Panglong conference, hopes and despair

An ethnic peace conference is underway yet again in unpeaceful Myanmar. This is the third 21st Century Panglong Conference, the second to be held during the rule of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD government.

The Panglong conference holds much significance in the history, politics and military conflict of war-torn Myanmar. It is the centre of the nation’s hopes and aspirations. This time too, the people are looking towards the conference in hope of a solution to the prevailing problems, so that after five weary decades of struggle, the Wa, Kachin, Shan, Arakanese and others can return home in peace. However, there are grave doubts as to whether Burma’s military rulers are willing to relax their control at all for the sake of peace. The Rohingya crisis has prompted the outside world to keenly observe this week’s conference.

The conference began on 10 July in the capital city Naypyidaw and will continue on till 16 July. The heads of almost all armed and unarmed ethnic groups have joined this conference. These include 10 groups who have a ceasefire with the government and seven still at war.

The groups that are still at war with the government are locally referred to as the ‘Northern Alliance’. They include KIO (Kachin Independent Army), AA (Arakan Army), Wa Army, etc. The Wa Army is at present the world’s largest guerilla group, comprising around 20 thousand regimented fighters. These groups of various ethnic communities have been fighting with the armed forces over the past 50 years or so, for peace, dignity and self-determination. The Panglong conference is being held to free the people of the ‘union’ from this war. But it is rife with structural limitations.

Back to the beginning

Panglong is a town of Myanmar’s Shan state. It was in this town towards the end of the British colonial rule, 12 February 1947 to be precise, that the first Panglong conference was held and an agreement to form the union was signed between General Aung San and representatives of the Chin, Kachin and Shan. The British would refer to these areas areas as the ‘Frontier Areas’ and these had a separate political identity. The people of the Frontier Areas would refer to the Burmese areas as ‘Ministerial Burma’ or ‘Burma Proper’. The Chin, Kachin and Shan signatories of the agreement with Burma had thought that this agreement would accelerate independence of the entire region from Britain.

Under the historic first Panglong conference agreement, the Shan, Kachin and Chins agreed to the formation of a ‘state of Burma’, in the form of a union, with their fully autonomous respective provinces (known as ‘states’). The agreement gave the Karen and Shan the right to separate. Actually, at the time, the smaller ethnic groups has put their trust in General  Aung San, the representative of the Burmese, regarding the future of their self-determination. The success of the first Panglong conference instilled all communities in Myanmar a vision of a federal state. Till date, 12 February is observed as Union Day in Myanmar. The agreement also guaranteed financial autonomy to the states. It even said that any state could leave the union if it so desired.

Aung San’s death and the onset of war

The Panglong conference of 1947 may have given rise to visions of a country in the form of a union, but then on the eve of independence, just before achieving political power , only three months before the election to the constitutional assembly, a group of armed persons on 19 July 1947 shot dead Aung San and six of his political associates. At the time, a meeting of an interim government was on for handover of power from the British.

Aung San’s death gradually transformed the emerging ethnic self-confidence, with his Burmese associates steadily moving away from the Panglong consensus. Ne Win’s ascension to power through a military coup in 1962 completely destroyed the entire process of ethnic assimilation. A civil war commenced and in continuation of this, the military drew up a new constitution in 2008, considerably curbing the autonomy of the ethnic states (provinces). Since then, the country has been in the grips of an all-consuming conflict.

It was under such circumstances that Aung San Suu Kyi came to power as state counselor and strove for ethnic unity and revival of her father’s unfinished initiative for the Burma Union. Accordingly, the second Panglong conference commenced 31 August 2016. Suu Kyi’s government dubbed this as the 21st Century Panglong or the Second Panglong Peace Conference. And this week’s third Panglong peace conference is a continuation of that. This year, however, the conference is not taking place in Panglong, but in the capital city of Naypyidaw.

Hopes, anticipation and despair

The second Panglong conference, like the present one, had also generated strong expectations. However, the conference could finally reach no resolution. Around 20 organisations joined the conference and voiced their grievances. The two main bones of contention at that conference were: the constitutional right to leave the union, and giving the military a federal character. Also, there was much controversy regarding distribution of national resources.

The 2008 constitution abolished the provision of the 1948 constitution which gave provinces of ethnic minorities the right to leave the union. Two vital features of the latest constitution were stress on the consolidation of the union and projecting Myanmar as a single nation. The Kachin, Shan and Karen ethnic groups want the provisions of the old constitution to be restored.

Neutral political observers of Myanmar feel that the manner in which the present constitution has empowered the armed forces, it will be very difficult to form a federal state, giving the non-Burmese ethnic groups enhanced autonomy. Yet the third conference of the ‘New Century Panglong’ and its success is hinged on the possible successful amendment of the constitution.

Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, openly speaks for an amendment of the constitutional. But the latest constitution provides 25 per cent seats for the armed forces in the bicameral parliament. As a result, the armed forces can black any proposed amendment of the parliament.

Of the 224 members of the upper house in parliament, 168 are elected from various regions and states. The remaining 56 are members of the armed forces. As the ‘regions’ of the country are mainly dominated by the Burmese, as is the military, the upper house is dominated by the Burmese. It is the same in the lower house. There are 440 members there of which 110 are of the armed forces. Here too the Burmese predominate.

There is no party comprising a united front of the ethnic minorities in the country. The new parties in Myanmar that are active on a national level, mostly have Burmese leaders at the helm. The entire political superstructure and military bureaucracy of Myanmar thus has Burmese predominance. So the question looms large as to how far the ongoing Panglong conference will be able to usher in any tangible form of peace without wide scale structural reforms.

Even so, the world is focused on Naypyidaw. Everyone wants to see if the vision of ethnic coexistence as envisaged by General Aung San around seven decades ago, can be revived by his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi.

*Altar Parvez is a researcher on South Asian history. This piece has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir