Dear Aung San Suu Kyi,

Last December, your Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population said that the ethnic data would be finalized in the first four months of 2017. It is now April, time – according to your own schedule – to release the last results of a census that was undertaken literally three full years ago.

You have even just published population forecasts for 2050, of all things. No mention of the ethnic count, though.

What are you afraid of? You expect the ethnic nationalities to trust you in the peace process. Yet you refuse to release this most basic of information – the country’s actual ethnic makeup. Given this conduct, how can they possibly trust you on anything?

The ethnic nationalities of Burma are not the enemy, although you are acting as if they are. Your administration and Burma’s real power – and your partner, the Tatmadaw, refuse to meet any of their demands, even though they are all eminently reasonable, in a real democracy.

You must be joking. Of course there can never be peace if you and the Tatmadaw behave like this. Much more likely, you and the generals don’t even want peace, just a useless process to trick the people of the country and the world.

This is my advice to the ethnic armed organizations: Don’t trust anything you say. Never sign the NCA. Don’t attend the UPC, without an extended halt to Tatmadaw aggression. Demand the ethnic census results, as a first step good faith proof that you are not in fact their enemy.