A Malaysian-based Burmese academic, speaking at the Chiangmai University’s Faculty of Social Sciences, on Wednesday (2 September), told his audience he didn’t think Burma’s military was in a hurry to leave the country’s political stage.

“No way,” Dr Myint Zan said in response to a student’s query. “But I hope we don’t have to wait until hell freezes over.”

The professor of the Faculty of Law, Multimedia University, from Melaka (Malacca) who finished his doctorate in Australia, was giving a lecture under the heading “A (Past-Oriented?) Glimpse of Some Aspects of Burma/ Myanmar Ethnic Conflicts.”

He nevertheless was “cautiously optimistic” about the ongoing democratic transition in his home country.

Touching on the well-known ethnic call for federalism that had prompted the late Gen Ne Win to take over the whole country under military rule on 2 March 1962, he recalled what the dilapidated former dictator told his colleague U Chit Hlaing on 27 July 1995.

“Had I known (the standard Buddhist teaching on) Anicca (Impermanence), Dukkha (suffering) and Anatta (Non-self), I wouldn’t have done what I had done in 1962.”

The other speaker was Dr. Nehginpao Kipgen, Policy and Research Consultant for Chiangmai-based Ethnic Nationalities Affairs Center (ENAC) and Editor and General Secretary of Washington-based Kuki International Forum, who spoke under the heading ‘Ethnic Minorities and Peace Process in Myanmar.” He is a regular contributor to Thailand’s Bangkok Post.

He was frank when asked by a listener about the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) which was finalized on 7 August and published in government-run media on 18 August, which marked the 4^th anniversary of President Thein Sein’s call for peace talks in 2011.

“I’m not sure whether it will be signed before the (November) elections.”

The ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) 5 top leaders are scheduled to meet the President and the Commander-in-Chief on 9 September in Naypyitaw in an effort to clear what is considered the last stumbling block in their negotiations: all-inclusive signing or selected signing. The EAOs are for the former and the government for the latter.