Peace for the World

Peace for the World
First democratic leader of Justice the Godfather of the Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Honourable Samuel James Veluppillai Chelvanayakam

Friday, September 9, 2016

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logoSaturday, 10 September 2016

Six refugees who sheltered NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 in Hong Kong, before he fled to Moscow. They wanted to be identified only by first names. From left to right: Ajith, a former soldier from Sri Lanka; Vanessa, a domestic helper from the Philippines and her daughter, Keana; Nadeeka, a refugee from Sri Lanka with her husband, Supun, and their daughter, Sethumdi. Source: Jayne Russell/ handelsblatt.com
Two global media reports this week put several Sri Lankan asylum seekers in Hong Kong under spotlight for helping the world famous whistleblower turned fugitive Edward Snowden flee from Hong Kong to Russia in 2013.

One was identified as Ajith, a 44 year old soldier turned refugee by the National Post in its report tiled How Edward Snowden escaped Hong Kong (http://news.nationalpost.com/features/how-edward-snowden-escaped-hong-kong#sthash.CI98sPfB.dpuf). The other was Supuna 32-year-old native of Colombo, Sri Lanka, who has languished in Hong Kong’s refugee system since 2005. They were contacted for help by Robert Tibbo, the whistleblower Snowden’s lead lawyer in Hong Kong.

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“I was very happy to help him,” Ajith recalled during a recent interview with the National Post in his small windowless room in Kennedy Town, on the western tip of Hong Kong Island. “This famous person was a refugee too, same as me.”

Ajith hid Edward Snowden in his tiny windowless, one-room apartment whilst in another occasion Supun and his wife Nadeeka let Edward Snowden hide in their home in Lai Chi Kok.

Earlier that day, that “famous” 29-year-old walked out of the five-star luxury Hotel Mira in Kowloon and sparked an intensive global manhunt not seen since the search for al-Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, bombings. the National Post said.

Edward Snowden, a former U.S. intelligence contractor, became the most wanted fugitive in the world after leaking a cache of classified documents to the media detailing extensive cyber spying networks by the U.S. government on its own citizens and governments around the world.

To escape the long arm of American justice, the man responsible for the largest national security breach in U.S. history retained a Canadian lawyer in Hong Kong who hatched a plan that included a visit to the UN sub-office where the North Carolina native applied for refugee status to avoid extradition to the U.S.

Fearing the media would surround and follow Snowden — making it easier for the Hong Kong authorities to arrest the one-time Central Intelligence Agency analyst on behalf of the U.S. — his lawyers made him virtually disappear for two weeks from June 10 to June 23, 2013, before he emerged on an Aeroflot airplane bound for Moscow, where he remains stranded today in self-imposed exile.

In the National Post report, it was also stated that armed with the money Tibbo gave him, Supun went to buy food while Nadeeka prepared the only bed in the house for their unexpected guest.

The next day, Supun was dispatched to buy the South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper he admitted he never reads. It wasn’t until he brought the paper home that he and Nadeeka saw the giant front-page photo of the pale young man in their bed. “We were very, very surprised that this famous person was in our house,” Nadeeka said. “We can’t believe he’s here in our house.”

The tiny living space soon became overcrowded, especially since during his stay, Snowden “stayed in the room all the time,” Nadeeka said. She had to force him to come out to shower so that she could clean the room. Nadeeka, who fled Sri Lanka in 2007 after years of systemic rape and subsequent hospitalization according to her refugee claim, also worried about Snowden, “because I knew he was living a dangerous life.”

Prior to fleeing, Snowden hugged Nadeeka, shook hands with Supun and gave them US$200 for their hospitality before he was clandestinely shuttled off to another secret location.

Germany’s Handelsblatt (https://global.handelsblatt.com/edition/509/ressort/politics/article/edward-snowdens-guardian-angels) also featured the story titled Edward Snowden’s Guardian Angels and featured Sri Lankan duo along with a Filipino. Handelsblatt began its story with Nadeeka’s narration.

Both articles recount the scary drama, voluntary help and eventual escape of Snowden.
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Dutch lawmaker Tunahan Kuzu, left, refuses to shake hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a visit to parliament in The Hague, on 7 September.Bart MaatEPA
Adri Nieuwhof-9 September 2016

The era of “unconditional friendship” between Israel and the Netherlands is over, the Dutch right-wing newspaper De Telegraaf reported as Benjamin Netanyahu faced vocal protests during a two-day visit to the country this week to discuss economic cooperation.

In one striking moment captured on video, Dutch MP Tunahan Kuzu refused to shake hands with the Israeli prime minister during a meeting with lawmakers:


Ernst Lissauer @ErnstLissauer
Tunahan Kuzu durft Benjamin Netanyahu (ex-commando) de hand niet te schudden
4:10 AM - 7 Sep 2016
Palestine solidarity groups had presented a petition to lawmakers, signed by more than 7,500 people, urging sanctions on Israel over its “policies of oppression, discrimination, and land grab and ignoring the United Nations.”

People also took to the streets to protest Netanyahu’s visit.

And more than a thousand people wrote to lawmakers calling on them to skip the planned meeting in parliament with Netanyahu.

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Oscar A.M. Bergamin @OscarBergamin
  op weg naar 
11:47 AM - 6 Sep 2016

Rik Grashoff, a lawmaker for the Green Left party announced on Twitter that he would not attend the meeting because it would not change Israel’s “disastrous policy” towards the Palestinians.

Instead, Grashoff called for more pressure on Israel, including sanctions.

Kuzu, one of two MPs from the DENK party, decided to attend the meeting to confront Netanyahu.

Wearing a button with the Palestinian flag, Kuzu nodded, but did not stretch out his hand when Netanyahu was introduced. The Israeli prime minister appeared surprised, and said out loud, “oh, ok,” before moving on.

“Propaganda”

Kuzu explained that his actions were a response to Netanyahu’s comments during a closed-door meeting with members of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, which Kuzu termed “propaganda.”

Kuzu said he had confronted Netanyahu with images of Israel’s destruction in Gaza, asking the Israeli prime minister if this is what his promotion of democracy, technology and security is about. Netanyahu had “no answer,” according to Kuzu.

“While the streets of Gaza were red with the blood of children in the summer of 2014, the red carpets are being rolled out here,” Kuzu wrote on Facebook. “That doesn’t deserve a handshake but a reference to #FreePalestine.”

In reaction to Kuzu’s stance, anti-Muslim demagogue Geert Wilders called for the expulsion of Kuzu, who is of Turkish ancestry, from parliament, accusing him of “dual loyalty.”

Wilders, who has received funding from some of the most notorious Islamophobic sources in the US, has alsochampioned Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and questioned the existence of Palestine.

Yet other voices from mainstream Dutch politics joined the criticism of Israel.

“Everybody is to blame for the conflict except Israel,” Labor Party lawmaker Michiel Servaes commented onTwitter.

Prior to the meeting, Servaes announced that he would call on Netanyahu to “end his destructive policies of the occupation and not run away from peace talks. Only then we can stand up for your country.”

Harry van Bommel of the Socialist Party tweeted that Netanyahu had cited the existence of Belgian enclaves within the Netherlands to justify Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu would have been referring to tiny spots of Belgian territory that are relics of medieval times.
There is no parallel, however: no disagreement exists between Belgium and the Netherlands over who the land belongs to, while Israel’s settlements in occupied territory, on land forcibly seized from Palestinians, violate international law.

“War criminal”

Former prime minister of the Netherlands Dries van Agt regretted that the government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte had rolled out the red carpet for Netanyahu.

Rutte’s center-right People’s Party leads a coalition government that includes the Labor Party.

Speaking on national television, van Agt called Netanyahu a “war criminal” who should be sent for trial to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International used Netanyahu’s visit to protest Israel’s use of administrative detention.

Currently, more than 700 Palestinians are detained without charge or trial, a practice Israel has retained from the era of British colonial rule in Palestine.

During a joint press conference with Netanyahu, Prime Minister Rutte repeated his government’s position that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign is “protected under the freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.”

While supporting the right to boycott Israel, Rutte has declared that his government opposes BDS.

Rutte’s remark suggests that Netanyahu tried again to push for delegitimizing the BDS movement.

“Settlement building needs to stop, and so do demolitions and incitement,” Rutte said.

Despite such criticism, economic cooperation between the Netherlands and Israel continues as usual.

But as this week showed, the close relationship between the two countries is clearly facing growing resistance.
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Global condemnation for North Korea nuclear test, sanctions threatened

North Korea says it has conducted fifth nuclear test

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim-Fri Sep 9, 2016 11:12pm IST

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim-Fri Sep 9, 2016 11:12pm IST 
South Korea’s foreign minister said on Saturday that North Korea’s nuclear capability is expanding fast, echoing alarm around the world over the isolated state’s fifth nuclear test carried out in defiance of U.N. sanctions.
North Korea conducted its biggest nuclear test on Friday and said it had mastered the ability to mount a warhead on a ballistic missile, ratcheting up a threat that rivals and the United Nations have been powerless to contain.
The test proved North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was unwilling to alter course and tougher sanctions and pressure were needed to apply “unbearable pain on the North to leave no choice but to change,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said.
“North Korea’s nuclear capability is growing and speeding to a considerable level, considering the fifth nuclear test was the strongest in scale and the interval has quickened substantially,” Yun told a ministry meeting convened to discuss the test.
The blast, on the 68th anniversary of North Korea’s founding, drew global condemnation.
The United States said it would work with partners to impose new sanctions, and called on China to use its influence - as North Korea’s main ally - to pressure Pyongyang to end its nuclear programme.
But Russia was sceptical that more sanctions were the answer to resolving the crisis, while China was silent on the prospect of a new United Nations Security Council resolution, although state media did carry commentaries criticising the North.
Under 32-year-old leader Kim, North Korea has sped up development of its nuclear and missile programmes, despite U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March and have further isolated the impoverished country.
The Security Council denounced North Korea’s decision to carry out the test and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution. The United States, Britain and France pushed for the 15-member body to impose new sanctions.
U.S. President Barack Obama said after speaking by telephone with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday that they had agreed to work with the Security Council and other powers to vigorously enforce existing measures against North Korea and to take “additional significant steps, including new sanctions.”
LAVROV SEEKS NEW TALKS
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it may take more than additional sanctions to resolve the crisis, signalling it may prove a challenge for the Security Council to come to an agreement on new sanctions.
“It is too early to bury the six-party talks. We should look for ways that would allow us to resume them,” Lavrov said.
The so-called six-party talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear programme involving the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, and North Korea have been defunct since 2008.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had repeatedly offered talks to North Korea, but Pyongyang had to accept de-nuclearisation, which it had refused to do.
“We have made overture after overture to the dictator of North Korea,” he said, adding that he ultimately hoped for a similar outcome as in the nuclear talks in Iran.
China said it was resolutely opposed to the test but Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying would not be drawn on whether China would support tougher sanctions against its neighbour.
On Saturday, the influential Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said North Korea was wrong in thinking building nuclear weapons would provide it more security or prestige in the world.
“Owning nuclear weapons won’t ensure North Korea’s political security,” it said in an editorial. “On the contrary, it is poison that is slowly suffocating the country.”
“OUT OF CONTROL”
South Korea’s Park said late on Friday Kim was “mentally out of control,” blind to all warnings from the world and neighbours as he sought to maintain power. “The patience of the international community has come to the limit,” she said.
North Korea, which labels the South and the United States as its main enemies, said its “scientists and technicians carried out a nuclear explosion test for the judgment of the power of a nuclear warhead,” according to its official KCNA news agency.
It said the test proved North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a medium-range ballistic missile, which it last tested on Monday when Obama and other world leaders were gathered in China for a G20 summit.
Pyongyang’s claims of being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead have never been independently verified.
Its continued testing in defiance of sanctions presents a challenge to Obama in the final months of his presidency and could become a factor in the U.S. presidential election in November, and a headache to be inherited by whoever wins.
North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its neighbours South Korea and Japan.
The Pentagon did not have evidence that North Korea had been able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon, Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said. But he added, “given the consequences of getting it wrong, it is prudent for a military planner to plan for the worst.”
Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies said the highest estimates of seismic magnitude suggested this was North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test so far.
He said the seismic magnitude and surface level indicated a blast with a 20- to 30-kilotonne yield or its largest to date.
Such a yield would make this test larger than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War Two, which exploded with an energy of about 15 kilotonnes.
South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful nuclear blast to date.
“The important thing is, that five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience. They aren’t a backwards state any more,” Lewis said.
(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Phil Stewart in Oslo, David Brunnstrom in Geneva; Editing Mike Collett-White)
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US and Russia reach tentative agreement for Syria ceasefire 

Pause in fighting to begin on Monday night, allowing humanitarian aid to flow – with Russian and US forces set to launch joint airstrikes against extremists
A seven-day pause in fighting will allow aid to flow – if Assad’s forces agree to relax their stranglehold on besieged areas such as Aleppo. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
US secretary of state, John Kerry, left, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/AFP/Getty Images

 World affairs editor-Saturday 10 September 2016

The US and Russia agreed a tentative ceasefire deal for Syria late on Friday night, intended to lead the way to a joint US-Russian air campaign against Islamic State and other extremist groups and new negotiations on the country’s political future.

The deal was announced by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, after 13 hours of talks in Geneva and a tense wait while Kerry consulted others in his administration by phone to Washington.

Both were cautious in describing the deal but said it was a possible “turning point” after more than five years of a brutal conflict that has taken over 400,000 lives.

“No one is building this based on trust. It is based on oversight, compliance, mutual interest,” Kerry said. “This is an opportunity, and not more than that until it becomes a reality.”

Lavrov described the situation in Syria as a “quagmire” with multiple warring parties, some of whom would seek to undermine the US-Russian deal. For that reason, he added, much of the deal would remain secret to prevent efforts at sabotage. But the Russian foreign minister said Russia had secured the agreement of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus.

Russia will do “what depends on us”, Lavrov promised, but noted “not everything does”.

As part of the complex agreement, a seven-day pause in the fighting would begin on Monday evening, the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. During that time, the Syrian army would relax its stranglehold on rebel held areas of Aleppo allowing for the delivery of humanitarian aid to the starving city, while rebels would stop fighting around government areas.

The Syrian regime would suspend airstrikes on rebel-held areas around the country, the main source of civilian casualties.

If the ceasefire holds, the Russian and US military would start planning joint air operations against extremist groups, including Isis and al-Nusra Front (also referred to as the Front for the Conquest of Syria). The Syrian air force would stay out of zones being targeted by the US and Russia. The US is also aiming to convince other rebel groups to separate themselves from the Nusra Front where they have been fighting the regime together.

“Today the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence, reduce suffering and resume movement toward a negotiated peace and a transition in Syria ... that if followed, has ability to provide a turning point, a moment of change,” said Kerry.

Lavrov said he hoped the ceasefire would lead to the prompt resumption of negotiations over Syria’s political future. Kerry said that he had been in contact with the opposition groups in the High Negotiation Committee over the course of the week and they were prepared to take part in such talks if the ceasefire held and humanitarian aid was delivered to besieged civilian populations.

Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, called the agreement a real window of opportunity and said he would consult the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on the timing of new political negotiations.

If the ceasefire holds for the first week, US and Russian military officers would form a joint cell to plan and coordinate airstrikes against Isis and al-Nusra. Delineating the zones deemed to be controlled by Nusra Front was one of the thorniest issues at the negotiations, as the extremist group has fought with a range of other rebel organisations on different fronts in western Syria. Disentangling them from their allies on the ground will be one of the biggest challenges of maintaining the ceasefire deal.
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Iranian court jails British-Iranian aid worker for five years

Several Iranian dual nationals from the UK, Europe and North America have been detained in past months on various charges
A photograph from the Free Nazanin campaign shows Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in London with her daughter Gabriella (AFP PHOTO / FREE NAZANIN CAMPAIGN)

Friday 9 September 2016

An Iranian Revolutionary court has sentenced Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to five years in prison on charges that remain secret, her family said on Friday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in early April as she tried to leave Iran after a visit with her two-year-old daughter.

Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards have accused her of trying to overthrow Iran's clerical establishment. The official charges against her have not been made public and the Iranian authorities were not immediately available for comment.

"On 6 September Nazanin was sentenced to five years imprisonment by Judge Salavati of the Revolutionary Court," her family said in a statement.

"Nazanin confirmed this sentence to her husband in a phone call today (9 September). She is expected to serve her sentence in Evin prison," the statement added.

Her husband Richard Ratcliffe said in the family's statement: "A sentence with secret charges still seems crazy. Literally it is a punishment without a crime."

Zaghari-Ratcliffe works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a London-based charity that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News. The Foundation and her husband have dismissed the Revolutionary Guards' accusation.

The 37-year-old, who appeared in court for the first time in August, according to Iranian media and her family, was arrested at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport as she tried to leave the country after visiting her parents.

She was separated from her two-year-old daughter, Gabriella, who has remained in the care of her grandparents.

Several Iranian dual nationals from the United States, Britain, Canada and France have been detained in the past few months on various charges, including espionage or collaborating with a hostile government.

Thomson Reuters Foundation CEO Monique Villa sharply criticised the sentence against Zaghari-Ratcliffe and called for her release.

"I have instructed the Thomson Reuters Foundation's lawyers to find out what these charges are and I know that Nazanin's family has asked the same of their lawyer in Iran," she said in a statement.

"We continue to work very closely with Richard, the UK Foreign Office and the British authorities to find a resolution to this terrible situation," she added.

The British authorities were not immediately available for comment.
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Can Aung San Suu Kyi Bring an End to Civil War in Myanmar?

A fledgling peace summit brought together democracy leaders, military chiefs, and warring ethnic rebels. But it didn’t go all that smoothly.
Can Aung San Suu Kyi Bring an End to Civil War in Myanmar?

BY PAUL VRIEZE-SEPTEMBER 9, 2016

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — The government and military held their first peace conference with ethnic rebel groups since Aung San Suu Kyi became Myanmar’s de facto leader when her party took office in April. Last week, she managed to bring together the largest group of stakeholders yet, in an attempt to end a civil war that has plagued the country’s resource-rich frontier regions since its independence in 1948.

The grand event, held in an enormous convention center in the sprawling, military-built capital of Naypyidaw, brought to the table government officials, lawmakers, political party delegates, military officers, and representatives of 18 ethnic armed groups. All participants in the four-day event, which ended Saturday, had a chance to present their ideas for establishing peace and a democratic federal government in Myanmar. It was the first such sharing of opinions over the country’s political structure since 1947.

Dozens of ethnic groups, which make up around 35 percent of the population and live mostly in Myanmar’s rugged borderlands, have long been fighting for political autonomy. During its five-decade rule, the Bamar majority-dominated military brutally suppressed the rebellions, but the groups managed to survive through local popular support, taxing the flow of timber and jade, and large-scale involvement in the opium trade.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads the National League for Democracy (NLD) government, cast the peace talks as a historic first step toward a nationwide cease-fire and political solution for years of conflict. “If all those who play a part, however big or small, in the peace process cultivate the wisdom to reconcile differing views … we will surely be able to build the democratic federal union of our dreams,” she said, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, leaders of parliament, and the powerful army chief, Min Aung Hlaing, looked on from the front row.

A diverse crowd of hundreds of observers listened intently to the democracy icon. Many NLD members wore orange shirts and longyis — sarong-like garments — styled after Myanmar’s independence leaders while ethnic representatives donned an array of traditional garb and headgear, some adorned with peacock feathers, silvery jewelry, and precious stones.

Ban hailed the conference’s inclusiveness, saying, “There is a long road ahead, but the path is very promising. This is the first time that such a peace process has been initiated in the 70-year history of conflict [in Myanmar].”

Sai Kyaw Nyunt, a member of a peace process committee and representative of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, a major ethnic political party, said the event was breaking new ground. “Through the speeches at the conference, the whole of Myanmar now has a chance to hear all the ethnic voices and desires. We didn’t get that in seven decades.… Now we can consider how we can shape our country,” he said during a break in the conference.

Aung San Suu Kyi had raised expectations for the peace talks after she called the event the “21st-Century Panglong Conference,” referring to the 1947 Panglong Agreement between independence hero Aung San (the NLD leader’s father) and major ethnic groups. The deal granted them political autonomy from the Bamar majority, but it collapsed after Aung San’s assassination just five months later, sparking a civil war that has continued to this day and has displaced more than 200,000 civilians. The military seized power in 1962 and ruled with a vise-like grip for nearly 50 years. A democratic transition began in 2011, leading to elections last year, which the NLD won.

Despite the conference’s heavy symbolism and historic inclusiveness, most participants and observers expressed limited optimism about its ability to effect lasting change, noting it was merely an opening ceremony for a NLD-led peace process and lacked nitty-gritty political discussions. “We view this as the first step for the new government to open the way toward peace — that is the only reason we decided to join this conference,” said Khu Oo Reh, the general secretary of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an 11-member armed ethnic alliance.

He said the next conference, expected in six months’ time, should include proper negotiations. “But we don’t know if the next meeting will be as inclusive,” he told Foreign Policy, noting that the army might be reluctant to allow as many stakeholders to participate in political talks.

Many here at the conference have staked their hopes for peace on Aung San Suu Kyi’s political power and skill in persuading the military to negotiate a nationwide cease-fire and amend the military-drafted constitution. The charter grants the army extensive powers and the central government control over ethnic states. The peace process is part of the army-initiated democratic transition, but the military has kept tight control of the pace and scope of the negotiations, leading many ethnic groups to wonder if it will ever allow changes to the constitution.

The United States has closely supported Myanmar’s transition but appears to have little involvement in the peace talks. Aung San Suu Kyi is scheduled to visit Washington next week to discuss the progress of her new government. China is considered influential in the peace process due to its historic ties to powerful rebels in northern Myanmar (whom Beijing backed until they gave up their communist cause in 1989), though its role remains unclear. The European Union has supported negotiations and created,
with several other Western donors, a $100 million Joint Peace Fundlast year to further aid the process.

Ban has strongly backed the country’s democratic reforms, and during his visit he also urged the government to resolve tensions between Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar.

A week before his visit, and perhaps in anticipation of it, Aung San Suu Kyi announced the formation of a commission lead by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that will try to address the conflict. Myanmar’s government has come under international criticism for its treatment of the Rohingya but has long maintained that outsiders do not understand the situation. Although many in Myanmar are likely to find the Annan commission’s suggestions unthinkable, its formation does suggest some openness to new ideas on the government’s part.

After taking power in April, Aung San Suu Kyi moved quickly to resume the peace process initiated by the previous, quasi-civilian government and adopted its negotiating mechanisms and road map to a nationwide cease-fire. Last year, eight ethnic organizations signed a joint cease-fire agreement with the government, but 7 groups opted out — including the Kachin Independence Organization, whose armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army, has been active conflict with the military since 2011, leading to the displacement of 120,000 civilians in northern Myanmar.

The nonsignatory groups are now expected to negotiate with the government and army for adaptions to the political conditions of last year’s accord.

Khu Oo Reh, the UNFC general secretary, said that even though Aung San Suu Kyi appears to have found a modus operandi for working with army chief Min Aung Hlaing, ethnic leaders are unsure if she can coax the military into accepting the political conditions for a nationwide cease-fire or agree to constitutional change. “It is too early to say whether the new government and the army can get along or not [in the peace process],” he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi has stated numerous times that resolving ethnic conflict as soon as possible, through an “all-inclusive” peace process involving all groups, is her government’s top priority — as she sees internal conflict as the root cause of poverty, instability, and poor rule of law in Myanmar.

But the army’s enduring power was on show ahead of the conference when it demanded that three rebel groups representing the ethnic Taang, Rakhine, and Kokang peoples publicly commit to ending their armed struggle — a position the NLD government endorsed. The groups refused and were barred from the event, to the dismay of the UNFC alliance, of which they are members.

Mai Lyruk, an activist with the Taang Students and Youth Union who did not attend the conference, said its success rang hollow among the Taang community, some of whom have been displaced in recent years.
“Whatever people in Naypyidaw say about peace, we have a situation where there is fighting and villagers are fleeing every day,” he said.

Tom Kramer, an expert on Myanmar’s ethnic conflict for the Transnational Institute, a Netherlands-based policy organization, said the exclusion of the groups could signal trouble ahead for the NLD-led peace process. “All the rebel groups are allies. How can you have a cease-fire with some and not the others? Excluding these three groups can have serious political and military consequences,” he said.

At the conference, the NLD government’s organizational capacity to guide the peace process also came into question. On the opening day, participants received no agenda or time slots for their speeches while conference staff erroneously gave delegates of the United Wa State Army — the most powerful rebel group, with 20,000 fighters and heavy Chinese arms — “observer” passes.

Upon noticing that it appeared to have been treated differently than other groups, the Wa delegation decided to walk out on the second day. The mistake was particularly painful because the government had faced difficulty persuading the Wa to join the nationwide talks to begin with. Zaw Htay, a spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi, told FP that a letter had been sent to the Wa leadership explaining that the incident was caused by a “technical error” by a volunteer staffer.

He played it down as a minor mishap and said the conference was a resounding success.

“We can see the common ground: Firstly, all in the conference agreed to work on the peace process together; second, all agree to make our country a democratic federal union. So now we can negotiate on the table, and give and take,” Zaw Htay said.

 Photo credit: YE AUNG THU/AFP/Getty Images
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WORLD: Brand new satire program launches this Friday

AHRC LogoSeptember 7, 2016
Engaging daily with the misery manufactured by Asia’s dysfunctional justice institutions was bound to result in something truly creative some day. This creativity has sprung forth in the form of biting satire and humor. And, that day is the day after, none other than this Friday.
It is the pleasure of the Asian Human Rights Commission to announce the premiere of AHRC’s brand new satire program, RULE O’FLAW. The first video of RULE O’FLAW, titled “Case Cracked” will release this Friday, 9 September 2016, on the dedicated RULE O’FLAW Facebook page.
This video is set to open up a new way to speak about the unjust institutions in Asia, and connect new audiences to the movement that will ultimately transform these institutions into those capable of upholding human rights and human dignity.
Living in lands governed by institutional insanity needs its share laughter amidst tears and dedicated groundwork. But, this humour is not the kind that seeks to wash pain away and shy away from what is uncomfortable to us.
A transformation of institutions drowning in insanity is inevitable if we are first able to drop our pretenses and look at our predicament, and ourselves, un-blinkered. Once we are able to see and accept our reality the way it is, it is only natural that we will change our unjust institutions from their very foundations.
RULE O’FLAW, through short creative fictional videos, seeks to show reality in Asia the way it is. Join us on Friday as we open a new chapter in articulating the problems that confront us, with the ultimate objective of spreading maximum wellbeing to one and all.
Access this video online on Friday at www.facebook.com/AHRCRuleoFlaw/
Write to use to share your feedback and ideas at satire@ahrc.asia
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