As the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) leadership prepares to leave for Mai Ja Yang, making stopovers in Rangoon and Naypyitaw to meet National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, it becomes apparent that it must have done quite a lot of research and mind-reading on the government leader, so that appropriate answers and counter proposals could be formulated.
First, let us look at Suu Kyi’s mindset, particularly on what she might be striving at to achieve success in her initiative of 21 Century Panglong Conference or Convention (21CPC), which her predecessor started out as Union Peace Conference (UPC) last February.
According to the meeting between Suu Kyi and the Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) which represented the 8 Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) late last year, she elaborated issues that were important to the peace process as follows:
- No hidden agenda in trying to establish a real federal democracy for all the people
- Real political will and cooperation of all the ethnic people
- To overcome angst through trust anchored in success and achievement of peace
- All precious things are not easy to achieve
- 70 years of war is far too long
- There would be no development without peace, peace must be sought through unity in diversity, and the need to protect political legacy for the next generation
- Participants’ ability and bravery needed to do the duty
- Different generations – young and old – should have responsibility and a sense of duty
- To nurture the mentality of “give” (rather than “take”), to the country
- Her intention to listen more than to make policy clarification
- Harmony could create peace
- In order to be successful, all-inclusiveness and principled participation in the convention are necessary
- All should discuss if it should be called UPC, 21CPC, 2nd or 3rd Panglong
- Panglong Spirit more important than Agreement, as speedy, common independence from the British was achieved through “unity in diversity” of Panglong Spirit
- Panglong Agreement stated equality accepted without question, but secession issue must be addressed although she is not for secession, and whether it is needed to be included in the cornerstone of union-building
- Federalism is integration and not disintegration, according to the academics and good for all the people and ethnic groups
- In good functioning federal union, there is no secession
- Accepts equality but ethnic rights of self-determination needs to be discussed in details;
- To build strong federal union through Panglong Spirit
- Wants to hear the ethnic nationalities’ aim and object rather than clarification of her own policy and not sticking dogmatically to it
- Constitutional amendment would be through the parliament.
Of all the details mentioned, the most important is the very concept of the country’s genesis, emergence or formation, which is differently interpreted by the Bamar political class, including Bamar military, and the ethnic nationalities.
The Bamar rightly or wrongly believed that they have the right to inherit the British colonial master’s mantle, when Burma was granted the independence, for the non-Bamar territories were owned by the Bamar ancient kings, while the non-Bamar ethnic nationalities are of the opinion that the Union of Burma is a newly formed political entity, due to the virtue of 1947 Panglong Agreement between them and the Bamar State, then known as Burma Proper or Ministerial Burma.
The vocabulary of “Panglong Agreement, Promises and Spirit”
If we talk about Panglong Spirit, it is adamant that we need to discuss the emergence of its agreement and its pledges, which comes with it. Let us go briefly on what these are all about.
The Panglong Agreement, as we all know, is the 9 point treaty signed between Burma, the Federated Shan States (which later became the Shan State), the Chin Hills (which became the Chin State) and the Kachin Hills (which became the Kachin State), a pact between 4 equal partners.
The gist of it was full autonomy in internal affairs, financial autonomy, human rights and democracy for the ethnic nationalities.
Panglong Promises include the right to secede if and when the signatories choose, equal status and
joint responsibility for common subjects such as foreign affairs, defence and coinage and currency.
It happened during the 4-day negotiations in Panglong, 8-11 February 1947, the said demands were made by the Joint Chin-Kachin-Shan Committee, officially dubbed Supreme Council of the United Hill Peoples (SCOUHP).
Gen Aung San, representative of the then interim Burmese government, reportedly had accepted all in principle but requested that they be included in the Union constitution to be a drafted by the upcoming Constituent Assembly instead. His solemn word of honour thus became known as the promises of Panglong.
The Panglong Spirit, however seems to mean, judging by what the Burmese leaders have repeatedly said, the much-vaunted Three National Causes (Non-disintegration of the Union, Non-disintegration of National Solidarity, and the Perpetuation of National Sovereignty) to be their interpretation. To the non-Burmans, this summing-up means the ethnic nationalities have to live under Burmese domination as second class citizens whether they like it or not. Their own interpretation is equal status, sense of joint ownership and sense of joint responsibility, which has never been realized, let alone agreed upon. (Source: SHAN 12 February 2016)
Panglong Spirit more important
According to Suu Kyi, Panglong Spirit is more important than agreement, which implies that Panglong Agreement is to be regarded as only instrumental to achieve independence, but in no way taken as the valuable, foundation treaty between the Bamar and non-Bamar states.
She went on to explain that the diversified “unity in diversity” had achieved a common good “independence” from the British in 1948, that could be regarded as Panglong Spirit.
This belittling and interpretation of the Panglong Agreement as not being a national treaty which the Bamar State was a part and still is angered the ethnic leadership.
The analogy is like dismantling the scaffolding when the building of a “Chedi”- a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics, typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns, and used as a place of meditation – is finished, in which the ethnic groups are just seen as supporting structure and not part of the permanently built Chedi.
Her interpretation could be likened to the Burmese saying of “Payar Pyee Yin Nyan Phyet”, which literally means “When the building of Buddha statue (or Chedi) is finished, demolish the scaffolding”.
The issue of “Secession”
The reason why secession was mentioned in the 1947 Union of Burma Constitution is to soothe the ethnic groups’ angst that the Bamar would overwhelm the numerically less populated ethnic states only seemed to be her explanation. This contradicts with her father, Aung San’s good will intention.
She questioned why the secession clause should be needed if we were to build a federal union.
She also openly said that she didn’t like secession and don’t want it to be a cornerstone in the formation of a federal union.
Of course, the ethnic nationalities point of view is quite different from her.
Ethnic rights of self-determination
She is not transparent on the matter and would like the ethnic groups to spell it out for themselves. In a way, she is not saying exactly that the Panglong Agreement-based federalism would be the way to go, implying that she might be inclined to find a new path, which at this stage is still all open.
Vision on federalism
Federalism is integration and not disintegration and in a successful federalism there is no secession.
Some federal system of governance have secession rights and some not. But there were secession in countries that didn’t have secession rights included in their constitution, while there were countries with secession rights that didn’t see secession being made use of.
Common political position important
She urged, as the government side, perhaps meaning the Bamar as a whole, is trying to find a common basis (fundamentally the NLD and the military), the ethnic nationalities should also try to find one common position together.
Other than that she said streamlining the process, parallel undertaking of the all-inclusiveness while the process is rolling, targeting late August as a start of the UPC or 21CPC and spelling out what she meant by all-inclusiveness.
She said all-inclusiveness doesn’t mean everyone must sign but mainly the inclusion of people who ought to be participated, which means all elected political parties and legal political parties.
Mai Ja Yang ethnic leadership summit
On 13 July, the convening committee for Mai Ja Yang meeting at the second largest town controlled by Kachin Independence Organization/Army (KIO/KIA) made a resolution to include 4 topics of discussion at the summit. Accordingly, the meeting will discuss 4 topics: Principles of a federal democracy (need to have a federal constitution and state constitutions); Principles of union armed forces and the need for having state defence forces; review and amendment of Framework for Political Dialogue, and endorsement of the Panglong Handbook.
Outlook
The UNFC would definitely need clear answers on the rights of decision-making process when participating in the UPC or 21CPC, without signing the NCA. And again, signing the NCA would depend on if the all-inclusiveness issue – meaning: the inclusion or exclusion of the 3 EAOs, Kokang or Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Palaung or Ta’ang national Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army (AA) – is resolved. Ideally, it would be the government taking all the EAOs into the peace process fold, without reservation. Whether this could be ironed out between the military and the NLD remains to be seen.
Another crucial point to be cleared out is the very concept of how the emergence of country we now know as Burma or Myanmar. The Bamar seems to be convinced that all the territories have been ruled by the ancient kings and thus must be viewed as a continuation of the Bamar rule, after the British left in 1948, while the non-Bamar viewed that this is a newly minted political entity, through the virtue of voluntary Panglong Agreement (1947) and Union of Burma Constitution (1947). This conception would also need to be tuned and cleared.
Closely connected to it would be on how to handle the notion of “secession”. The ethnic nationalities see this as an inalienable rights, underlining their independence prior to the signing of Panglong Agreement in 1947, even though they have forsaken to secede, no one is entitled to take it away their birthright secession privilege from them.
The ethnic nationalities could even questioned Suu Kyi on what kind of guarantee she could give by forsaking the secession clause, when their experience after joining the union with Bamar only brought them steadfast human rights violations, militarization, oppression and stripping off all their political rights, starting from 1962 until today.
Other than that, the sharing of political powers, resources and security sector reform would be the pressing core issues that have to be negotiated.
It will all depend on how much give-and-take could be made by all stakeholders of the country, if this decades-old ethnic conflict is to come to an end. Hopefully, all will aim at the “win-win” solution than the “win-lose” outcome, so that we will be able to live in normalcy under the governance of a federal democratic system.
