 is for the National Reconciliation and Peace Centre (NRPC); while US$300,000 will go to the Peace Commission and the Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee (JMC) each. Union minister with the State Counsellor’s Office and vice chairman of the NRPC, U Kyaw Tint Swe, received the sum from Sun, according to a statement from the Information Ministry. China's Xinhua News reported that the Chinese government will continue supporting the peace process in Myanmar. Sun was quoted as saying that the friendship between the two countries remains cordial and that the contribution was the fourth made by China. He said China is hopeful that peace can be hastened in the country, and assured that it will always support Myanmar in its continuous effort to achieve a resolution. During his visit to Myanmar, the special envoy met with State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. In Jan 2017, China contributed US$1 million to Myanmar’s peace process through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and pledged US$3 million until 2020. In Dec 2017, US$500,000 was donated to the JMC and 10 vehicles in June 2018 by the then-Chinese Ambassador, Hong Liang..."
Source/publisher: "New Straits Times" (Malaysia)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-11
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Title: Govt announces three steps to advance peace process
Description: "State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has announced a three-step plan to reboot the peace process at an event marking the fourth anniversary of the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement. The government signed the ceasefire with eight groups in October 2015 but the country’s most powerful non-state armies are still yet to ink the accord, leaving them on the fringes of the formal peace process. Since the National League for Democracy government took office, the government has signed the NCA with just two additional armed groups. It has also convened just three Union Peace Conferences, despite a requirement that they be held every six months. Addressing a ceremony in Nay Pyi Taw on October 28, Aung San Suu Kyi urged ethnic armed groups and stakeholders to cooperate to ensure that the government’s three proposed steps were successfully implemented. The steps are to continue holding the 21st Century Panglong Union Peace Conferences, to involve non-signatories of the NCA in political dialogue, and to ensure that the people are able to enjoy the fruits of peace. The first step includes three elements: to develop a framework agreement to guide implementation of the NCA, to reach agreement on more points of a future Union Peace Accord, and to develop a plan for continuing the peace process beyond the 2020 election..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-11
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Title: Two Japanese Supporting Peace Efforts with Myanmar’s Ethnic Minorities
Description: "Myanmar is a country of rich ethnic and religious diversity which has struggled for many years with issues of ethnic conflict. Two Japanese men have gained attention for their concerted behind-the-scenes efforts to attain peace in these complex circumstances. Armed Resistance by Ethnic Minorities There are said to be as many as 20 ethnic minority groups in Myanmar, and many minority forces in the country continue resistance against the rule of the central government. Relations between groups are delicate, with certain ethnic groups experiencing division due to divergence of opinions. The military strength of some is a source of embarrassment for the government. Pivoting this extremely complex ethnic antagonism towards resolution is the greatest challenge facing the country. The failure to achieve peace with ethnic minorities has for many years provided justification for military control and the suppression of democracy. Despite the county’s great potential, this has been a cause of economic stagnation. The country is making steady progress towards realizing peace, although it tends to be overshadowed by the Rohingya crisis. Two Japanese men have acted as mediators behind the scenes in the peace process: Imoto Katsuyuki, head of a nongovernmental organization retrieving human remains, and Sasakawa Yōhei, as a special envoy of the Japanese government..."
Source/publisher: nippon.com (Japan)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-11
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Title: CULTURE OF ANGST: A need for conducive atmosphere in peace-building
Description: "Lately, news seeping out from government sources indicate that the much talked about bilateral ceasefire negotiation between the Northern Alliance – Burma (NA-B) and the National League for Democracy-led civilian-military regime may be shelved, due to Arakan Army (AA) hostage-taking of the government security personnel. The NA-B members are the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Arakan Army (AA), and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). The bilateral ceasefire talks have been held for four times, in Muse, Kunming and twice in Kengtung, without any breakthrough or concrete agreement. And as it now seems, the further meeting will be quite problematic, if not at all impossible. This kind of prevailing atmosphere could be because the culture of angst has overtaken all the stakeholders, fellow peace-negotiators or contenders in Burma or Myanmar political arena, said Khuensai Jaiyane, director of the Pyidaungsu Institute, patron of the Shan Herald Agency for News and advisor of the Restoration Council of Shan State, an Ethnic Armed Organization (EAO) that inked the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in October 2015..."
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-10
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Title: China donates cash assistance for peace process in Myanmar
Description: "China donated cash assistance of 400,000 U.S. dollars to be used in Myanmar government's peace process on Wednesday morning in Nay Pyi Taw. Special Envoy for Asian Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Sun Guoxiang presented the cash donation to U Kyaw Tint Swe, vice-chairman of Myanmar's National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) and union minister of the State Counselor's Office. Speaking at the donation ceremony, U Kyaw Tint Swe thanked China, saying that China's perpetual assistance to Myanmar helps maintain the long-held paukphaw (fraternal) friendship between the two countries. U Kyaw Tint Swe also expressed his belief that China would continue to extend its assistance to Myanmar for mutual benefits for the two countries. "It was the fourth time that the Chinese government donates cash assistance to Myanmar's NRPC with the aim to support Myanmar's peace process," said the Chinese special envoy, pledging for the continued assistance to Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-07
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Title: FOURTH NCA ANNIVERSARY: A peace process drawback
Description: "The Fourth Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) Signing Anniversary, which supposed to be convened on the actual date of October 15, was held on October 28 in Naypyitaw with nine NCA-Signatory-Ethnic Armed Organization (NCA-S-EAO), as the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) delegation was absent. Reportedly, the RCSS issued a three-page statement underlining why it wasn’t able to attend the anniversary occasion. It was a blow to conveners, especially the government, for the gathering was supposed to uplift the stagnated peace process, which has been halted since over a year, and should have helped paved the way for Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM), the highest organ in NCA-based peace process, that would outline the negotiation agenda and eventual implementation by the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC). In short, the Tatmadaw blocking of the RCSS leader and his delegation travel using Maehongson – Homong-Langkhur-Nam Zarng-Taunggyi-Naypyitaw to attend the anniversary occasion was the real cause of setback..."
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-05
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Title: Myanmar’s Nagaland Rebels Expel Peace Representatives
Description: "The National Socialist Council of Nagaland’s (NSCN) new chairman Yung Aung has expelled five leading members because they encouraged the group to sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) while in custody. The five jailed members were sacked “for their continuous effort to propagate and encourage the signing of the NCA, which is completely against the political principles of the party”, the NSCN said in a statement. The ousted members are the Home Affairs Minister and retired Major General Angmai, Religious Affairs Minister U Kyaw Wan Sein, Forestry Minister U An Kam (also known as Angkan), Central Council member U Saw Htin and a Naga army lieutenant colonel, Aung Sai. The statement said the five “deliberately” conspired and mobilized regarding the NCA, which is directly against the party’s policy. All authority and privileges enjoyed by them have been canceled. The NSCN, the Naga armed group based in Myanmar, is trying to establish Nagaland, together with Naga rebels across the border in India..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-05
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Title: Communicating for the Future: Building Confidence and Trust in the Myanmar Peace Process
Description: "As part of its project supporting increased understanding and improved communication of peace in Myanmar Search for Common Ground (SfCG) organized a two-day ‘Message Mapping Workshop’ at the Novotel Hotel, Yangon from 24 to 25 October. The workshop was intended to provide input and feedback into the design of a multimedia ‘message map’, to strengthen a community of practitioners and influencers who understand and help spread key messages on peace by providing some examples of best practice relating to the role of media in building peace. The workshop was well-attended by famous artists from music and film industry, representatives from media organizations, ethnic-armed organizations (EAOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs). This is one of the seven phases that SfCG is carrying out for their three-year project, ‘Communicating for the Future’ in seven target areas; Shan Chin, Kayin, Mon, Bago, Yangon and Tanintharyi which is being supported by the Joint Peace Fund. The first day of the workshop included a panel discussion on ‘the role of Media in Building Confidence and Trust in Peace Process’ featuring four panelists, Mi Sue Pwint, Central Executive Committee Member of the ABSDF, Daw Khine Moe Naing, Deputy Director of MRTV, U Toe Zaw Latt, Operations Director of DVB and Hilmy Ahamed, Founder of Young Asia TV (YATV) in Sri Lanka. Mi Sue Pwint shared insights into how signatory ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) use media platforms, particularly the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) signatory EAOs’ website and Facebook page, to keep people updated about their news and activities..."
Source/publisher: "Joint Peace Fund" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-01
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Title: Minorities, Money and Getting It Wrong in Myanmar
Description: "The euphoria knew no bounds. When it was announced that a text had been drafted for a proposed ceasefire agreement between the Myanmar government and some of the country’s many ethnic resistance armies, The Center for Humanitarian Dialog, a Swiss-based peace and reconciliation outfit that runs several Myanmarrelated projects, hailed it as “the most comprehensive ceasefire agreement in Myanmar’s history” which “will set the stage for resolving the longest-running conflict in Southeast Asia.” Vijay Nambiar, special advisor on Myanmar to the Secretary General of the United Nations, also called the drafting of the proposal “historic” and UNICEF even suggested that it “could be a dawn of a new time of progress for the most disadvantaged children in Myanmar.” That was on March 31, 2015. Four years on, it is evident that Myanmar’s so-called peace process has been a complete failure. Even as the foreign peacemakers were congratulating themselves in the capital Naypyidaw and in Yangon, the reality on the ground remained depressingly unchanged. Airstrikes and other attacks were continuing against Kachin and Palaung rebel forces in the north and northeast of the country. When what was termed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) was nevertheless signed on Oct. 15, 2015, it was announced that “eight groups” were behind it. But five of the signatories had no noteworthy armed forces, and one, the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, had been a government-allied militia since it broke away from the main group, the Karen National Union (KNU), in 1994..."
Source/publisher: "Global Asia" (South Korea)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-01
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Title: Naga rebel group part of peace talks with Centre eyes setting up camps in Myanmar with no breakthrough in site
Sub-title: With Naga peace talks extending beyond October 31, rebel group NSCN (IM) is now looking at the possibility of setting up camps in Myanmar if the demand for a separate Naga flag and constitution is not agreed by the Centre.
Description: "Naga rebel group National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) that has been part of ongoing talks for a peace accord with the Centre along with other groups is exploring the option of setting up base in Myanmar as there seems to be no breakthrough in the discussions. The rebel group that earlier agreed to peace talks is not on-board with the Centre on most contentious issues like a separate flag and constitution for Nagaland. The government has made it clear that these two demands will not be met but NSCN (IM) is not willing to relent, sources said. Ground intelligence inputs suggest that two of the group's top leadership have already crossed over to Myanmar to set up camps there. Around 300-500 armed cadres have also managed cross into Myanmar and are camping at Koki opposite Shera, says a recent intelligence report. There are indications that NSCN (IM) is not likely to be part of the peace accord..."
Source/publisher: "India Today" (India)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-31
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Title: Myanmar state counselor stresses flexibility, broad-mindedness in achieving peace, emergence of federal union
Description: "Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday stressed the need to have flexibility and broadmindedness in achieving genuine peace and emergence of a federal union. Suu Kyi, who is Chairperson of both the National Reconciliation and Peace Center and the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee, made the remarks at a ceremony held in Nay Pyi Taw to mark the 4th anniversary of the signing of the government's Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA). Suu Kyi outlined three-step peace process to be pursued by the government in the future. The first step, she said, is to lay down a common process on how to carry on the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference and to obtain framework agreements on the implementation of the NCA..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
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Title: RCSS Chair’s Trip to NCA Anniversary Event Blocked by Military
Description: "Meetings concerning Burma’s peace process have been temporarily postponed following the cancellation of Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) chairperson Gen Yawd Serk’s trip to Naypyidaw, RCSS representatives said. Gen Yawd Serk had planned to attend the fourth anniversary commemoration of the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) on Monday, but the Burma Army reportedly blocked his travel. The trip was going to include meetings of the Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM) and the Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) following the NCA anniversary. “JICM and PPST meetings which were going to be held after the fourth anniversary of the NCA, were canceled,” Gen Yawd Serk told media outlets through a translator during a press conference on the Thai-Burma border. The RCSS chair is also the chair of the PPST..."
Source/publisher: "Network Media Group" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
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Title: GOVERNMENT AND EAOS RELATION: Restarting peace process with four-point agreement agenda
Description: "On the heels of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement-Signatory-Ethnic Armed Organizations (NCA-S-EAO) three-day meeting that ended on October 12, the Peace Commission (PC), under the government National Peace and Reconciliation Center (NRPC), flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand to meet the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), Kachin Independence Organization/Army (KIO/KIA), Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the Karen National Union (KNU). All mentioned groups the PC has met are all NCA-S-EAO members, except the KNPP which has still to sign the NCA. The government delegation included PC Secretary a retired Lieutenant General Khin Zaw Oo, President’s Office Director Zaw Htay and PC advisers Hla Maung Shwe and Moe Zaw Oo. The government PC and the KNPP met on October 18 in Chiang Mai. It was said the unofficial meeting with the KNPP touched on the issues of bilateral ceasefire possibility and development of the Karenni (Kayah) State. The KNPP was led my Vice-Chairman Khu Oo Reh, accompanied by Deputy-Commander-in-Chief General Aung Myat, Aung San Myint, Nei Neh Plo and Khun Naung..."
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-23
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Title: NEW NCA AGENDA: Natural resource governance reform would energize
Description: "Forest Trends, a non-profit Washington-based organisation established since 1988, with the funding of Joint Peace Fund, released a 72-page important report titled, “Natural resource governance reform and the peace process in Myanmar,” written by Kevin Woods, which emphasizes that the ongoing peace negotiation process directly address the governance of natural resources to realize resource federalism. Regarding this, the report wrote: “The federal decentralization of land and resource governance on the other hand, if managed well with a full set of integrity mechanisms, could be a means of addressing grievances in many of Myanmar’s resource producing areas.” “Decentralization generally fails to help locals unless accompanied by appropriate governance mechanisms to ensure compliant implementation – meaning that more focus on and support for resource governance institutions and mechanisms is needed. The extractive sector could act as a driver of more equitable socio-economic development that helps provide greater stability during the post-conflict transition,” explained the report further..."
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-23
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Title: Govt: Union Peace Conference Session to Be Held Before 2020 Election
Description: "The fourth session of the Union Peace Conference, also known as the 21st Century Panglong Conference, will be held before Burma’s 2020 general election, the spokesperson for the President’s Office has said. “The government has proposed that the fourth Union Peace Conference be held early next year… the EAOs (ethnic armed organizations) have already agreed to it,” spokesperson Zaw Htay said to media outlets after an informal meeting with EAOs in Chiang Mai, Thailand on October 18. According to Zaw Htay, participants in the peace conference will discuss federal principles and the peace process post-2020. The proposal, he said, has three parts. “The first part is about federal structure—for example, we will try to get a common agreement on what kind of federal nation we want to build,” Zaw Htay explained. “In the second part, we will try to come to an agreement on federal principles. The third part is that we will try to get an agreement on how to move the peace process forward in the post-2020 election period.” He added that the 51 points regarding basic federal principles addressed in the last Union Peace Conference session would be combined with the points agreed upon in the fourth session, and then federal policy would be drawn up that reflects these points..."
Source/publisher: "Network Media Group" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-22
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Title: Trust Levels With Govt Are ‘Low,’ KNPP Says
Description: "Representatives of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) say that unresolved issues on the ground in Karenni (Kayah) State have negatively affected trust-building with the government, and have made it difficult for the organization to consider signing the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). Representatives of the government’s Peace Commission and the KNPP held an informal meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand on October 18, after which, KNPP spokesperson Nei Nei Plo spoke to the media. “We are still continuing our negotiations with the government. In practice, there are many reasons and issues on the ground that cause trust to be low. We need to rebuild the trust,” Nei Nei Plo said. Both the government and KNPP leaders said that they discussed how ceasefire implements should be implemented. “NCA implementation needs to move forward without any deadlocks… If trust goes down, it will be difficult not only for the KNPP but also for other non-NCA EAOs (ethnic armed organizations) to sign the NCA,” Nei Nei Plo explained..."
Source/publisher: "Network Media Group" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-22
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Title: NCA-Signatory EAOs Agree to Resume Official Peace Talks With Govt, Military
Description: "Ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) signatory to Burma’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) have agreed in principle to resume official peace negotiations with the government and military, and to discuss issues on which the peace process remains deadlocked. The agreement came after a three-day meeting of the Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which concluded on Saturday. “We already know the deadlock issues. We will try to remove these deadlocks. We are flexible in solving this problem through informal meetings or official meetings,” Col Sai Nguen, a PPST spokesperson, said. “If all stakeholders are likely to get a common agreement, we will continue to hold [another session of] the 21st Century Panglong Conference,” he added. Negotiation teams from the PPST and the government will discuss issues including federalism, the stalled peace process and ceasefires “in depth,” Col Sai Nguen said. According to a statement released after the PPST meeting, NCA-signatory EAOs have agreed to hold a Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM), but the agenda of the meeting will depend on negotiation results..."
Source/publisher: "Network Media Group" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-20
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Title: Myanmar armed groups vow to continue peace meetings with gov't
Description: " Seven armed groups have vowed to continue peace meetings with the government, saying that they will discuss the message delivered by Myanmar authorities at the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference in Nay Pyi Taw, official media reported Sunday. The third session of the six-day Panglong Peace Conference kicked off on Wednesday and the seven Northern Alliance groups attended the conference until Saturday, the 4th day of the session, according to the official Global New Light of Myanmar. The Northern Alliance includes Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP), Mongla's National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), Kokang's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta,ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army (AA). They did not sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) in 2015, which have been inked by 10 armed groups. Vice Chairman of the KIO Gun Maw promised that the armed groups will try to come back again to continue the peace process..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua"
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-07
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Title: EBO MYANMAR - 2015 ANNUAL REPORT
Description: "EBO provides facilitation and technical support to help resolve conflicts and reconcile differences through dialogue. EBO supports the Myanmar peace process by acting as a facilitator or advisor in crisis situations, by communicating with various factions involved in conflicts or political deadlocks. 
EBO aims to develop trust between stakeholders by helping build relationships that will underpin channels of communication between different groups. EBO does not seek to advance any side’s agenda or any particular ideology. In most situations, EBO uses informal channels to facilitate communications between groups and builds on the collective experience of EBO staff and international expert consultants. It also draws on the experience and knowledge of other peace processes.
 EBO helps to prepare stakeholders for effective participation in negotiations; ensuring that all sides are well informed on the latest developments and are acquainted with the ins-and-outs of formal and non-formal processes. EBO also provides support in ensuring lessons learned and best practices are shared among different groups in order to maximise the potential for successful negotiations. For long-term solutions, EBO seeks to initiate and support sustainable, long-term resolutions to conflicts by promoting the participation of all key stakeholders in dialogue processes. EBO aims to achieve lasting settlements to violent and complex conflicts in Myanmar, both military and political. By doing so, EBO aims not only to end the suffering directly caused by conflicts, but also to address the problems of poverty, human rights infringements, lack of proper education, under-developed economy, and other issues that are the inevitable by-products of violence and political unrest. EBO facilitates dialogue with, and in-between: Ethnic Armed Organizations, Tatmadaw (Government Army), Ethnic Political Parties, Government In 2015, EBO facilitation work mainly focused on: The Deed of Commitment (DoC) The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) The Union-level Political Dialogue process State-based Political Dialogue processes Maintaining the Bilateral Ceasefire Agreements and keeping the peace by supporting Liaison Offices and building their capacity. Much of this work was supported by the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission (FELM) as well as the Common Space Initiative (CSI). The EBO-FELM-CSI consortium manages the funds for the peace process provided by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The objective of this partnership is to facilitate the peace process by supporting and strengthening it as well as the emerging political dialogue through technical support and confidence building between the dialogue partners..."
Source/publisher: Euro Burma Office (EBO)
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-05
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Title: Interview with General Nar Si Po Yar Sein - တၢ်ထံၣ်လိာ်သံကွၢ်ဒီး ပဒိၣ်နီၢ်စံၣ်ဖိရၤစ့ၣ်
Description: "“(NCA) အခီပညီန့ၣ် တမ့ၢ်၀ဲဒၣ်တၢ်ဘှါရှဲထံ ရူၢ်ကီၢ်သဲး အကျဲဘၣ်ႉ (NCA) လၢကီၢ်ပယီၤသုးမုၢ်ဒိၣ်အဂီၢ်န့ၣ်မ့ၢ်၀ဲ တၢ်မၤပတုာ်က့ၤ ၀ဲဒၣ်ကလုာ်ဒူၣ်သ့ၣ် တဖၣ် အတၢ်ပၢၢ်ဆၢအတၢ်ဟူးတၢ်ဂဲၤတဖၣ်လီၤႉ” ကီၢ်ပယီၤပဒိၣ်ဒီး ကလုာ်ဒူၣ်ကရူၢ်ကရၢတဖၣ်အဘၢၣ်စၢၤ အတၢ်သူၣ်ထီၣ်တၢ်မုာ်တၢ်ခုၣ် တၢ်လဲၤကျဲအံၤ အိၣ်ကတာ်ထီအသးအဖီခိၣ် တၢ်အိၣ်သးသ့ၣ်တဖၣ် ခ့ၣ်အဲၣ်ယူၣ်= ကညီဒီကလုာ်စၢဖှိၣ်ကရၢ ကရၢခိၣ် (၂)လီၢ်လံၤ အတၢ်ထံၣ်၊ အတၢ်ပာ်သးတဖၣ် အိၣ်ဒ်လဲၣ်န့ၣ် ခ့ၣ်အဲးစံၣ်-ကညီတၢ်ကစီၣ် ထံၣ်လိာ်သံကွၢ်၀ဲဒ်အံၤန့ၣ်လီၤႉ..."
Source/publisher: KIC (Karen Information Center)
Date of publication: 2019-02-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-03-28
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: Sgaw Karen
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Title: ကီၢ်ပယီၤသုးပဒိၣ်ထုးထီၣ်၀ဲလံာ်တၢ်ပာ်ဖျါအံၤမ့ၢ်၀ဲတၢ်လိာ်ဘၢလိာ်ကွီၢ်လီၤအဂ့ၢ် ခ့ၣ်အဲၣ်ယူၣ်စံး၀ဲ
Description: "ဒ်ကီၢ်ပဒိၣ်သုးတၢ်ပာ်ဖျါအဖီခိၣ်(ခ့ၣ်အဲၣ်ယူၣ်)အံၤန့ၣ် လၢမုၢ်ထီၣ်ကလံၤစိးသုး၀ဲၤလီၢ်ခိၣ်သ့ၣ်၊ လူၢ်ပျဲၢ်ကီၢ်ဆၣ်၊ (ကါရိတါ)ဟီၣ်က၀ီၤသုး၀ဲၤလီၢ်ခိၣ်သ့ၣ်၊ ဘျံးဟီၣ်က၀ီၤတၢ်လီၢ်သ့ၣ်တဖၣ်အပူၤ တၢ်ထၢ၀ဲအခိအသွဲ(၂)ဘျီ၊ ကလံၤစိးသုး၀ဲၤလီၢ်ခိၣ်သ့ၣ်၊ လၢၢ်မုၢ်ပျီကျဲဟီၣ်က၀ီၤအပူၤတၢ်ခးစဲးပြဲး၀ဲ(၉)ဘျီ၊ သိလ့ၣ်မ့ၣ်ပိၢ်(၂)ဘျီ ဟဲအိၣ်ထီၣ် အသးဒီးမ့ၢ်၀ဲတၢ်မၤဟးဂီၤ(အဲၣ်စံၣ်အ့ၣ်)လီၤအဂ့ၢ် ကီၢ်ပယီၤသုးမုၢ်ဒိၣ်ထုး ထီၣ်၀ဲလံာ်တၢ် ပာ်ဖျါအဖီခိၣ်(ခ့ၣ်အဲၣ်ယူၣ်)တကပၤက့ၤမၤရှဲ၀ဲဒ်အံၤန့ၣ်လီၤႉ..." "တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးပစ်ခတ်တိုက်ခိုက်မှုရပ်စဲရေးသဘောတူစာချုပ်-NCAအပေါ် ချိုးဖောက်သည်ဟူသော ယခုလ ၂၅ ရက်နေ့က ထုတ်ပြန်သော တပ်မတော်၏ သတိပေး သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်သည် စွပ်စွဲမှုသာဖြစ်သည်ဟု KNU-ကရင်အမျိုးသားအစည်းအရုံးက ၂၆ ရက်နေ့တွင် သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်၍ တုံ့ပြန်ရှင်းလင်းပြောဆိုခဲ့သည်။..."
ခ့ၣ်အဲးစံၣ်
Source/publisher: KIC (Karen Information Center)
Date of publication: 2019-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-25
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: Sgaw Karen, Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ
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Title: ကီၢ်ပယီၤသုးပဒိၣ်ထုးထီၣ်၀ဲလံာ်တၢ်ပာ်ဖျါအံၤမ့ၢ်၀ဲတၢ်လိာ်ဘၢလိာ်ကွီၢ်လီၤအဂ့ၢ် ခ့ၣ်အဲၣ်ယူၣ်စံး၀ဲ
Description: "ဒ်ကီၢ်ပဒိၣ်သုးတၢ်ပာ်ဖျါအဖီခိၣ်(ခ့ၣ်အဲၣ်ယူၣ်)အံၤန့ၣ် လၢမုၢ်ထီၣ်ကလံၤစိးသုး၀ဲၤလီၢ်ခိၣ်သ့ၣ်၊ လူၢ်ပျဲၢ်ကီၢ်ဆၣ်၊ (ကါရိတါ)ဟီၣ်က၀ီၤသုး၀ဲၤလီၢ်ခိၣ်သ့ၣ်၊ ဘျံးဟီၣ်က၀ီၤတၢ်လီၢ်သ့ၣ်တဖၣ်အပူၤ တၢ်ထၢ၀ဲအခိအသွဲ(၂)ဘျီ၊ ကလံၤစိးသုး၀ဲၤလီၢ်ခိၣ်သ့ၣ်၊ လၢၢ်မုၢ်ပျီကျဲဟီၣ်က၀ီၤအပူၤတၢ်ခးစဲးပြဲး၀ဲ(၉)ဘျီ၊ သိလ့ၣ်မ့ၣ်ပိၢ်(၂)ဘျီ ဟဲအိၣ်ထီၣ် အသးဒီးမ့ၢ်၀ဲတၢ်မၤဟးဂီၤ(အဲၣ်စံၣ်အ့ၣ်)လီၤအဂ့ၢ် ကီၢ်ပယီၤသုးမုၢ်ဒိၣ်ထုး ထီၣ်၀ဲလံာ်တၢ် ပာ်ဖျါအဖီခိၣ်(ခ့ၣ်အဲၣ်ယူၣ်)တကပၤက့ၤမၤရှဲ၀ဲဒ်အံၤန့ၣ်လီၤႉ..." "တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးပစ်ခတ်တိုက်ခိုက်မှုရပ်စဲရေးသဘောတူစာချုပ်-NCAအပေါ် ချိုးဖောက်သည်ဟူသော ယခုလ ၂၅ ရက်နေ့က ထုတ်ပြန်သော တပ်မတော်၏ သတိပေး သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်သည် စွပ်စွဲမှုသာဖြစ်သည်ဟု KNU-ကရင်အမျိုးသားအစည်းအရုံးက ၂၆ ရက်နေ့တွင် သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်၍ တုံ့ပြန်ရှင်းလင်းပြောဆိုခဲ့သည်။..."
ခ့ၣ်အဲးစံၣ်
Source/publisher: KIC (Karen Information Center)
Date of publication: 2019-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-25
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: Sgaw Karen, Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ
Font: Zawgyi
Local URL:
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Title: ကၠီၣ်တဲၣ်ကီၢ်ဆၢ ဘၣ်ကီဘၣ်ခဲဒဲက၀ီၤအပူၤ တၢ်ကသူအါထီၣ်(Food Card )
Description: "ကီၢ်ကၠီၣ်တဲၣ်-ကီၢ်ပယီၤကီၢ်ဆၢ ဘၣ်ကီဘၣ်ခဲ ဒဲက၀ီၤသ့ၣ်တဖၣ်အပူၤ (The Border Consortium-TBC )လၢအဆီၣ်ထဲမွၤစၢၤ ဒဲက၀ီၤဖိသ့ၣ်တဖၣ် ဖဲတလါအံၤအတီၢ်ပူၤ သုးကျဲၤ၀ဲ လၢကစူးကါအါထီၣ် (Food card ခးက့) အဂ့ၢ်န့ၣ် ဒဲက၀ီၤ ဘၣ်မူဘၣ်ဒါတဖၣ်တဲ၀ဲန့ၣ်လီၤႉ ဖဲအပူၤကွံာ် ၂၀၁၆နံၣ်၊ လါယူၤလံန့ၣ် (TBC) စးထီၣ်သူကွၢ်၀ဲ ( Food card ခးက့) အံၤလၢ ဒဲက၀ီၤ ၂ဘ့ၣ် လၢအမ့ၢ် နိၣ်ဖိဒီး ထါမ်ဟ့ၣ်ဒဲက၀ီၤခံဘ့ၣ်အပူၤလီၤႉ စးထီၣ်က့ၤ တနံၣ်အံၤလါဖ့ၤဘြူၤအါရံၤအပူၤ ဒဲက၀ီၤလၢအအိၣ်တ့ၢ် တဖၣ်န့ၣ် ကသူအါထီၣ်၀ဲအဂ့ၢ် ကညီဘၣ်ကီဘၣ်ခဲကမံးတံာ်=( KRC)ၦၤပၢၤလီၢ်ဆ့ၣ်နီၤ စီၤရီပၠဘၢးထွ့တဲဘၣ်ခ့ၣ်အဲးစံၣ်-ကညီတၢ်ကစီၣ်န့ၣ်လီၤႉ..."
စးအဲၣ်ဆူ
Source/publisher: KIC (Karen Information Center)
Date of publication: 2019-02-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-25
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: Sgaw Karen
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Title: The Contested Areas of Myanmar: Subnational Conflict, Aid, and Development -မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ အတိုက်အခံဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့် ဒေသများ - နယ်မြေစိုးမိုး
Description: "နယ်စွန်နယ်ဖျားတွင်သာရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည့် ပြဿနာတစ်ခုမဟုတ်သော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ နယ်မြေစိုးမိုးရေး ပဋိပက္ခများသည် ကျယ်ပြန့်စွာ ပျံ့နှံ့လျက်ရှိပြီး နိုင်ငံ၏ အရေးအကြီးဆုံးသော နိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာ အခက်အခဲများကို ပုံဖော်နေသည်။ နယ်မြေစိုးမိုးရေး ပဋိပက္ခများသည် နိုင်ငံ လူဦးရေ၏ ၄ ပုံ ၁ ပုံကို တိုက်ရိုက် ထိခိုက်စေသည်။ ရာစုနှစ်ဝက်ကျော်ကြာအောင် နိုင်ငံတစ်ခုလုံး၏ နိုင်ငံရေးလမ်းကြောင်း၊ စီးပွားရေးတိုးတက်မှုနှင့် လူသားဘဝ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်မှုများပေါ်တွင် အကြီးအကျယ်သက်ရောက်မှုများ ရှိခဲ့သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ အမျိုးသားနိုင်ငံရေးပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲမှုများနှင့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးလုပ်ငန်းစဉ်များသည် သဘာဝအရ ခွဲမရအောင် ဆက်စပ်နေကြသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ နယ်မြေစိုးမိုးရေး ပဋိပက္ခများ ချုပ်ငြိမ်းစေရန် နည်းလမ်းရှာမည်ဆိုပါက ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲရေးကို အောင်အောင်မြင်မြင် ဆောင်ရွက်ရန်၊ လူနေမှုအဆင့်အတန်းများ မြှင့်တင်ရန် လိုအပ်သည်။ ၂ဝ၁၁ ခုနှစ်မှ စပြီး ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးကို ဦးတည်သည့် ထင်ရှားသည့် တိုးတက်မှုများရှိခဲ့သည်။ သို့သော်လည်း ရေရှည်တည်ငြိမ်ပြီး ကဏ္ဍစုံ ပြည့်စုံသည့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးရရှိရန်မှာ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံစနစ်များ ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲရန် လိုအပ်နေသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအာဏာကို ပြည့်ပြည့်ဝဝ ခွဲဝေပေးခြင်းမှ အရပ်သား အုပ်ချုပ်မှုသို့ပြောင်းခြင်း၊လူမျိုးစုတိုင်းရင်းသား အားလုံးက တရားဝင်ဖြစ်သည်ဟု လက်ခံအသိအမှတ်ပြုသည့် အစိုးရစနစ်တရပ်ပေါ်ထွက်လာရေးအထိ ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲရေးများပြုလုပ်ရန်လိုအပ်သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ လက်ရှိငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးဖြစ်စဉ်သည် တမျိုးသားလုံးအဆင့် ကြိုးပမ်းမှုဖြစ်သောကြောင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ အသိုင်းအဝိုင်းများမှ အရေးကြီးသည့် အကူအညီပေးရေးဆိုင်ရာ အခန်းကဏ္ဍတွင် ရှိနေသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ နိုင်ငံရေးအပြောင်းအလဲ၊ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်မှုများ လျင်လျင်မြန်မြန်ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာစေရန် ဆောင်ရွက်ဆွေးနွေးနေမှုများကို အထောက်အပံ့ဖြစ်စေရန်၊ ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး အလားအလာများ ဖြစ်ထွန်းအားကောင်းလာစေရန် The Asia Foundation သည် တစ်နှစ်ကျော်ကြာ အချိန်ယူပြီး မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ အတိုက်အခံ ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့်ဒေသများ - နယ်မြေစိုးမိုးရေးပဋိပက္ခ၊ ထောက်ပံ့ကူညီမှု၊ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး (The Contested Areas of Myanmar: Subnational Conflict, Aid, and Development ) စာတမ်းကိုပြုစုခဲ့ပါသည်။ ပါဝင်ရေးသားကြသည့် သုတေသီများနှင့် ဝေဖန်သုံးသပ်သူများ၏ အတွေ့အကြုံပြည့်ဝ ကျွမ်းကျင်မှုအပေါ်တွင်အခြေခံပြီး စာတမ်းရှင်များ ပူးပေါင်းရေးသားထားသည့် စာတမ်းတစ်ခုဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၂ဝ၁၃ ခုနှစ် တွင် The Foundation က ထုတ်ဝေခဲ့သည့် အာရှရှိ အတိုက်အခံ ပဋိပက္ခများဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့် နေရာများ - နယ်မြေစိုးမိုးရေးပဋိပက္ခနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး အကူအညီ (The Contested Corners of Asia: Subnational Conflict andInternational Development Assistance) စာတမ်းပေါ်တွင် အခြေတည်၍ ပြုစုထားခြင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အာဏာပိုင်များ စင်ပြိုင်အနေအထားဖြင့် အုပ်ချုပ်နေသည့် ပဋိပက္ခ သက်ရောက်မှုရှိသည့် ဒေသများ၊ အုပ်ချုပ်မှုများ ရောထွေးနေသည့် ဒေသများအကြောင်း အပါအဝင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတစ်ခုလုံးပေါ် သက်ရောက်မှုရှိသည့် အုပ်ချုပ်မှုဆိုင်ရာ အကြောင်းများကို ဖောင်ဒေးရှင်းအနေဖြင့် ၂ဝ၁၃ ခုနှစ်မှစပြီး တစိုက်မတ်မတ်လေ့လာထားခဲ့မှုများကြောင့် နိုင်ငံနှင့် ပတ်သက်သည့် အဖိုးတန် အချက်အလက်များကို ပံ့ပိုးပေးနိုင်ခဲ့သည်"
Source/publisher: Asia Foundation
Date of publication: 2018-01-10
Date of entry/update: 2018-02-05
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Type: Individual Documents
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Title: Justice and National Reconciliation: Why Looking at the Past is the Key to the Future
Description: "Since Burma embarked on its transition from a military government to a nominally civilian-led one in 2010, ?national reconciliation? has become a ubiquitous concept amongst its politicians and advocates for peace. The 2010 election was seen as an important opportunity for dialogue and cooperation, as well as a potential catalyst for peace in a country torn apart by more than 60 years of civil war. With the National League for Democracy?s (NLD) historic electoral win in 2015, hope was further renewed for rebuilding Burma into a genuine democracy and uniting its fragmented society....."
Source/publisher: Teacircleoxford
Date of publication: 2018-01-18
Date of entry/update: 2018-01-19
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Type: Individual Documents
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Title: Peace and nation-building in Myanmar
Description: "Inclusion, understanding, autonomy, conflict and poverty ? often far from the reach of the state — reflect just some of the challenges, as opportunities and progress, linked to the emergence of an inclusive national identity in Myanmar. They were also the focus of an excellent panel discussion as part of the 2017 Myanmar Update hosted by the Australian National University on 17-18 February. Cecile Medail, PhD Candidate at the University of New South Wales, began the panel with a look at the grassroots voices of Mon people in forming an inclusive national identity in Myanmar. The challenges of national identity during transition, and particularly for minority communities, were noted..."
James T Davies
Source/publisher: "New Mandala"
Date of publication: 2017-03-24
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-22
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Why Myanmar?s ethnic minorities lose faith in federalism and peace
Description: "In May 2017, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi invited representatives from across her deeply divided nation to a new round of peace talks. About 1400 delegates from government, parliament, military, political parties, civil society and ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) attended the meeting that covered political, social, economic, military and environmental issues. Unsurprisingly, a binding agreement on the most fundamental issue, the nature of federal power-sharing mechanisms between the country?s ethnic groups, remained elusive. The most controversial negotiation point at the meeting was the issue of ?non-secessionism”. Fearing the disintegration of Myanmar, government officials insisted on inserting the term in any final agreement. Representatives of most EAOs officially reject secessionist aims and commit to finding a negotiated federal settlement. Against the background of a decades-long civil war, however, many feel that the option of self-determination should be retained as a matter of last resort. Importantly, the negotiation positions of EAO leaders cannot be understood in isolation from wider societal trends. This is because many of Myanmar?s ethnic insurgencies are strongly dependent on local support among ethnic minority communities. In fact, the organisations are inextricable parts of larger ethnonational projects. While some EAO leaders have demonstrated considerable willingness to compromise with the government, the perspective of their movement?s grassroots has often become more intransigent..."
David Brenner
Source/publisher: ??New Mandala??
Date of publication: 2017-08-03
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-22
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: THE CONTESTED AREAS OF MYANMAR - Subnational Conflict, Aid, and Development
Description: "As Myanmar emerges from decades of authoritarianism and isolation, significant progress toward peace has been made since 2011. But heavy fighting and deadly clashes have intensified in many of the country?s contested areas, in particular Rakhine State, which has led to massive displacement, and Kachin and Shan States. These conflicts are among the world?s most enduring, posing significant challenges to national political reforms, economic growth, and human development, according to a study released yesterday by The Asia Foundation. The year-long study, ?The Contested Areas of Myanmar: Subnational Conflict, Aid, and Development,” comes at a pivotal moment amid longstanding conflicts in many parts of Myanmar, political dialogue to address the concerns of numerous ethnic groups, and a desire among international donors and aid agencies to support the peacebuilding process and the country?s political transition. Findings from the study shed light on structural changes that are crucial for achieving sustainable and comprehensive peace in a country of great ethnic and cultural diversity. In addition, it reveals the intimate connections between subnational conflicts and national politics in Myanmar, instances where development interventions have contributed to uneven power dynamics and fueled armed resistance, and ways in which international aid can sometimes damage prospects for peace when initiatives are not sensitive to conflict. In this context, the study underscores a critical need to continue the ongoing political and economic reforms while building a system of government that is widely recognized as legitimate by people of all ethnic nationalities. Below are some key findings from the study: Myanmar?s subnational conflicts are not a peripheral issue and directly affect much of the country In 2016, areas affected by active or latent subnational conflict were found in at least 11 of Myanmar?s 14 states and regions. One hundred and eighteen of 330 townships, containing almost one-quarter of Myanmar?s population, currently demonstrate live or latent characteristics of conflict. Myanmar?s conflicts are not caused by underdevelopment There is no simple correlation between human development, economic growth, and conflict in Myanmar, and subnational conflicts will not be resolved by measures to improve development outcomes. Conflict townships are on average only marginally less developed than non-conflict townships, particularly when Yangon is excluded. Some conflict townships exceed national averages, while others have the lowest development indicators in the country. Tackling underdevelopment alone will not create peace Development interventions alone can never lead to peace. Myanmar?s conflicts are inherently political and connect to the structure of the state. Political solutions are, therefore, required to solve subnational conflict. Given the complex nature of Myanmar?s armed conflicts, interventions and policies should be strengthened to address the underlying drivers of conflict and be more responsive to the power inequities that have driven conflict over years, especially during transitional political periods. Development policies can drive subnational conflict In many contested areas, economic changes and increased natural resource exploitation have ratcheted up tensions, engendered rivalries, fueled grievances, and provided funds that have sustained conflict. Foreign assistance can sometimes be manipulated to serve security objectives, particularly where government officials or leaders of ethnic armed organizations are able to decide project locations. In short, development interventions are never neutral. Aid can build momentum for peace as well as damage the prospects for peace Projects that serve the security aims of one side can damage the confidence of ethnic groups in the country?s transition, while programs that support political reforms, such as decentralization, can help build momentum. $13.7 billion in aid was committed to new projects between 2011 and 2015. Closer alignment of donors with government offers advantages in coverage, cost effectiveness, and sustainability, but it also poses risks for peace..."
Source/publisher: Asia Foundation
Date of publication: 2017-10-16
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-08
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Title: Dealing with displacement in Myanmar?s peace process (Working Paper).
Description: Executive Summary: "Myanmar has been engaged in a process of political change since 2011. A central goal of these reforms has been the attempt to resolve political conflicts between ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and the Myanmar Government. Talks began under the ?civilian government? led by Thein Sein and have continued under the National League of Democracy (NLD) - led Government. However, several years of talks have produced little concrete progress. This is a complex peace process, which has only the partial inclusion of Myanmar?s many ethnic armed organisations and which is being conducted in a climate of continuing conflict and state violence and continuing tensions between the Burman majority and other ethnic groups. This is evident in large - scale displacement from R akhine State (where more than 300,000 refugees fled to Bangladesh in September 2017) and in Kachin and northern Shan States (where more than 119,000 people have been displaced since 2011). There is also an urgent emerging problem of large - scale development and land acquisition projects creating further displacement. It is important not to be naïve about the scale of the challenges in Myanmar?s peace process, or indeed about the possibility that the peace process may break down entirely. However, it is a lso valuable to consider what would be required to maximise the chances of a successful peace process. There is no formula to determine why some peace processes work while others fail, but the chances of building a sustainable peace are substantially enhan ced when the process genuinely engages with and seeks to correct the inequalities and injustice that gave rise to conflict. For Myanmar, that must include addressing the causes and consequences of displacement . This working paper sets out the context an d experience of displacement in and from Myanmar. It identifies a number of areas that must be addressed, including: - The process of drafting a peace agreement, and displacement - specific provisions to include in a peace agreement; - The timing, design and implementation of return and reintegration of displaced populations; - Wider issues of legal protection, land governance and restitution. The working paper also identifies some cross - cutting themes, including the need to recognise a relationship between displacement and other aspects of peacebuilding (such as political autonomy for ethnic areas and land governance); the necessity of ensuring that displaced people themselves are central to the process of policy design, ideally through institutionalised mechanisms for dialogue, consultation and representation; and the importance of securing continued funding to support refugees and IDPs with a continuing need of international protection..."
Kirsten Mcconnachie
Source/publisher: Political Settlements Research Programme
Date of publication: 2017-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2017-12-08
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Title: New Complexities in Myanmar?s Peace Process
Description: " On 15 April, 2017, seven Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) - all non-signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA) - met in Pangkham, the de facto capital of the autonomous ?Wa State? within Shan State (northeast Myanmar). Convened by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) ? the most powerful of all ethnic militias in Myanmar ? the meeting lasted for five days, at the end of which the EAOs decided to create a new channel for political dialogue: the ?Union Political Negotiation Dialogue Committee (UPNDC)?. That this came nine days before the government announced the date for the second 21st Century Panglong Conference (21CPC) ? 24 May ?is a significant development in Myanmar?s complex ethnic peace process. It represents a potentially new approach towards reconciliation and brings to question the credibility of Nay Pyi Taw?s agenda for peace, spearheaded by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi..."
Angshuman Choudhury
Source/publisher: Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.
Date of publication: 2017-05-06
Date of entry/update: 2017-05-08
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Title: Myanmar: A New Muslim Insurgency in Rakhine State
Description: Executive Summary: "The deadly attacks on Border Guard Police (BGP) bases in Myanmar?s northern Rakhine State on 9 October 2016 and the days following, and a serious escalation on 12 November when a senior army officer was killed, signify the emergence of a new Muslim insurgency there. The current violence is qualitatively different from anything in recent decades, seriously threatens the prospects of stability and development in the state and has serious implications for Myanmar as a whole. The government faces a huge challenge in calibrating and integrating its political, policy and security responses to ensure that violence does not escalate and intercommunal tensions are kept under control. It requires also taking due account of the grievances and fears of Rakhine Buddhists. Failure to get this right would carry enormous risks. While the government has a clear duty to maintain security and take action against the attackers, it needs, if its response is to be effective, to make more judicious use of force and focus on a political and policy approach that addresses the sense of hopelessness and despair underlying the anger of many Muslims in Rakhine State. Complicating this is that Aung San Suu Kyi has some influence, but under the constitution no direct control over the military. The insurgent group, which refers to itself as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine State, including several hundred locally trained recruits. The emergence of this well-organised, apparently well-funded group is a gamechanger in the Myanmar government?s efforts to address the complex challenges in Rakhine State, which include longstanding discrimination against its Muslim population, denial of rights and lack of citizenship. The current use of disproportionate military force in response to the attacks, which fails to adequately distinguish militants from civilians, together with denial of humanitarian assistance to an extremely vulnerable population and the lack of an overarching political strategy that would offer them some hope for the future, is unlikely to dislodge the group and risks generating a spiral of violence and potential mass displacement. HaY would not have been able to establish itself and make detailed preparations without the buy-in of some local leaders and communities. Yet, this has never been a radicalised population, and the majority of the community, its elders and religious leaders have previously eschewed violence as counterproductive. The fact that more people are now embracing violence reflects deep policy failures over many years rather than any sort of inevitability. It is important for the government?s response to start from an appreciation of why a violent reaction from some Muslims in Rakhine State has emerged. The population has seen its rights progressively eroded, its gradual marginalisation from social and political life, and rights abuses. This has become particularly acute since the 2012 anti-Muslim violence in Rakhine. Disenfranchisement prior to the 2015 elections severed the last link with politics and means of influence. At the same time, the disruption of maritime migration routes to Malaysia closed a vital escape valve, particularly for young men whose only tangible hope for the future was dashed. An increasing sense of despair has driven more people to consider a violent response, but it is not too late for the government to reverse the trend. It requires recognising first that these people have lived in the area for generations and will continue to do so. Ways must be found to give them a place in the nation?s life. A heavy-handed security response that fails to respect fundamental principles of proportionality and distinction is not only in violation of international norms; it is also deeply counterproductive. It will likely create further despair and animosity, increasing support for HaY and further entrenching violence. International experience strongly suggests that an aggressive military response, particularly if not embedded in a broader policy framework, will be ineffective against the armed group and has the potential to considerably aggravate matters. So far, though there are indications of some training and solidarity, HaY does not appear to have a transnational jihadist or terrorist agenda. But there are risks that if the government mishandles the situation, including by continued use of disproportionate force that has driven tens of thousands from their homes or across the border to Bangladesh, it could create conditions for further radicalising sections of the Rohingya population that transnational jihadists could exploit to pursue their own agendas in the country. To avoid that requires subordinating the security response and integrating it into a well-crafted, overarching political strategy ? building stronger, more positive relations between Muslim communities and the Myanmar state and closer cooperation and intelligence sharing with regional countries."
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (ICG) Asia Report N°283
Date of publication: 2016-12-19
Date of entry/update: 2016-12-19
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Title: Burma?s Misguided Peace Process Needs a Fresh Start
Description: "The Burmese government?s peace parley, dubbed ?the 21st Century Panglong”, in Naypyidaw at the end of August was hardly over before the Tatmadaw went on the offensive again. Fierce fighting has been reported from Kachin State and northern Shan State. In Karen State, clashes have erupted between different local armed groups and in eastern Shan State, the powerful United Wa State Army (UWSA) has moved against what was considered a close ally, the National Democratic Alliance Army (Eastern Shan State) (NDAA[ESS]), also known as the ?Mongla Group,” and took over several of its positions. ?It is not a peace process,” one observer said. ?It?s a conflict process”. The ultimate irony is that Burma has seen its heaviest fighting in decades, since the Thein Sein government came to power in March 2011 and launched its so-called ?peace process.” Most of the fighting has occurred in Kachin and northern Shan states, with sporadic clashes in Arakan and Karen states. Burma?s civil war has not been this intense since the Tatmadaw launched offensives against ethnic Karen and communist forces in the late 1980s. The conflict never seems to end despite, or perhaps because of, the activities of foreign ?peacemakers.” A popular practice has been to invite representatives of the Tatmadaw and of ethnic armed groups on study tours to other conflict areas across the world, including Northern Ireland, Colombia and South Africa. The main player behind those trips is a UK-based outfit called Intermediate, founded and led by Jonathan Powell, who served as then Prime Minister Tony Blair?s chief of staff from 1997-2007..."
Bertil Lintner
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
Date of publication: 2016-10-11
Date of entry/update: 2016-10-12
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Title: Developing the Forgotten Land ? Eastern Nagaland in Northwest Burma
Description: "Eastern Nagaland has greatly suffered under the coercive control of the Burmese military junta, and is undoubtedly one of the most forgotten and least developed areas in the whole world. In a land that was forcibly divided by the British, and later annexed by Indian and Burmese forces, development is non-existent. Naga people continue to suffer due to decades of political games that have resulted in severe lack of education, electricity, hospitals or medicine. While most people survive with shifting cultivation, many lives are lost for opium as well as for the continuing battle against oppression. Read on to understand more about the Naga culture and the humanitarian situation in Eastern Nagaland as told by Shapwon, an Eastern Naga leader who founded Eastern Naga Development Organization (ENDO) in exile in Thailand."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-19
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Title: I Am One of the Top People on Their Lists to Be Killed: Naga Leader Part 1
Description: "hapwon is a leader of the Naga. He joined the nationalist movement in 1975 and is now the Joint Secretary of Naga National Council. He is a leader who is still miraculously alive after all his colleagues have been wiped out by Indian and Burmese forces as well as Naga socialists. For decades, numerous groups have tried to assassinate Shapwon in this present day head hunt. His love for his people has caused him great suffering, but there is no other way this brave leader could have chosen to live. This is part 1 of Shapwon?s story ? Nothing short of a Hollywood thriller."...See the Alternate link for part 2.
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-19
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Title: Please Support Our People, Not the Government ? They Are Cheating the World: Mahn Robert Ba Zan
Description: "Mahn Robert Ba Zan is a former Karen freedom fighter and an advisor to the Karen Communities of Minnesota. He served in the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) for more than 30 years, following in the footsteps of his father Mahn Ba Zan, the first commander of the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) and a former President of the Karen National Union (KNU). In 2000, Mahn Robert Ba Zan resettled to the United States of America with his family, changing his revolutionary tactics towards raising awareness and educating the Karen and other ethnics. In this interview, Mahn Robert Ba Zan talks about the ceasefire and car permits, ethnic unity, and how the international community can help the Karen in their quest for genuine peace and freedom."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-19
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Title: Ta?ang (Palaung) Leader?s Message to the International Community: ?Come and See the Real Picture in Our Areas?
Description: "The Ta?ang, also known as Palaung, are one of Burma?s myriad ethnic groups who have been fighting for basic human rights and autonomy for decades. Despite the international enthusiasm over Burma?s reform process, the reality in Burma?s ethnic borderlands remains dire, and the Burmese military continues its brutal offensive against ethnic civilians. Tar Aik Bong joined the Ta?ang struggle in 1987, and is now the Chairperson of the Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF), the Head of military commission of the Ta?ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), as well as a member of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) council and Foreign Affairs Department. The PSLF/TNLA is one of the few prominent ethnic armed groups yet to sign a ceasefire with the Burmese government. The following is Tar Aik Bong?s message to the international community."
Source/publisher: Burma Link
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-18
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Title: Ethnic Politics and the 2015 Elections in Myanmar (English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Description: Conclusion: "Myanmar goes to the polls in 2015 in a very different political context to the general elections in 2010 or 1990. Indeed, provided that political campaigning and the conduct of the polls are genuinely free and fair, it should become the most broadly contested election since independence in 1948. Yet, while political space has opened up and there have been many reforms since President Thein Sein assumed office in 2011, core ethnic aspirations have yet to be realized ? either through parliament or the national peace process. The country and its politics remain polarized and ethnicity highly politicized. For this reason, while the elections have the potential to be reasonably credible and inclusive (although far from uniformly so) and ethnic parties may fare reasonably well, it is not clear that the structures and processes in Myanmar politics are at present capable of effectively addressing the legacy of decades of ethnic conflict and discrimination that continue to leave many communities in the country neglected and marginalised. It is therefore vital that the election is closely monitored and openly pursued and that, whatever the outcome, it is not perceived as an end itself but another step in a reform process that still has a long way to run in bringing peace, equality and democratic rights to all the country?s peoples. A historic challenge awaits Myanmar?s leaders through the 2015 polls. As with the peace talks towards a nationwide ceasefire, they provide the opportunity for different parties to work constructively together in building a democratic future for the country. The question remains: will the 2015 election become the platform from which the issues of ethnic peace and inclusive reform are really grappled with, or will they result in another failed opportunity to do so?"
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
Date of publication: 2015-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-07
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Title: Burma Army tracks across Shan State
Description: "Since 2009, the Burmese military regime (the State Peace and Development Council ? SPDC), has been constructing a new 361-km long railway between Mong Nai in southern Shan State and Kengtung in eastern Shan State. The regime is claiming that the railway will promote the development of Shan State, facilitate passenger travel and ?contribute to swift fl ow of commodities.” However, the speed and ruthlessness with which the railway is being carved through this isolated border area reveal a much more sinister agenda. Scores of bulldozers and trucks are at work at each end of the railway, where thousands of acres of farmlands have already been confi scated. Attempts by farmers to complain have been met with threats of prison. Preparing for war The real purpose of the railway is strategic. It cuts between the northern and southern territories of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the largest ceasefi re group, which has refused to come under the regime?s control as a Border Guard Force. In the event of an offensive against the UWSA, or the resistance forces of the Shan State Army-South, the railway will enable rapid deployment of heavy weapons and other military supplies to this remote mountainous area. Apart from munitions, the main commodities that the railway will carry are natural resources plundered without consent from local communities. The railway runs directly through Mong Kok, where the regime and Thai investors are planning to excavate millions of tons of lignite for export to Thailand..."
Source/publisher: Shan Women?s Action Network (SWAN); Shan Human Rights Foundation
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
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Title: Democratization and Containing Ethnic Conflicts in Transitional Myanmar: A Study through Federalism Typologies and Model
Description: Introduction: "This paper aims to conceptualize Myanmar?s current political system in federalism context by viewing relevant typologies, and models. It also intends to produce a new federalism typology/model that can be applicable to analyzing and predicting Myanmar?s political architecture. The paper argues that transitional Myanmar is considered as a presidential-devolutionary federation with hybrid characteristics, combining various unitary and federal elements. More specifically and in dimensions relating to democratization and ethnic conflict management, which are significant in viewing the country?s current politics, Myanmar is an oscillating state, pivoting on two different extreme poles (strong unity and strong autonomy or highly centralized unitarianism and highly decentralized federalism); thus making the state dependent much on uncertain-unstable circumstances and the country?s federalization tends to be closely related to the fluctuation of power negotiations/competitions between two dominant stakeholders, composing of central government and ethnic opposition groups...".....Paper delivered at the International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies: Burma/Myanmar in Transition: Connectivity, Changes and Challenges: University Academic Service Centre (UNISERV), Chiang Mai University, Thailand, 24-­26 July 2015.
Dulyapak Preecharush
Source/publisher: International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies: Burma/Myanmar in Transition: Connectivity, Changes and Challenges: University Academic Service Centre (UNISERV), Chiang Mai University, Thailand, 24-­26 July 2015
Date of publication: 2015-07-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-10
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Title: Wardrums in Myanmar?s Wa hills
Description: "Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of Myanmar?s armed forces, or Tatmadaw, is a man on the move. Since the beginning of the year he has traveled to Laos and Indonesia, attended large-scale war games in central Myanmar, reviewed the country?s largest ever naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal, presided over the annual Army Day parade in the capital Naypyidaw and met with a string of foreign dignitaries. A recent less publicized engagement was arguably more significant for Myanmar?s war and peace prospects. On April 6, Min Aung Hlaing flew north from Naypyidaw to the garrison town of Lashio in northeastern Shan State to hold talks with Bao You-ri, the younger brother of Bao You-xiang, the ailing leader of the United Wa State Army (UWSA). Based east of the Salween River in a self-governing "special region", the UWSA is Myanmar?s largest insurgent group and is at present in an uneasy ceasefire with the government..."
Anthony Davis
Source/publisher: "Asia Times Online"
Date of publication: 2014-04-23
Date of entry/update: 2014-05-27
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Title: Ongoing struggles
Description: Key Points: • Myanmar?s central democratic reforms have received broad backing, enabling it to boost its legitimacy and consolidate its hold on power. • Although tentative ceasefires have been concluded with most of the ethno-nationalist armed groups, there is no clear timeline or plan to address longstanding demands for self-rule and the protection of cultural identities. • Meanwhile, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), the principal protagonist in the struggle for ethnic rights, has been the focus of sustained military offensives. As Myanmar?s democratic reform process rumbles on, military offensives continue despite ceasefires between most of the ethno-nationalist rebel armies and the government. Curtis W Lambrecht examines the road to peace in the country.
Curtis W Lambrecht
Source/publisher: Jane?s Terrorism and Security Monitor, May 2013,
Date of publication: 2013-04-30
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-03
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Title: More war than peace in Myanmar
Description: "LAIZA - Helicopter gunships hover in the sky above a battlefield. The constant sound of explosions and gunfire pierce the night for an estimated 100,000 refugees and internally displaced people. Military hospitals are full of wounded government soldiers, while bridges, communication lines and other crucial infrastructure lie in war-torn ruins. The images and sounds on the ground in Myanmar?s northern Kachin State shatter the impression of peace, reconciliation and a steady march towards democracy that President Thein Sein?s government has bid to convey to the outside world. In reality, the situation in this remote corner of one of Asia?s historically most troubled nations is depressingly normal..."
Bertil Lintner
Source/publisher: "Asia Times Online"
Date of publication: 2012-12-18
Date of entry/update: 2012-12-18
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Title: Ethnic key to US role in Myanmar
Description: "...The present danger in Myanmar is that the US and other Western nations have focused solely on the figures of Thein Sein and Suu Kyi, both of whom dominated the limelight during recent trips to the US. By contrast, ethnic minority groups, including the Chin, Kachin, Karen, Mon, and Shan, have received comparatively scarce attention and have generally been relegated to the margins of US and European engagement initiatives. Minority ethnic groups, most of which have been disempowered, oppressed and impoverished by a succession of repressive military regimes for the past six decades, now find themselves at a significant disadvantage in bringing critical facts to the fore... Washington would be well advised to take a more balanced approach to engagement and development in Myanmar and one more inclusive of ethnics, or risk a repeat of the interventions in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. "
Tim Heinemann
Source/publisher: "Asia Times Online"
Date of publication: 2012-10-10
Date of entry/update: 2012-10-10
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Title: Prospects for Ethnic Peace and Political Participation in Burma/Myanmar, Bangkok, July 8-9, 2012: Conference Report
Description: "In July, TNI-BCN hosted a two-day conference, involving a diversity of ethnic groups from different areas of Burma/Myanmar, with the theme ?prospects for ethnic peace and political participation”. Those taking part included 30 representatives from Burmese civil society, parliament and armed opposition groups. Political events in Burma are continuing to unfold rapidly, but reform is still at a tentative and early stage. Under the Thein Sein government, Burma has entered its fourth era of political transition since independence in 1948. Previous hopes for ethnic peace and the establishment of democratic structures and processes have been disappointed. A military coup in 1962 ended the post-independence parliamentary era, and the national armed forces (Tatmadaw) have dominated every form of government since. Meanwhile conflict has continued unabated in the ethnic borderlands. In recent months, new trends ? many of them positive ? have begun to reshape the landscape of national politics. Ceasefires have been agreed with the majority of armed ethnic forces; the National League for Democracy (NLD) has elected representatives in the national legislatures; Western sanctions are gradually being lifted; and the World Bank and other international agencies are returning to set up office in the country. Such developments are likely to have a defining impact on ethnic politics, which remains one of the central challenges facing the country today"..."In summary, Burma is now at a sensitive stage in its political transition. Under the Thein Sein government, encouraging prospects for the future have undoubtedly emerged. But reform is still at a very early stage, and there should be no underestimation of the difficult challenges that lie ahead. Ethnic conflict and military-dominated government continue in many areas and, after decades of division, intensive efforts are still required to bring about an inclusive and lasting peace. A new parliamentary system is in place, but further attention will be needed on such issues as electoral, census, land tenure rights, education, investment and economic reform to guarantee the rights of all peoples. Independent institutions must also strive to grow in an environment where power and decision-making are often in the hands of small elites. And, as events move quickly, it is vital that all parts of the country are included. The history of state failure has long warned of the debilitating consequences of political and ethnic exclusions."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland
Date of publication: 2012-07-09
Date of entry/update: 2012-08-23
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Title: Myanmar?s endless ethnic quagmire
Description: "...Scrapping the 2008 constitution and drafting a new one based on some kind of federal concept is likely the only viable way ahead to resolving Myanmar?s unresolved ethnic issue. Judging from the government?s response to ethnic demands, that isn?t likely to happen any time soon. Whatever the outcome of the present mass movement and the likelihood of some token NLD representation in parliament after the April 1 by-elections, Myanmar?s ethnic quagmire will endure and the government?s half-hearted calls for national reconciliation will remain unfulfilled."
Bertil Lintner
Source/publisher: "Asia Times Online"
Date of publication: 2012-03-08
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-08
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Language: English
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Title: The Dynamics of Sixty Years of Ethnic Armed Conflict in Burma (English)
Description: "...In this paper, I will analyse the dynamics of internal conflict that caused the conditions for over sixty years of civil war in Burma. In so doing, I will first investigate the root cause of ethnic armed conflict, and argue that the constitutional crisis and the implementation of the ?nation-building? process with the notion of ?one religion, one language, and one ethnicity? are the root cause of internal conflict and civil war in Burma. The political crisis in Burma, therefore, is not only ideological confrontation between democratic forces and the military regime but a constitutional crisis, compounded by the government?s policy of ethnic ?forced-assimilation? through the ?nation-building? process, which resulted in militarization of the state, on the one hand, and ?insurgency as a ways of life? in ethnic areas, on the other..."
Lian H. Sakhong
Source/publisher: Burma Centre for Ethnic Studies (Analysis Paper No. 1)
Date of publication: 2011-12-31
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-07
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Title: Myanmar tilts towards civil war
Description: "Myanmar moved closer to civil war in recent weeks after fighting broke out in Kachin State, a former ceasefire area in the remote northern region. Myanmar?s newly elected government now faces ethnic insurgencies on three separate fronts, threatening internal and border security. There is also the potential for more insurgent groups to take up arms and push their claims against the government. The escalating conflict is not going all the military?s way and risks further stunting Myanmar?s development and international confidence in its supposed democratic transition..."
Brian McCartan
Source/publisher: Asia Times Online
Date of publication: 2011-06-29
Date of entry/update: 2011-07-01
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Title: ETHNIC AREAS UPDATE: BURMA HEADS TOWARD CIVIL WAR
Description: • Despite the 7 November election?s illusory promise of an inclusive democratic system, the situation in ethnic nationality areas continues to deteriorate... • In addition to the ongoing offensives against ethnic non-ceasefire groups, the Tatmadaw increasingly targeted ceasefire groups who rejected the regime?s Border Guard Force (BGF) scheme... • In Shan and Kachin States, the Tatmadaw broke ceasefire agreements signed in 1989 and 1994 respectively... • Ongoing fighting between the Tatmadaw and ethnic ceasefire and non-ceasefire groups displaced about 13,000 civilians in Kachin State, at least 700 in Northern Shan State, and forced over 1,800 to flee from Karen State into Thailand... • Civilians bore the brunt of the Tatmadaw?s military operations, which resulted in the death of 15 civilians in Northern Shan State and five in Karen State... Tatmadaw troops gang-raped at least 18 women and girls in Southern Kachin State... • Desertion continues to hit Tatmadaw battalions, including BGF units, engaged in military operations in ethnic areas... • Reports on the alleged use of chemical weapons by Tatmadaw troops surfaced during offensives against Shan State Army-North forces... • In February, in response to the Tatmadaw?s ongoing attacks in ethnic areas, 12 ethnic armed opposition groups, ceasefire groups, and political organizations agreed to form a new coalition - the Union Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC)... • The situation for residents living in conflict zones of ethnic States remains grim as the regime re-launched its ?four cuts? policy which targets civilians... • The situation is likely to continue due to Burma?s constitution and the recently enacted laws, including the national conscription law.
Source/publisher: ALTSEAN-Burma
Date of publication: 2011-06-29
Date of entry/update: 2011-06-30
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Conflict or Peace? Ethnic Unrest Intensifies in Burma
Description: "...The breakdown in the ceasefire of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) with the central government represents a major failure in national politics and threatens a serious humanitarian crisis if not immediately addressed. Over 11,000 refugees have been displaced and dozens of casualties reported during two weeks of fighting between government forces and the KIO. Thousands of troops have been mobilized, bridges destroyed and communications disrupted, bringing hardship to communities across northeast Burma/Myanmar.1 There is now a real potential for ethnic conflict to further spread. In recent months, ceasefires have broken down with Karen and Shan opposition forces, and the ceasefire of the New Mon State Party (NMSP) in south Burma is under threat. Tensions between the government and United Wa State Army (UWSA) also continue. It is essential that peace talks are initiated and grievances addressed so that ethnic conflict in Burma does not spiral into a new generation of militarised violence and human rights abuse..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) & Burma Centrum Nederland (BCN). Burma Policy Briefing Nr 7, June 2011
Date of publication: 2011-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2011-06-25
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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