The highest level of direct negotiation between President Thein Sein and
9 top leaders of Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), aiming to secure the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) took
place on September 9, 2015 in the country`s capital, Napyitaw. The meeting was inconclusive, failing
to
deliver the expected outcome
of fully resolving any remaining issues of disagreement in the
Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). The only clear outcome from the meeting was the decision of signing
NCA
in October as proposed by
President Thein Sein. The failure of securing a final DEAL left everyone guessing how many numbers of EAOs would sign NCA. The question then becomes “how
inclusive the NCA process would be? If only a handful of EAOs sign onto it, can one really call it nationwide? Or if only
two or three groups sign NCA, can the process move forward as the Commander-in-Chief had already stated that he would do the signing of NCA
with even one or two groups? The fundamental question now is what should the government do to offer to convince as much EAOs as possible to
sign NCA, if
not all that it recognizes?
With
this unwanted
real situation facing
the
NCA process, this analysis is going
to
offer what both sides have to do
to
salvage the peace
process within the
next
two weeks.
Just to recap, the main contentious issue, which was not expected to be an issue of this scale of difficulty a
year ago,
is the
all-inclusive policy of EAOs. Summit
after
summit,
EAO leaders reaffirmed their common
position endorsing the
inclusion
of all Ethnic
armed
organizations,
especially
16 original members of the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordinating Team (NCCT), to sign NCA. In adopting their common policy of all-inclusion, their main fear is the
potential military
assault of
Tatmadaw on EAO groups who might not be able to sign NCA. None of the EAO leaders want to see
a situation, where the government forces will launch a full-scale military attack on the non-signatory members of NCA. Because of such lingering concern for military assault from the Tatmadaw, EAO
leaders, in their last ethnic summit at Law Khee Lar in June 2015, collectively re-adopted their
common position of all-inclusion in the signing of NCA. To advocate for this all-inclusive position
with President Thein Sein, they formed the highest level of negotiating team
with 9 members,
comprising of 5 top leaders from the five largest groups of NCCT members, 3 leaders from
the
newly formed Senior Delegation (SD), and one NCCT representative. Only one from NCCT could attend
even
though 3 NCCT team leaders were invited. As a silver bullet from EAOs, this high-level team was given
the full mandate to
fully finalize
NCA.
In their historic mission, the high-level delegation indeed has asked President
Thein Sein to approve
their all-inclusive policy of EAOs in the signing of NCA. This inclusion position is basically calling for allowing the
six
groups that the government has refused
to include such
as TNLA, AA, MNDAA, LDU, WNO and ANC to sign. President accepted all-inclusiveness as a policy in principle, but
rejecting the idea of all EAOs to sign NCA simultaneously. Because of President`s refusal to include the six groups, EAO
top
leaders asked President to give guarantees for the four underlined conditions: (1) military: no military offensive against any
group that does not sign at the first phase of the
signing of NCA, (2) political: ensuring
that all relevant forces including EAOs participate in future political dialogue, (3) humanitarian assistance: assuring that all ethnic states, including conflict-affected
areas, have equal access to
humanitarian aid
and other humanitarian assistance services, and (4) lifting
of unlawful association act for groups who
do not sign the NCA. Most of the EAO top leaders, who
were
actually negotiating with President, felt
that President
was not
forthright
in giving the reassurances that
they sought from
the government.
Such unconvincing response from President
created a
very uncertain atmosphere
for EAO top
leaders to finalize
the
Deal,
even though they had
the
full mandated power to do so.
Military guarantee is a must: : President Thein Sein, the Chief negotiator Minister U Aung Min, and the Commander-in-Chief must accept the
reality
that many EAOs are still reluctant to
sign NCA
Deal if no explicit guarantee is given, promising that there will be no military
offensive against groups
who
do not sign NCA at the first phase.
The simple
truth is that the signing
of NCA depends on this
type
of guarantee that EAO leaders are calling for. In
retrospect, the outcome
of the
high-level meeting would have been decisive as expected, if U Aung Min and President Thein Sein had utilized their rare
meeting times in the actual negotiation to explain the types of guarantee that EAO top leaders are asking
for. Unfortunately, the top leaders of EAOs, who wield the
final decision-making power, were
not convinced enough to make the final call, as mandated, in favour of committing to the signing of NCA. Worse, a majority of top leaders came back with their longstanding sense of skepticism
and distrust in the overall peace process exacerbated. To make the mater worse, Senior General Min Aung
Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief, was
taking oversea trip
in the
times of
such
historic
high-level
meeting, which was another factor fuelling the skepticism argument that “Tatmadaw does not want to
give any form of reassurances that EAO leaders are
coming here for”.
With such hardening skepticism overshadowing the current NCA process, the attempt to woo hard- lined leaders of EAOs to sign NCA is becoming much more difficult, if not impossible between now and general election. The problem is that the key EAO leader like General N
Ban
La, who is also
leading KIO, the most powerful group of EAOs, took
a public stance already
stating
that
KIO will not
sign NCA in the first week of October. This is very serious matter since KIO has been holding the
deal-breaking power. The decision of KIO either for or against the signing
of NCA has a profound
effect on the process.
The
peace process without KIO onboard
is going
to be very challenging, and would not be conducive at all for
the
successful implementation of the agreed terms and conditions in
NCA.
From the government side, Minister U Aung Min himself has stated publicly in numerous occasions that the government will be willing to give guarantees. The mismatch between words and real actions
become a problem here. Cautiously cooperating EAO leaders see that giving a verbal guarantee as nothing
more than
just paying
the
lip-service. In fact, it does not make sense to utter out verbally if the
government is not willing to give such reassurance either. As it stands, in order to maximize number
of EAOs for the signing of NCA, the only
thing the government can
do is to put in writing whatever guarantees the government can do as explicit as possible. Without giving
such
unequivocal guarantees with the
plain
languages, a majority of EAOs would still be reluctant to
sign NCA in October.
Implementing the provisions of NCA with
a handful of EAOs will be too
difficult,
if
not impossible.
Therefore,
the government should
use any opportunity it has
to
hammer out
a
written form of guarantees and present to the EAO leaders ahead
of their ethnic summit, which would be the last and final round for all EAO leaders to gather before the signing of NCA in
October, 2015.
A
time for
exercising the right to self-determination for
EAOs
Collective Unity versus self-determination: : Leaders of EAOs are preparing to come for the last round of their own Ethnic Summit scheduled to be held on September 28-30, 2015 before the signing of NCA. The central question of the meeting
is
to tackle the key practical question of maintaining Collective unity
among EAOs versus the
individual right to self-determination.
Of
course, the clear answer is not to choose either ONE or the other.
They
need both. The only thing
is
how they manage the two intertwined questions. Managing
the
two questions requires a clear differentiation between
Unity and self-determination. Unity is not their political goal, but a mean they would employ to
achieve their end political
goal
such as the right to self-determination, which would allow them to
determine their own political destiny. While doing everything they can to maintain their collective
unity, it is also very critical that their effort to maintain unity does
not become a stumbling
block preventing
them
from pursuing their desired political goal. It would be a missed opportunity
as well as strategic
blunder for them to sacrifice their chance of entering into a serious political dialogue with the
government for the sake of maintaining a total unity. After all, as a veteran revolutionary Arakan leader, U Khaing Soe Naing Aung has said, “the total Unity or a 100 % unity among EAOs is not possible” among ethnic armed
organizations with such diversity and different interests.
In calling
for ethnic unity, one should
realize that there is also
a greater need to
be able to
seize
the opportunity
to advance ethnic political interests within the limited time. The historical accounts of
armed struggles have shown that there had been cases of Unity breakdown
among
EAOs. Such breakdown of unity
among them in the past was made possible by
their own ethnic groups. One of the challenging facts that make the attempt to maintain ethnic unity very difficult is the diversity in terms
of political viewpoints, geographical concentrations, multiple
and different interests of 16 or more
ethnic armed organizations. The sad
reality is
that with these 17 groups,
the
motive and intention of each group
in
calling for the collective unity will not be the same. For some groups, there is a genuine concern about divide and rule of the enemy`s long military tactics,
fearing
that Ethnic Armed
organization will be dismantled one after another.
There would also be some groups who believe that maintaining unity
as one bloc means that EAOs have a stronger bargaining
power in any negotiation
with
their common enemy. That is
legitimate and true. But, for some, calling for
unity
could basically mean protecting their own narrow economic interests as well as current political power status. No one
is
fully sure of what goes on in the minds of all these
key
leaders with diverse backgrounds as well as
experiences. Their respective political calculations behind calling
for unity could vary. By
all
means, calling
for ethnic unity should not be driven by self-serving
interests nor should
it
be simply
driven by having just
a
common
enemy. What is
important
and
necessary now is
that
“EAO leaders
are pragmatic with the ethnic unity theme and how they utilize it as a mean to advance their causes of
longstanding armed
struggles.”
In fact, leaders of the EAOs deserve a due recognition for consistently safeguarding the collective
unity of EAOs especially since their formation of the negotiating team - the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) – in November, 2013. Their commitment to the collective unity is one of
the
main operating engines behind their successful negotiation of the text of what become known as
the
Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), which is one of
the
most comprehensive and politically
meaningful documents so far in the political history
of the Union
of Myanmar. Even after negotiating
the
text of NCA, for the sake of ethnic unity, EAO leaders still defend their common position calling
for
the inclusion of all EAOs, particularly members of the NCCT Team, in the signing of NCA. Despite knowing that the government will not agree to their proposal of all EAOs to sign NCA at the
first phase for various political reasons, EAO leaders
had sent delegation after another including
the highest level of negotiating team, which was their final attempt to push for all-inclusion. The mission of the highest level of negotiation did
not
result in securing
their primary
goal
of all-inclusion. However, the main message here is that EAOs had
adhered to their collective unity
until the final minute of direct negotiation with the head of the country, President Thein Sein. If one look at the effort of EAOs through the lens of ethnic unity, it is clear that EAOs had done all that they had to do
in order to
maintain ethnic unity.
After all, the next step is to allow pragmatism
and realism
to prevail in pursuing their political goal.
With the reality that they cannot move forward with their policy of all-inclusiveness for the signing
of NCA at the first phase, leaders of EAOs must adopt a pragmatic approach to break the impasse. In fact, this so-called all-inclusion
is more important for the political dialogue phase. No relevant forces
including the EAOs should be left out of the political dialogue process, where each stakeholder would
have opportunity to present their viewpoints on any topic of discussion. What is most important in
this whole process of NCA is the text of NCA – provisions and clauses mutually
agreed already. If some of EAO leaders object to a certain clauses in the NCA text, it would be a serious issue. That was
not the case anyway. Be the hardliners or moderate
thinkers, they
all agree to
the text of
the current NCA, which is what they are going to
sign with the
government of Myanmar. Now is the
time for individual member organizations to exercise their birthright to self-determination
in line with Saw Ba Oo Gyi`s principle of “Karens shall determine Karen destiny”. Or in line with the Shan political
scientist,
the
late Mr.
Chao Tzang Yawnghwe put it,
“Common
aim,
diverse actions”.
The leaderships of EAOs are under immense pressure
from different interest groups whether to sign or not to sign. The fact that they know best about the real situation
they are facing, the time has come for
them to make the tough choice with their own decisions. Whatever choice they make, they should defend and justify the difficult decision
they
will make. With the time almost running out,
they
cannot afford to try to avoid exercising their decision making power.
After all, the job of a leader is to make
an informed decision after evaluating both sides of the competing arguments. Worrying about making a mistake should not be
their only calculation
in calling
their final shot. The principled and
responsible leadership requires the instinct and courage to make a decision at the right time. Now is such right time for EAO leaders to
play the role of their principled leaderships as
they are
expected.
The clear message as far as the NCA process is concerned, delaying the process and buying time for the next one year will not necessarily
bring a better outcome than what they have got. By taking into account the agreed text of NCA and guarantees that President Thein Sein has given, the time has come
for
each member of the EAOs to make the final call either for or against the signing of NCA in
October.