In nearly 70 years of civil war and several peace talks have been conducted, two nationwide major negotiations during the rule of General Ne Win and a couple of on and off ceasefire arrangements with various ethnic armed groups.  The latest ongoing one, initiated by the former president Thein Sein that started in 2011, is still being bogged down in talks about talks, without clear and radical concept on how to break out of the traditional way of doing things.

Let us ponder on the point, if thinking out of the box will help us accelerate the peace process and enable us a break-through by using “lateral thinking” in solving the problems through an indirect and creative approach,  rather than through reasoning that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic.

In this respect, it would be helpful for us to start with what a well-known political commentator has to say.

·       NRPC Old wine in the new bottle?

Dr Yan Myo Thein, a well-known political commentator made known his disappointment in the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) formation, which in his opinion is populated with the people from the former president Thein Sein clique of Union Solidarity and Development Party's (USDP).

He said the NRPC is made up of 6 members from the government, 2 from the parliament, 2 from the military (Tatmadaw),  1 from 21^st Century Panglong Conference (21CPC) preparatory committee, with 11 members altogether.

Of the 6 representatives from the government sector, 1 active-duty and 2 retired military officers are included. Further, from the 2 parliamentary representatives, 1 is from the National league for Democracy (NLD), while the other is from the ethnic party closed to the former ruling party, the USPD.

As the NRPC has 3 Lt. Generals from the sum of 11, Thus the military is made up more than 25% of the organization.

The ethnic participation could also be seen as ineffective, as the NRPC member Daw Shela Nan Tong (NLD) of Kachin State being a retired professor could be out of touch with the politics and peace process. U Khun Maung Thaung of Shan State, Pin Laung Township is also closely linked to the USDP.

Apart from that the organization's think-tank is made up of old people from the Myanmar Peace Center, now defunct, such as Hla Maung Shwe and Min Zaw Oo, further reinforced by the retired General Aung Kyi, who had worked for the military and the former USDP regimes. As such, Yan Myo Thein stressed that new inputs and innovative new approaches won't come by and could be taken as still unforeseeable.

He further added that the key for the formation of NRPC should be the achievement of federal democracy through innovative, new pattern based on all-inclusiveness of all Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), equality and justification. Besides, the NLD should not forget that the people have given the party the mandate to lead, which is met with disappointment from many of the other policy implementations.

However, even as pessimistic view of Yan Myo Thein could be seen as quite a logical assessment, the contemporary political landscape continues to change remarkably at a speed that could be said as “incredible”.

·       Current development

Following the meeting between the 8 EAOs that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and the state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, a series of meeting between the NRPC and the non-signatory EAOs, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), United Wa State Army (UWSA), National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) were followed, although the much talked about excluded 3 EAOs – Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army (AA) – planned meeting could not still be materialized, reportedly due to the difficulties in choosing the meeting venue, according to the rebel and governmental sources.

Nevertheless, after numerous interactions between the NRPC and UNFC in various locations like Chiang Mai and Rangoon, the much awaited face-to-face meeting between Suu Kyi and the UNFC finally happened on 17 July.

On the government side, Suu Kyi was accompanied by Dr Tin Myo Win, Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Union Peace Conference — 21st Century Panglong, Union Minister for the State Counsellor's Office Kyaw Tint Swe and Moe Zaw Oo of the State Counsellor's Office, while the UNFC’s delegation were represented by General N'Ban La of Kachin Independnece Organization (KIO), Naing Htaw Mon of New Mon State Party (NMSP),  Able Tweed of Karenni People progressive Party (KNPP), Sao Hsur Hten of Shan State Progress Party (SSPP) and Khu Oo Reh, the leader of the UNFC’s Delegation for Political negotiation and also Vice-Chairman of the KNPP.

Suu Kyi has resolved that within her all-inclusiveness notion, all EAOs could participate on all levels of the peace process, even though it is not at all clear regarding the decision-making rights, as the NCA said that in order to have that voting right, individual members of EAOs must first sign the NCA. Suu Kyi has not taken position on this crucial point, but the NRPC functionaries on a lot of occasions have pointed out this necessity.

The UNFC, following the meeting issued a statement the same day emphasizing the following:

·       Pragmatic and practical approaches to be all-inclusive, with follow up meetings

·       Urging the government to help end military offensives in the northern part of the country (Kachin and Shan States)

·       Hopes that the nationwide ceasefire declaration could be made together all at once

·       Acknowledges the state counsellor's reiterated commitment to federalism; peace and federal constitution to be materialized through the rule of law

·       To continue the materialization of the peace process through continued negotiations

However, the seemingly easy to answer and resolve issues become hindrances as all parties are bogged down in preconceived ideas and dogmatism that are hard to bridge.

·       Different conceptualization

Coming back to the notion of “thinking out of the box”, the best place to start falls back, as time and again argued in many of my opinion pieces, on the conceptualization of the making or the emergence of the country, we now come to know as Burma or Myanmar. The reason we have to begin with this is due to the fact that “common national identity, sharing of political decision-making power or question of self-determination rights, sharing of natural resources, equality, democracy and human rights” among others, are all intertwined with the issues mentioned. And to have a grip on all these, thinking out of the box is the only way to do.

From the outgoing point that we have never being able to agree upon the making of the country, which the Bamar political class, including the Tatmadaw, believed to belong to them since the immemorial reign of the Bamar ancient kings, the ethnic nationalities are convinced the newly formed political entity came into being only after the British left in 1948, through the Panglong Agreement, voluntarily signed by both the Bamar and 3 ethnic nationalities – the Chin, Kachin and Shan - in 1947.

Now let us take the “common national identity” question, for instance, to ponder as to why it is still unresolved, after nearly seven decades of independence from the British. The short answer to it is that the nation-building has shattered and common national identity formation has never taken of the ground, due to the lack of political settlement, which has its roots in constitutional crisis.

Inevitably, the debate on “secession” has also to do with the conceptual differences in the making of the country.

·       Is there a way out?

Obviously there isn't much idea left to ponder on, given that the conflict has been raging for nearly 7 decades, with no tangibly solution in sight, constantly reinforced by dogmatism from both adversary camps. Such being the case, why don't we give a try by thinking aloud or out of the box?

And where exactly should we start or what catchphrase should we make use of?

The answer is to rethink our dogmatic views from a different light. For example let us examine the very concept regarding the emergence of the country, Burma or Myanmar.

Can't we forget about the immemorial ownership of  the country by the Bamar political class, while the non-Bamar ethnic nationalities could also take it that it is just a multi-ethnic state and they are being part of the union, without invoking their historical rights of secession anchored in Panglong Agreement of 1947?

Suu Kyi during her meeting with the 8 signatory EAOs said regarding the secession and federalism issues that some federal system of governance have secession rights and some not. But there were secession in countries that didn’t have secession rights included in their constitution, while there were countries with secession rights that didn’t see secession being made use of.

In other words, secession could be made use of even if an ethnic group signed to remain in a union a hundred times, depending on its population's desire and value, which could be constantly changing according to the space and time of the day. Thus, there is no point in arguing about it at the present.

Why can't both parties agree on the shared-sovereignty and work out a common national identity that all could live with?

Why can't we work out a trade off, by agreeing that the ethnic nationalities would abandon their rights of secession, while the Bamar would fully guarantee the equitable, genuine, federalism that it would also become a part on equal basis?

Besides, the Bamar political class and the military don't need to be afraid that its supremacy over the other ethnic nationalities would be in jeopardy, if they are really for equitable, fair federal union set up that they have all along been saying to be their real commitment.

If this kind of critical approach that leads to the out of the box thinking could be instilled, all the other seemingly hard to crack nuts like genuinely, implementable nationwide ceasefire; unilateral nationwide ceasefire of the government; a concerted bilateral ceasefire nationwide; levelling the political playing field;  and all-inclusiveness issues could easily be overcome in no time.

Of course, it needs tremendous courage, unyielding resistance to just adhering to the dogmatic, preconceived, traditional way of doing things and above all, the often repeated political will to tread the path of thinking out of the box, so that we all will be able to avoid this vicious circle and unending, fruitless negotiation process, as has been the order of the day for the last five years.