Nagging suspicions cast against Norway and the Burmese government pulling strings behind the 3 day Ethnic Nationalities Conference almost wrecked the day for the 150 participants and observers attending it in Chiangmai yesterday, saved at the last minute by a timely explanation by the organizers.
Most activists who had never been directly in touch with the Working Group for Ethnic Coordination (WGEC), made up of representatives from the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an umbrella organization of 11 armed movements, and non-UNFC armed movements that had managed the event.
There were not a few grounds for suspicion:
- Most had not trusted Naypyitaw from Day One, 17 August 2012, when President Thein Sein made his clarion call for peace talks
- The Norwegian offer to assist in the peace process was marred by its debatable role in Sri Lanka that led to the defeat of the rebels
- A explanatory diagram shown by the Euro Burma Office (EBO), rather than cleared up the confusion as intended, had further worsened the situation by making it look like being under the direction of the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) set up by Naypyitaw
The EBO, set up in 1998 by Harn Yawnghwe, its co-founder and director, is the fundraiser for the event. He had helped arrange an informal meeting between Naypyiataw’s chief negotiator U Aung Min and 5 of the ethnic armed movements in November 2011, which eventually led to the signing of ceasefire agreements with 4 of them.
“The diagram (attached here) is not the administrative structure of the setup,” he told the meeting last evening. “The EBO does not work under the Myanmar Peace Center. It is just to show how different organizations are connected to each other.”
The 3-day meeting ended with several resolutions. Among others are:
- Ethnic Peace Plan, which rejects the government’s planned 3 stage design: ceasefire, development and political dialogue but calls for “implementation of ceasefire agreements” instead of “development”
- A six point roadmap calling for political dialogues outside the Parliament, the participation of the civil society organizations (CSOs) right from the beginning and that the “Union Accord” reached at the new Panglong Conference be implemented without fail
The decisions of the Conference, say organizers, would serve as a strong message to President Thein Sein and opposition leaders Aung San Suu Kyi and Hkun Htun Oo, all of whom are visiting the United States this month.
The WGEC was the offshoot of the ethnic consultations held on the border on 26-28 February participated by 18 armed groups, to hold the Ethnic Nationalities Conference that ended yesterday. Its next mission, after reorganization, is expected to be the facilitation of the ongoing peace process.
