Afterword

A lot of problems in this world would disappear, if we talk to each other instead of about each other.

Workshop quotes

I wasn’t planning to write this. I thought I had already written enough.

But something happened following my Day Four journal. Which, if the truth were not made known in time, could be disastrous —in the long term, if not immediately.

On Day Three and Day Four, we went through the usual motions of a workshop: Conducting scenarios and options exercises.

The subject was how to deal with the Union Peace Conference (21^st Century Panglong) The Lady had just announce would take place on 31 August. How the EAOs, both signatories and non signatories, should respond to it.

The resultant options:

• To boycott the conference. Write to her “we” would not be coming.
• To write to her that it should only be a “grand opening”, no more
• To write to her that “we” will attend, but for future cooperation, the muddled up process should be renegotiated

The reader doesn’t need me to say what the outcome was:

Option #1. The workshop did not spend much time on it. Here are some of the responses:

“I’ll go, even if not one else goes.”

“The signatory EAOs will become divided”

“Criticisms both at home and abroad”

“This is not the time for confrontation”

“Refusal to participate will be too risky.”

Option #2. Demanding that it be just a “grand opening” is not enough. “We” still need to be prepared for any eventuality

Option #3. This is the workshop’s choice. To write to her that “we” will attend, but we will also need to discuss how we could move further ahead when we play by the NCA rules

A letter was accordingly written, as reported by SHAN yesterday (16 August 2016) and delivered on 12 August. The State Counselor’s reply, appreciated by all concerned, is that she will be meeting the PPST (Peace Process Steering Team) on 24 August morning. The JICM (Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting) will be held in the afternoon on the same day.

That seemed to have cleared up all the hiccups in the peace process that arose, after the new government took over on 30 March.

Except for on unanticipated development: That leading members of the government’s UPC-21CPC Preparatory Committee are unhappy with “suggestions” by a certain workshop participant to “boycott” the Conference.

Is this misunderstanding? Or mis(dis) information? The situation calls for a clarification. However, the fact is that the Preparatory Committee, though in direct contact channel with the said participant, has yet to demand an explanation. And the unresolved situation, though seemingly insignificant at present, can explode into an uncontrollable one, as unexplained misreadings accumulate.

I end this journal with a counsel from my Chinese teacher, Lao Zi (some regard him as Tai-Shan):

Everything easy means great difficulty

So, to the sage, everything is difficult

Thus, in the end, nothing is difficult