Editorial
The pilot census taking, conducted in 20 village tracts in the country’s 7 states and 7 regions on 29 March, has come and gone.
The good thing about it is that handouts explaining about how census commission/committees are organized, the regulations they have to follow and how census is to be taken were distributed, which just came into our eager hands. Understandably, we lost no time hungrily wolfing them away.
So the water summit held in Chiangmai, 14-22 May, is over with 9 countries (including Burma, Brunei, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) signing a document, dubbed theChiangmai Declaration, pledging to prevent their economies and societies from flood and drought.
One of the aspects of the upcoming census in 2014 that will more or less keep the non-Burman leaders’ adrenaline flowing less than a year from now is the question: How minor are we population-wise?
The answer is clear: the results of a proper head count could very well be part of the crucial indicators of the outcome of the 2015 elections.
It was most generous of the Naypyitaw government to sanction the Shan-Kayah meeting in Lashio, 20-22 March.
U Aung Min, Vice Chairman of the Union Peacemaking Working Committee (UPWC), ministers and officials from his Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) also deserve sincere appreciation both for gracing it with their presence and sharing their thoughts with the participants.
Thanks to Eleven Media Group, we now know what went on inside the closed doors of the latest round of peace talks in China’s Ruili, which was hosted by Ambassador Wang Zongying on 11 March.
“This ceasefire thing doesn’t have anything to do with peace,” a retired senior government official told me last month. “It is only a lunch break. To the Burmese military, there is only total war.”
I later found what “total war” was when I re-read War and Anti-War: Making sense of today’s global chaos written by Alvin and Heidi Toffler 20 years ago.
The joint statement that was released at the conclusion of the first formal talks on 20 February between Naypyitaw’s Union Peacemaking Working Committee (UPWC) and the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), the alliance of 11 armed organizations, spoke about the discussion on the draft framework for political dialogue.
When China offered to facilitate the latest round of peace talks between Naypyitaw and the Kachin Independence Organization / Kachin Independence Army (KIO/KIA), the only major armed movement that has yet to reach a ceasefire, it was to a large extent welcomed by those involved.
Today, the signing of the 1947 Panglong Agreement is being celebrated all over the country, as it was for the past 65 years.
Since 2010, following the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the opening of peace talks with armed resistance movements, voices calling for “Panglong II”, “21st century Panglong” and “a conference even surpassing Panglong” have become louder.
 |
|
|
