BURMA: Conceptual difference of “Peace” and “Ceasefire” hamper negotiation process

BURMA: Conceptual difference of “Peace” and “Ceasefire” hamper negotiation process

Tuesday, 09 August 2011 11:49 Sai Wansai
By: Sai Wansai
Tuesday, 9 August 2011

Last week, KIO/KIA prepared a set of questions for Col Than Aung, the Kachin State minister for border affairs and head of the government emissary, who was sent to negotiate about possible ceasefire conditions.
The questions among others include:
• Who has given order to the team to negotiate?
• How “peace” should be defined by both parties?
• How should the term “ceasefire” be interpreted or understood?
• How much negotiation power is vested in the negotiation team?
• In case, if one party breaks the ceasefire agreement, who will be responsible to take action?
• What is the government opinion on “Panglong Agreement”?
• How would the government consider KIO/KIA as an organisation?

(Source: RFA - 2011-08-05)

Of all the questions posed, defining “peace” and “ceasefire” are two most crucial terms, which the contending parties must agree upon, if ever the ongoing ethnic conflict is to be resolved.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” And Eleanor Roosevelt emphasized, “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the establishment of equality, and a working political order that serves the true interests of all. In international relations, peacetime is not only the absence of war or conflict, but also the presence of cultural and economic understanding and unity.
(Source: Wikipedia)

The online free dictionary states two points; one is the absence of war or other hostilities; and the other, an agreement or a treaty to end hostilities.
Generally, ceasefire could include an order to stop firing and suspension of active hostilities; a truce.

A ceasefire (or truce) is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces. An armistice is a formal agreement to end fighting.
Israeli–Palestinian conflict

An example of a ceasefire in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict was announced between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority on February 8, 2005. When announced, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat publicly defined the ceasefire as follows: "We have agreed that today President Mahmoud Abbas will declare a full cessation of violence against Israelis anywhere and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will declare a full cessation of violence and military activities against Palestinians anywhere."
(Source:Wikipedia)

As far as peace is concerned, the successive military regimes and the recent, military-backed government have never spelled out their position clearly, on how they would like to achieve.

What the ethnic armed resistance forces have experienced by now is either to surrender, become government militia or ceasefire arrangement, which the Burmese government misleadingly called “Peace groups”. In short, there is no “give-and-take” negotiation process, but just being asked to follow the prescribed regime’s plan and become part and parcel of its administrative apparatus, one way or the other.
The coercive planned integration of the ceasefire ethnic armed ceasefire armies into its Border Guard Force (BGF) under the Burma Army is the case in point, which went terribly wrong, when it has been rejected and resisted aggressively to the dismay of the Burmese government.

Former ceasefire armies like KIO/KIA, SSPP/SSA, and the large portion of DKBA resisted Burma Army furiously, while the UWSA rejected the BGF plan, although not yet in open armed conflict with the Burma Army.

As a result, Burma is now on the brink of a full blown civil war, just because the regime likes to have its radical, racial and military supremacy way without compromising or accommodating the aspirations of the non-Burman ethnic nationalities’ rights of self-determination.

The Panglong Agreement of 12th February 1947, to join with U Aung San and the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League) and leaders of Shan, Kachin and Chin nationalities, to live together under one flag as co-independent and equal nations, marks the birth of a nation-state now known as "Union of Burma".

It is not an exaggeration to state that without Panglong Agreement or Accord, signifying the intent and willingness of the free peoples and nations of what could be termed British Indochina, there would have not been born the Union of Burma in 1948.

This Panglong Agreement, which emphasizes the rights of self-determination, democracy and equality have been denied by successive military regimes and this has been the roots of the conflict, encompassing all non-Burman nationalities.
As such, while the ceasefire agreement is seen as a kind of partial surrender, eventually leading to total integration into Burma Army or dissolving the ceasefire armies, it was understood as a temporary cessation of war on the way to iron out a settlement through political, negotiation process, by the non-Burman ethnic nationalities.

A Kachin leader recently pointed out that the Burmese military, during SLORC regime had maintained that political settlement should be carried out only with the future elected government, for it was only a military caretaker government. And after almost five decades, the negotiation process has not started. Perhaps, the military-backed government likes all to believe that its 2008 Constitution is carved into stone and that everyone has to abide by it. Ironically, the people of Burma knows that the constitutional drafting, constitutional referendum to nation-wide elections were all flawed, rigged and manipulated to suit the military leadership, from the beginning to the end.

For now, no one is quite sure, whether the military, status quo faction of Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo, Gen Than Shwe’s protégé, or President Thein Sein, who is backed by Thura Shwe Mann, the parliament house speaker, is calling the shots, where offensive against the ceasefire armies is concerned.

Just as the KIO/KIA pointed out clearly, so long as the definition of “peace” and “ceasefire” terms are not understood on the same wave length and the power vested to the ceasefire negotiation team not crystal clear, meaningless ceasefire talks will lead us nowhere and the armed conflict between the KIO/KIA and the Burma Army will continue unabated. Consequently, the war in Shan, Karenni, Karen and Mon states will likely go on, at the expense of the people.

The author is General Secretary of the exiled Shan Democratic Union.