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| NLD's tactical manoeuvre could jeopardize national reconciliation and democratic principles Posted: 10 May 2016 03:19 AM PDT  As State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Htin Kyaw flew to Vientiane on 6 May for a short day-trip, seen sending the pair out and fetching them from Naypyitaw airport the very same day, by the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hliang, the relationship between the military, better known as Tatmadaw, and the National League for Democracy (NLD) regime seems to be in order. Observers looking at the body-language and protocol suggested that at long last, the military might be toning down its demanding, confrontation course and has accepted the fact to be a subordinate to the elected civilian NLD regime, overwhelmingly supported by the country's electorate. But a closer look at different issues that have been happening shows that this is not the case and in fact, just a give-and-take on the basis of a necessity, so that the coalition government between the Tatmadaw and the NLD could function. But however, the latent conflict continue to exist. Let us look at the likely compromise between the two Bamar camps of elected government and the military on how each tend to take up positions on some of the issues that have popped up during these few days. Suu Kyi's plate is full, no argument about it. Some are inherited from the previous regime, while others are newly acquired ones. Recent issues making headlines are NLD-United Wa State Army (UWSA) interactions; Arakan Army (AA)-Tatmadaw armed clashes and political positioning, including parliamentary debate; ultra-nationalist movements and Suu Kyi's regime mixed signals; and institutionalizing of State Counsellor Office. NLD-UWSA problematic U Soe Htay, a former senior military officer elected last year as NLD MP for Kawkareik township in Karen State, led a delegation to UWSA stronghold Panghsang of Shan State bordering China from 26 to 28. However the MP, who is a member of parliament's peace and ethnic affairs committee said he had friendly relations with the leadership of the UWSA, when he was serving in the Wa area as a Tatmadaw commander, was reprimanded for undertaking such an important mission without the party's approval. Consequently, he was removed from the duty of peace and ethnic affairs committee, apart from prohibiting him to take up important party's duties for one year. Following his visit Mr. Xiao Mingliang, deputy chair of the UWSA called on the government to hold a peace conference, including the participation of the United Nations and China as "witnesses", and to urgently resolve the armed conflicts. Such a conference would include the federal government, parliament, the military and all ethnic armed groups. Separately he called on the government to set up "liaison mechanisms" with ethnic armed groups, apart from the need to amend the constitution. Earlier, prior to the meeting, Chinese media carried an eight-point statement by Xiao Mingliang, in which he said the Wa region looked forward to cooperating with the new government and that it respected the results of last November's elections boycotted by the UWSA, according to the report of Myanmar Times. AA and Tatmadaw row The conflict between the AA and Tatmadaw has played out on two levels. One is militarily and the other within the parliament. The Tatmadaw accused the AA of being anti-democratic and thus also also against the President Htin Kyaw government for starting the fight in Ararkan State. On 16 April, Tatmadaw columns clashed twice with AA while combing operations in response of a tip-off that a 100-member AA contingent entered an area near Lawyamataung in Kyauktaw Township during the month. Responding to the Tatmadaw's offensive, an ambush by the AA killed some of regime's troops and including a battalion commander, while quite a number of others were wounded. AA's commander-in-chief Brigadier-General Tun Myat Naing recently told a news media that "The conflict began when the Burmese Army advanced their units from the 5th, 9th and 15th Military Operations Commands into areas we occupy, prompting us to defend ourselves." Following the armed clashes that caused the people to flee their homes in the affected areas, and people's demonstration in nine Townships to end the war in Arakan State prompted the Arakan National Party (ANP) lawmaker U Wai Sein Aung to the Upper House of Parliament to table a proposal on 2 May, urging the Union government to include the AA in the peace process and requesting that the military agree to a cessation of hostilities. Although the legislators earlier agreed to discuss the motion, due to the intervention of Defence Minister Soe Win, on 4 April the chamber's speaker, Mahn Win Khaing Than of the National League for Democracy (NLD), opted to put a debate that began a day earlier on record rather than pushing for a more forceful endorsement of the ANP lawmaker's proposal. The upper chamber voted to document the proposal by a vote of 195-6. Prior to the voting to shelve it just as a record, several appointed military MPs rejected the parliamentary debate, including an MP from NLD saying that the case be best handled on a wider spectrum within the bounds of the nationwide peace process, the Defence Minister also explicitly said the military was defending against the attacks of the Arakan Army, which is responsible for the current conflict. "They have a right to express their desires in a democratic way, but taking up arms and fighting against the army is worrisome for the future of our country's democracy." Ultra-nationalist movements Adding to the mixture of the NLD's problems is the ultra-nationalist's sabre-rattling, which the party seems to be giving in, if not exactly being cowed or appeased. On 28 April, the ultra-nationalists supported by the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion – commonly known as Ma Ba Tha – object to a recent statement by the US expressing condolences for victims of a boat sinking in Rakhine State. The statement said local reports alleged the victims were Rohingya – who are called "Bengalis" by those who don't recognise them as one of the 135 official ethnic groups. Again, on 2 April, the ultra-nationalists continues unabated to press the government to denounce publicly objecting to the US embassy's statement and pledged to regroup on May 5 with an even larger camp moving in from Ayeyarwady Region. Perhaps, bowing to the pressure Suu Kyi was said to meet the US ambassador lately and advised not to use the term "Rohingya" to describe the persecuted Muslim population that has lived in Myanmar for generations, according to Bangkok Post report of 8 May. "We won't use the term Rohingya because Rohingya are not recognised as among the 135 official ethnic groups," said Kyaw Zay Ya, Suu Kyi's spokesperson from the Foreign Ministry, who was at the meeting. "Our position is that using the controversial term does not support the national reconciliation process and solving problems," said the report. The ultra-nationalist seems to be satisfied according to a leader of the group with Suu Kyi's handling the issue vis-à-vis the US ambassador's usage of the term "Rohingya". "We don't want that word because they are not our nationality," said Thaw Bar Ka, a leader of the group. "And now I read the news that the Foreign Ministry agrees with us. It's really good. At first, I thought the new government would be useless on this issue." Institutionalizing State Counsellor Office Suu Kyi seems to be really in a hurry to consolidate political power, as the move to institutionalize and create a ministry for her State Counsellor Office is being pushed forward, on the heels of the quiet protocol endorsement as ranking second only to the President within the administration, a few weeks earlier. On 5 May, in a message sent to the Union parliament by President U Htin Kyaw said the new ministry would allow the State Counsellor to perform her duties more effectively. "A new ministry is needed to work more effectively on issues like national reconciliation, peace, development, rule of law and other government tasks," U Htin Kyaw said. Section 202 of the Constitution says that the president, with parliamentary support, can restructure, axe and create ministries. In this sense, the government earlier has cut the number of ministries from 36 to 21, but also created a new Ministry for Ethnic Affairs. Parliamentary debate on the proposal of setting up a new ministry for Suu Kyi is set to take place soon. That discussion is likely to feature objections from military MPs who registered strong opposition when the state counsellor position was created specifically for Suu Kyi. But Suu Kyi's NLD can comfortably pass most of its bills because of its hefty majority. Outlook and perspective Looking at the said problematic issues, they could be grouped into the category of ethnic conflict, dealing with the ultra-nationalist pressure group and consolidating Suu Kyi and NLD political decision-making power. The NLD handling of AA issue is controversial as it has agreed to shelve the proposal of debating the acceptance of AA in the peace process and also the curtailing the Tatmadaw offensive in Arakan State. The Tatmadaw insistence of AA to surrender and its positioning that it is protecting the U Htin Kyaw government that is democratically elected could be interpreted in two ways. One is the likely acknowledgement that the Tatmadaw is the defender of a democratic regime, while the AA is labelled an anti-democratic group. The other would seem like giving the government giving the Tatmadaw necessary endorsement and legitimacy to launch offensive against the AA. Adding to such generalization of the government siding with the military is the shelving of the ANP proposal to accept AA in the peace process and failure to stop the military offensive in Arakan State. Regarding the issue of NLD member, without the party's knowledge, meeting with the UWSA and consequent reprimanding the said member is as if to show that the NLD is not doing anything without the Tatmadaw's agreement, showing a degree of angst it has to upset the ethnic policy of Tatmadaw. The military policy on the ethnic resistance could be summed up as the implementation of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) or total surrender and viewing the Kokang or Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Mong La or National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) and UWSA as foreign proxies. AA and Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) are excluded from the peace process for they happened to be in alliance with the MNDAA in fighting the Tatmadaw, starting last year. The NLD giving in to the ultra-nationalist group on the question of "Rohingya" terminology could also be seen that the party is quite far away from implementing the secular form of governance, which is a must in a democratic society, and behaving as being indifferent to the rising tide of racism in the name of protecting Buddhist religion. The consolidation of Suu Kyi and NLD position in political decision-making is definitely not according to the liking of the military and how far the tolerance will be extended will likely depend on the level of give-and-take negotiation that could be thrashed out between the two adversaries. For now, Suu Kyi seems to be leaning heavily only on the compromise worked out between her party and the military, as evident by the handling of the problematic issues of the day, while she is leaving the ethnic nationality camps in the cold. So much so, Khun Tun Oo, head of the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA) and chair of the Shan National League for Democracy, recently said ethnic people cannot count on the ruling party, according to RFA report. "Ethnic people have only the United Nationalities Alliances (UNA) – a twelve ethnic political party alliance - or the National Brotherhood Federation (NBF) or the current ethnic representatives of parliament to rely on for ethnic affairs. Ethnic people can no longer rely on the NLD," he said during an opening speech at a UNA meeting on May 7. Two glaring disagreement that have irked the ethnic nationalities were the NLD appointment of ethnic individuals to a number of cabinet positions without consulting the concerned ethnic parties and installing NLD-led State governments in Arakan and Shan States, where the ethnic parties were ahead and NLD only won a minority of seats in the two said State elections. Compounded by the meaningful or lack of dialogue either with the ethnic party alliances or non-signatory Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), it is not a wonder that the sidelined ethnic camps have questioned the NLD's commitment to federalism and the peace process after it already broke power-sharing pledges. Finally, bowing to the pressure of the ultra-nationalist just not to anger the group and even toeing it's racist line of thinking for tactical reasons, such as worries to lose support base of the extreme-Buddhist groupings that are infected with Islamophobia, is not the way to go. The NLD would need to be firm in its commitment on federal democratic principles, brushing out it's latent racism tendency that might exist within its rank and file, and embarks on the realization leading to the secular form of government, in words and deeds. Otherwise, all the promises of national reconciliation and peaceful promised land would be out of reach and could even dragged down the NLD to the level of anti-democratic and ethnocentric regime that it has strived to avoid and get rid of all these years. |
| To Hopeland and Back (The 19th trip): The long wait Posted: 09 May 2016 08:26 PM PDT As long as you stop making everyone else responsible for happiness, the happier you'll be. Nina Guilbeau, author of Too many sisters Today we meet the experts to brief the current situation in the peace process. It is facilitated by Ms Sofia Busch, Dr Thant Myint U's better half, who is also the principal organizer of the workshop tomorrow. They are:
 The original plan was to hold a two-day workshop in Rangoon and then another two-day one at Naypyitaw. Unfortunately, several VIPs including Dr Tin Myo Win, who had previously agreed to join the workshop in Rangoon, will not be able to make it, we are informed by Sofia. As a result, we will be having only a one-day exercise instead of two, tomorrow. The bright side of it is that I'll be able to pursue other worthwhile activities on 7 May. At 13:00, I'm at the PIY (Pyidaungsu Institute-Yangon Office), to meet our researchers led by Dr Sai Oo there. The office here has become bigger as PICM (Pyidaungsu Institute-Chiang Mai), first set up in August 2013, shrinks down. Which is nothing strange, because PIY is where the real action is. The reception is in the evening, 18:00-20:30. Lots of people to meet and lots of things to discuss and forget afterward. But I do remember one thing, what two of the friends say: That the investment machine no longer runs. I ask why? And they reply it's because the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) has been without a chair since 30 March, when the reins of power was transferred to the new government. Then I remember what Jim Hamerle, my late American friend, said years ago: It's one thing to run for the office. But it's entirely another thing to run the country. |
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