(22-25 January 2017)

Whatever wholesome that I’ve learned, may it be yours

The detention last December and legal action on 4 leading members of the 2 signatory EAOs, namely the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) and All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), was the immediate reason for this trip.

But leaders of the 8 signatory EAOs who met on 10-11 January, foresaw that it would be an expensive waste of the opportunity to meet the State Counselor and, as it turned out, the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services just to discuss the issue of the detained members and return.

The Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) leader Gen Mutu Saypoe of the Karen National Union/ Liberation Army (KNU/KNLA) had therefore prepared two written messages to be read out during the meeting with them.

This journal describes what took place during the 4 day sojourn.

Day One. Sunday, 22 January 2017

If God didn’t want them sheared, he wouldn’t have made them sheep.

Magnificent Seven (1960)

I never knew there’s a direct flight from Bangkok to Naypyitaw until today. This is how.

There is a 3 ½ hour delay of Bangkok Airways’ Chiangmai-Mingladon flight. It means chances are I may likely miss the connection flight to Naypyitaw. So what the BA does is to redirect me to Bangkok (Flight 917), 1 hour, and then to Naypyitaw (Flight 721), 2 ¼ hours, instead.

By the time I’ve got checked in at Thingaha, a hotel owned by U Chit Khaing, said to be a very influential businessman, at 20:00, the pre-meeting of the 6 men delegation is almost as good as over.

I find them discussing with the Tatmadaw’s Col Kyaw Soe Win, who’s been with the peace process almost right from the beginning, about the sitting plan for tomorrow. It doesn’t take much long.

Just before we say goodnight to each other at 21:30, somebody cracks a joke on the Union Peace Conference 21^st Century Panglong (UPC 21 CP).I’m to find later tomorrow that the sitting plan is a bit different with that of the meeting with the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, who notified just yesterday he had recovered well enough from his cataract operations last week to grant us an audience.

“The first UPC was a farewell party for President U Thein Sein, while the second was a welcome party for the new government and the State Counselor. Well, I hope the third is not going to be a bye-bye party to all of us.”

Well, so do I. Because I have this incorrigible infantile attitude of looking at the world with full of hopes, whatever happens. Let us see what the big day tomorrow brings us.