got is uh the the team was formed up with the member from the previous government uh in the in the negotiation team from the government so that was a bit disappointing matter from the from the from the eosite and but i think nowadays i do believe the trust has been built and eosite non-signatory have been dealing with the group being assigned by the new new administration to deal with the peace issue so it's a meeting each other for some time and you you walk the talks you know as you as you said at the table and then you you deliver what you have said at the table then that has gradually increased the trust between between the parties just quickly to i think there's a difference between um who you ask in in certain areas i mean if if you were to ask uh villagers in in northern charne state where there's been recent fighting that they would most of them aren't aware that there is a peace process um and and they simply just say look there's just no trust and when you ask if if you have any hope in in in ong san su chi they're just like it's just a world away from here um you know they're like we live from day to day we just want every man with a gun to go away and these are people that are being taxed several times from different ethnic armed groups and so i would say that there's not a lot of trust there but there is in in your last show when you speak to political elites from from different ethnic groups um mps people in civil society organizations and others um there's there's not a lot of trust but there is a lot of uh um energy to be involved in the process um there is a lot of commitment to actually resolve the armed conflict so i think there's there's two different things and you know do you have trust in the tap madore definitely not um do you have trust in the government no because what we're hearing is from doran san su chi pretty much what the tap madore is saying so there's no trust there but there is a willingness to engage in the process so i i think you've got to break it down and look at different communities and what they're enduring on the trust issue what i uh what i also want to want to highlight is a trust by the community on the peace process because particularly i want to highlight the case in gechin state gechin community believe that okay we have to find peace and we have to find different we have to use different ways to bring about peace so the kio leadership were also pressure had a pressure from the community as i mentioned in my presentation for the last five years the the kio had gained lots of people support from the community so the community also felt they they they have strong power to influence the the kio leadership and kio leadership vice versa also need to convince the community that okay let's let's try to work on this nca issues so trying to convince the community because community has little trust on the nca because the community would respond based on what they face day to day because what they are facing every day is heavy intense fighting and they have to move idps so based on that daily experience the community gechin community would uh perception on the peace process is how can we trust because it haven't shown in reality it haven't delivered what they said and what they do because when the kio leaderships go for the negotiation with the government the community begin to equalize that okay the kio leaderships going to the negotiation at the peace table going to nebido going to yang go equals to soon we will have more intense fighting so this is this is the the belief it becomes the perception of the people and therefore trusting on the current nca implementation nca negotiation trusting on those process was quite difficult because community responds on what they experience because of all this cases that uh done by the military on the ground was the testifying factor for the for them that we cannot trust this process that we cannot believe in this peace process so this is also another community issue nowadays that we have to pay high attention to the bringing community on board the peace process just two small external aspect of this trust building so i agree with with with david and with janand generating trust is very difficult especially when the trust is not there to begin with and they uh there are historical memories there are continued renewed examples of those historical memories but for the eos in northern miyema there are two two issues that they raised about about how to build trust the first one is so we have groups who have signed the nca they want to see the demonstration effect from those groups how how has nca pan out for those for those groups has it worked has it created peace has um has these these groups experience give them more confidence in the in the future that nca will actually generate peace and development as it promises the other external aspect is um groups ask for external guarantee for the nca since there is no there's no endogenous trust maybe trust can be created from exogenous factors so now of course then we'll get into the issue of whether china should or un should play the role of external guarantee of the peace process thank you let's turn it over to the floor for questions so let's take let's take three in a row and then come back so thank you good afternoon my name is chris murray from cats consulting student red think tank my question is about the hannah beach article in time magazine about the role jade plays and jade mining from the region um and on that does china have an invested interest in not seeing a piece because of their jade consumption and is that actually playing out in the peace process thank you and one more from i'm lisa misal with global witness and my question relates to jade as well but more broadly i would like to um ask you to comment on the role of natural resources both as a driver in this escalating conflict and um as a factor in the developing the prospects for peace so with regard to jade it's you know kuchen has the world's most valuable jade deposits and how does that play in uh and then on the flip side how can the interests and natural resources be brought into the peace process in a comprehensive way not just revenue sharing but more broadly to make sure that the local population benefits that their protections in place the licenses are allocated in a reasonable way to combat corruption and so forth how can this be integrated into a peace process in an effective way thank you and third question right in front of you i have a my name is an sweet sir um anthropologist i have a related thought uh i understand that there were two or three chinese burmese uh businessmen who have very very large mafias essentially they do a lot of trading and opium um wildlife their wildlife trafficking across the border so on and there must be people on the other side of the border in china who are benefiting greatly from from all of these movements so in addition to speaking about the chinese government policy in relation to the burmese government what about uh lower levels of chinese interest in perpetuating trade that may be counteractive to counter counterproductive to the peace process thank you three related questions um yun would you like to start on this sure i think all the three questions are are are essentially related so how china deals with the um the shan state and the kaching state on the other side of the border how china or certain chinese actors generate profits from from their local relationships so the first question is which china you're talking about like i'm pointing it out which china you're talking about one easy deniability um that offers the central government in china is uh well it's a local actors it's a local government it's a local businessman who have established these illicit trade relations with the asin minorities on the other side of the border and these are real economic relations that cannot just be stopped by one piece of paper by the central government there's some choose to it but that it also depends on how seriously that the beijing wants to pursue those policy given china's domestic politics today and how um how effective that shijin ping has been carrying out his domestic and foreign policy i would doubt that if shijin ping really sees the issue as detrimental to china's national interest and wants to stop this illicit trade and he can't i i don't i don't believe that is a realistic scenario in china's domestic politics today um so the issue of both jade uh well live poaching and drug trafficking and um illegal logging in norse miyama it relates to the war economy right of the conflict so throughout the years the chinese businesses and chinese local governments have established that these they're profitable relations with uh with the asin minorities in kecheng state and shan state swiss even tested approval from tatamadoa and local uh vermice military sometimes also take a cut out of this out of those illicit economic activities so that provides the momentum for this conflict to be on to to continue because the less managed or the less controlled that these areas are the easier it is for the illicit economic activities to to happen so i do reckon that um it is a serious issue for the undermining the peace process as for what to do about it david and jenem please well this is a very complicated issue and i'm sure global witness is also closely looking at this issue since cisfire uh since 1994 cisfire process in kecheng state and i want to highlight that when we look at the in the very early day on on the armed conflict with kio they were there to protect the kecheng state and they were there to protect the rights of the people and all the natural resources that come along with but after the cisfire agreement back in 1994 during the 17 years of cisfire period during the military regime and the conflict landscape has changed and the interest has changed and we can also see there are interests from the military government and interest from the individual in the military government and also at the same time for kio it's also become the survivor for the organization and of course in any organization there are people who have personal interests in all these natural resources and including jake and all this illegal logging issue so that become during the 17 years of cisfire period the natural resource become rather than you know both government and kio are to protect this natural resource for the people it becomes the self-interest of both government both kio and the government and the some individual leaders within within both both sites uh so the the landscape the landscape has changed and so if you look at for those who follow the resumption of war in kuchin state back in 2011 the small incidents become the big uh conflict that small incident could have been could have been dealt with but that small incident has to do with the hydropower security over hydropower dam so that could have been uh protected in the early on but i think i mean this is all our assumption i think there are individual interests from the government then individual within the government in those days uh had a interest in in that kind of business business so the conflict had escalated till today so this is uh this is one example so looking at this kind of protection of natural resource management and the the the the revenue sharing is it's a long term negotiation but we should not be only focusing on long term negotiation on the revenue sharing natural resource sharing but we have to find ways how to protect it now before every before before things goes worse than the situation so as Junsun said we don't have the answer but we we have to keep working on this as a high priority issue i definitely don't have any answers for this um on on the jade trade um the best place to go would actually be global witness and and Lisa's excellent colleagues who wrote the definitive report on the explosion of the jade trade in the past couple of years there's also a fantastic channel news asia documentary that um a good friend of mine worked on um and was uh screened in in yang on a few weeks ago um that gives a visual side to to um the trade that you don't often see and also the fantastic Burmese photographer um minzai who's been documenting um uh pukat the the um the jade mines in pukat there's a couple of things also to remember people tend to look at the money the jade you know the demand in china um but when you're in michina um on an almost weekly basis you hear about a landslide in which scores of people die and there was a period at the end of 2015 which hundreds of people were dying um because that you know the the big dump trucks dump um all the earth that they've gone through and people pick through it and it's very unstable and and lots of people die and i think we've got to recognize that that it's not just the wealth that's being pulled out of there and how it's it's it's going to uh into different people's pockets both inside miamara and and um and china uh but the human toll that it's taking on on people there um it's also is as a conflict driver people tend to think of the money but uh where did the arakan army get its recruits from when it formed several years ago it got them from ethnic rakhine who were working in the mines these are people who who were desperately poor um and really felt that there was nowhere to go it's because you know those people have to leave rakhine state go there and work in this incredibly dangerous trade and actually serving in in an eaio and fighting the tap madore seemed like a better option to them and this is this is real desperation um in terms of of all the other economic rents um i mean the chance state's an incredibly rich fertile place so there's there's um there's lots of opportunities i think for for eaos the the drug trade's probably the biggest one um there's been rapacious logging there for years and years and most of the trees are gone um we first heard me and me and colleagues first heard about a new logging road uh last year there's an excellent book by a burmese analyst called momong so who talked about this road coming from sigaing north of mogok and then into mung mit and um and i'm come up to the chinese border in which old growth teak was being taken from sigaing and there's this new logging road um that that some people are talking about and the eaos were actually putting up checkpoints and everyone was getting a slice of the pie as it were on this very isolated part and uh when we were talking about these these areas are so isolated that you hear word of firefights and and and clashes and people would say oh it's because rcss the one of the the signatories from the nation might ceasefire agreement had set up a checkpoint on this logging road to get a piece of the action and some of the other groups didn't like it and i mean you can't verify this it's so murky right but that is an element of the of the political economy of the conflict up there but also good old-fashioned extortion people tend to forget that uh when me and and colleagues were up in mousse one of our informants took us to an electronic store in which he said the tnla walk in here a tnla tax collector comes in here on a regular basis and basically says make your payment every single trucking company going up to mousse and there are lots of them um to give you an example there are sometimes three-day traffic jams on the highway going up to mousse so trucks basically and i got caught in one on the way to namkham and we ended up having to walk for a couple of hours um uh that's that takes the extent of the border trade and remember that that uh there was a senior tap metal press conference a couple of weeks ago in which the chief of staff pointed out that in the five days of fighting um around mousse last year 19 million u.s. dollars was lost in bilateral border trade okay so that that's the extent of of the border trade so there's the illicit rents there's also a legal trade which is thriving in that area and if if you just get kickbacks from a trucking company you know you're doing enough to keep your men um in in food and ammunition so you've got to think of the political economy of the conflict in much broader terms than extractive rents or natural resources thank you we've got time for a couple more quick questions before lunch so let's take one from here from here and the one here this is for david please introduce yourself oh gumsan from kachan lines um how could the burmese i guess greater community foster genuine national reconciliation or rebuilt trust um despite repeatedly you know shoving these atrocities under the rug by any armed men not just dot in the door because these are very community based and second question to miss janan you've been deeply involved in this uh not only the peace process but also the political transition process so the question is we had relative peace or calm last year to the first second quarter of the i guess 2016 so what caused this huge spike in conflict and what is the hurdle with unfc meeting with the government there are nine there are nine point proposal nine points i guess what's the sticking what's causing the uh impasse and for yun sun uwsa has the longest you know peace in among the eao and has the largest vested interest in burmese economy they have had some hiccups uh there had been some a few confrontation but never like a spillover like in the kio so what is this relative peace that they obtained what caused this thanks from the yard george washington university i appreciate the the excellent questions and responses about natural resource and other forms of extraction but again looking at the broader political economy of the of the conflict what about the arms procurement networks coming into the country uh what can you tell us perhaps david about um the key sources and networks for arms procurement hi michael martin again from crs i want to kind of build on um the gentleman over here's comment first off could you comment on reports that the top madal are actually using some of the nca signatory groups or previous militias who are now border guard forces as effectively a proxy in the fight in northern shan state in kinshine state and then second moving on to why the postponement of the pong long second pong long conference certainly the participation of the northern alliance three parties is one of the issues but could you comment on to what extent disagreements over the nine points or the six steps or the all the numbers that are floating around how much is the agenda and the sequencing of events towards peace is a barrier to moving forward one with the conference as well as uh ending the civil war three meeting questions on on achieving peace um i i think if i had any real ideas on that then it might have happened already and unfortunately um it's it's it's so complicated it's been going on for so long one one thing i would say which i don't think is getting the attention that that it really deserves is um an emphasis on youth participation um i mean a lot of generations that have gone through the conflict find it very hard to kind of get out of the conflict mentality even though they i think they genuinely want peace but they've gone through quite a lot and given that over the past several years me and my has really opened up there is far more access to information from the outside world people are able to have a conversation about peace and about conflict and about justice and about accountability in ways that they were too afraid to do um i think emphasizing the youth um and informing them about the conflict it's one of the the great things to come out of of one of the few great things to come out of the the escalation of conflict in the north is the role of to ang shan and other youth groups up in the north and these people are mobilizing they they staged a peace march um in in last year several months ago i mean i mean these are people that really want an end to this and they want to emphasize development and education um and have a spirit of togetherness and and wanting to avoid inter-communal tensions as as much as possible so that that to me is the really hopeful side to all of this is the youth quickly on on um there's a lot of weapons up in in the north um the kitchen um tend to be fairly self-reliant and in small arms um uh looking at the equipment that the mnda are holding that's pretty top shelf chinese weaponry and it can only come from one source which is china um who in china is selling it for what end is remains to be seen but also um i deferred to you on this but um i think the war is certainly um a major contributor to um to the arsenals of a lot of eaos in the area um and what's worrying is that as as i said the technology the conflict is increasing uh there is also talk of the eaos acquiring more and more sophisticated weaponry so it's just almost this kind of arms race um developing which is really worrying um uh at a time when they really should be talking peace are actually escalating the kind of weaponry that they're using thank you sure um first of all on why there has been relative peace in in the war area i think there are three reasons first one is uws a takes china's concern very seriously china doesn't want border instability china doesn't want to see armed conflict so that is at least one reason that uws a can tell the chinese service special envoy that we have we have taken uh your demand very seriously we are not starting armed conflict with uh with the government with with the government military the second reason is i think uws a is also relatively content with their with their current arrangement they have basically total autonomy in their two pieces of territory in the north and in the south they don't have a lot of national natural resources which could be one reason that they are not engaged in this in this this war economy per se and um they their administration of their own um affairs on their on their territory is it's fair it's fairly complete so you don't see this kind of overlapping presence between the government military and uws a on the same territory and the third reason is i think the uh time at all is also relatively reluctant to start an armed conflict with uh with uws a because uws a like david pointed out they have well rumor has it's 30 000 militias so they have a very strong armed force and they also have good weapons so if the titan model wants to start attacking uws a they have to be very careful about the consequences of the of that armed conflict the key sources of armed procurement i'm i'm not going to defend china um and actually we have seen different reports about the weapons weapons in the war area and held by cocan our chinese weapons i'm not going to defend china but it's just me in my research i have not obtained that evidence that these arms came from china uws a has his own factories to produce to produce their weapons and in my conversation with them that they do they do imitate the chinese models so that could explain the uh the appearance of the swarms but in terms of the the the larger arms arms um i have to say that the drug lords in that area are pretty creative in terms of their arms procurement and i'm not saying that these are not chinese weapons they could be chinese weapons but were they said were they sold to um eaos in northern miyama directly by chinese authority or by chinese government i think that's uh that's a question like in the in the research the uh the chinese financial company yuchang group back in 2015 when they were trying to protect their assets in in northern miyama when they were doing their money laundry um they arranged for those assets to be protected and how was they protected where did they get the weapon um that's a question to be answered okay so um i think in 2016's uh that was when the new government came into administration beginning of new government came into administration and at that time the state consular don san suji lay out a new plan like she started designing all inclusive trying to design all inclusive process to the political dialogue process so therefore she announced there will be 21st century pang long then the question came around when when she first mentioned about 21st century pang long there was a question from the signatory site according to the nca according to the framework that came out of nca we have a union peace conference so what is it different is this another another track or is it the same as union peace conference but in one meeting around may i think july uh she confirmed that 21st century pang long is the same as union peace conference and peace going to be implemented political dialogue will be implemented through nca agreement so stay on nca track and then political implementation 21st century pang long is same as union peace conference so at that time of course the position particularly the tamador position is without signing nca none signatory will not get official representation at the union peace conference but doang san suji is trying to create the space to bring everybody on board to the 21st century pang long so that's why the the temporary committee was formed to deal with the non signatories and one subcommittee is to deal with the signatory on the continued framework political dialogue framework review framework review then i think maybe that kind of process also gave some hopes to the non signatory okay now doang san suji is proposing 21st century pang long how is that going to be different so one different about the 21st century pang long first meeting which was taking place in end of august was it was designed out of the track of the nca because that conference was designed with the purpose of all inclusive and from this conference the first conference onward the political dialogue process will be all inclusive political dialogue process is to be designed so that was the idea so therefore regardless of signing of nca or non signing of nca both signatories and non signatory together with government damador and the political parties were able to form up the convening committee of the 21st century pang long first meeting so i think because of that hope you know we have sort of like relative peace around that time but after that uh there were ongoing negotiation with the un fcdpn on the nine point issues and i'm sure that topic won't you can reflect more in the last session on the peace process but i i could say the negotiating with the arm groups as i mentioned earlier you are not dealing with just one organization you are dealing with six seven different entities organizations so for ethnic arm organization for example dpn un fc to come to the table dpn has been mandated by un fc to go and negotiate nine point but they could not make the decision and they will always need to consult it back with un fc top leaders plus un fc members they have to consult it with your back with your mother organization so there's levels and levels of process that that need to that need to get the final decision so this eight points you know on the third march with dpn and peace commission they have in principle agreed particularly i want to highlight one thing is the role of international have been reflected more or less even though it was not the same expectation as dpn would like to see but there have been reflected some extent of the role of international in the political dialogue process in throughout the nce implementation process so those are some of the some of the example and if uang ji can reflect more in his session in the last session on the peace process on the last point on the 21st century you know the postponing of the the conference i think it is more about the sequencing matter to my view because in the negotiation meeting with dpn and peace commission on the third on the first first march dpn met with a state consular we believe that had produced good outcome and as a result the meeting on the third with dpn and peace commission have more concrete concrete concrete results came out of it so i think just observing this process of postponing the union peace second pang long conference to first week of may is maybe there might be a hope is still hoping the process the negotiation process with dpn and the and the peace commission will move forward and there might be some some agreement might come before that time so maybe that that's one factor and second is it's a practical issue because i'm i'm co-facilitating the meeting and i can see when it comes to the fixing the date for certain meetings and it's always fine challenging to find the time to work around the schedule of the government to work around the schedule of the unfc an individual organization i think there's also practical issue that just could not find the time you know to to fix the date for the next meeting and in between this official meeting there are also series of meeting going on uh i think ambassador direct metro mentioned about the joint coordination body which is the fund management body which is also joint non-signatory unfc is also part of that discussion so next week they will also be meeting with government and signatory and non-signatory to draw further on that joint coordination funding joint coordination body so there is so many parallel meetings going on not only the official meeting but framework review meeting on the political dialogue is also going on and at the same time looking at reflecting on the joint monitoring committee work to our has been working on it so there are like parallel parallel meetings along with the official meeting so that that's why one factor of postponing or moving to the first first may could also be the practical reason that long holiday in april and long now it's a changing you know holiday day is coming in april and there are different meetings scheduled so i think that's another practical reason might also be be the reason for postponing to the first week of may and probably the ultimate will be hoping that everybody might be able to join in the in the second problem to the first century problem thank you and what a good note to end on um in terms of inclusiveness of all the um the groups in the process hopefully um at some stage in the coming year um thank you once again to wonderful panelists um for helping us to unpack an incredibly complex conflict and some of the negotiations um around that um we do have another session as jan un mentioned this afternoon the last session this afternoon a ways forward will look more at the peace process um so there'll be another opportunity there to to speak more about this um now we have lunch and um we have an address from um from patrick murphy the deputy assistant secretary for southeast asia from the state department during lunch so we'd like to invite you to take um a lunchbox from over there and come and rejoin us at your table um for the next session thank you very much thank you thank you it sounds like beaming now on us now that was great that's good it's all right ladies and gentlemen uh i'd like to i'm sorry to break into the conversations hopefully there'll be a lot of time for conversation between sessions um but we're going to do a little talk and chew here as you eat we're going to have a little conversation um we are very very fortunate uh today to have as a lunch speaker uh the current deputy assistant secretary of state for southeast asian affairs and a very very good friend not only of mine but of berma itself um patrick murphy was a political econ chief in in berma in what years were those 2000 some time ago 10 years ago or so but he was one of those people like many of us who went there caught the bug it's a very special place for him he is uh though he has served in many places around around the world and in china iraq guinea and molly he's worked on on haydee he was recently the the dcm and charger de ferre in tai land during dicey periods of the last few years but we are extremely fortunate as americans frankly and i think it's good for for berma that he is now the deputy assistant secretary of state for southeast asian affairs and he'll probably want me to mention that he is a great fan of the boston redsox and the new england patriots and i have lost many a bet to him unfortunately and many a lunch i owe him a lunch based on on bets related to that love so anyway with that he will make some opening comments and then he will take questions and i will point out folks who can who can ask the questions with that please join me in welcoming patrick murphy nice to see you all really terrific to see already from this perch many familiar faces uh ambassador mitchell my good friend and colleague thank you very much both to you and to nancy limberg the entire team here at the us institute for peace a cherished institution greatly appreciated by me and my colleagues across the street at the state department it's just terrific i think to bring together all of this expertise from inside berma me and mar and from outside it's very timely to take pause and look at the situation with regards in particular to peace and conflict but especially because we are now approaching in a matter of days the one-year anniversary of the elected civilian government's assumption of authorities a little bit of a spoiler alert i am going to perhaps strike a tone of cautious optimism i'll say it right up front i've been through many decades of challenges with this particular country professionally and i'm very cognizant of some incredibly dark and difficult days in the past and i have i think good basis to be optimistic that could be in contrast to the views of some certainly in contrast to some current headlines which give a lot of attention to challenges they're real challenges berma in the post transition period is encountering a very predictably bumpy stretch many of these challenges most some would say were inherited but there are also some new challenges but it's early days as i said we're on the eve of the first year of a new government and the country is emerging from 50 plus years of authoritarian repressive rule i don't think therefore that we should lose sight in talking about challenges and difficulties some of them very serious of what's been remarkable a peaceful transition from military dictatorship to representative democracy somewhat unprecedented when you look around the region when you look around the world in some aspects are a real model it's been a long struggle and i dare say it will continue to be a struggle for the foreseeable future today the united states and me and mar have a partnership just one year ago uh in fact pretty close to the day we were here at usip talking about our position our policy which was poised to redeclare this country a national emergency and extend comprehensive sanctions which had been in place for decades and in fact we did do that we extended and renewed sanctions but now we have a partnership and the question is how did we get where we are today i know you're exploring a lot of the issues with your panels uh and and discussions but from our perspective i think we want to acknowledge first and foremost it's the resolve of the bermes people they've never given up hope for democracy for peace for prosperity i witnessed that at several junctures over recent decades inside the country and it's what's made the situation there so compelling for so long this is not a situation where the outside world wants something that the very people of this country don't want we see that elsewhere around the world there are questions about pursuit of democracy and peace and prosperity these have been the aspirations of the bermes people they've been committed they've been courageous they've made a lot of sacrifices from our perspective we believe we have been a good leader a committed leader for the better part in particular of the past three decades our congress successive presidents both sides of the aisle have worked with civil society and others and rallied the international community and we have done so in close cooperation with the diaspora with the pro-democracy movement which for years was an underground phenomenon inside the country to come up with a posture of pressure on successive military regimes there have been the well-known executive orders on investment creation of especially designated nationals and entities lists the berm of freedom and democracy act the jade act much more when the changing of the military guard a few years ago a few short years ago produced some signs of reform i think it's at that point we can say the united states again took a leadership role and made a bold move some engagement a process of action for action and i think those efforts helped yield a nascent electoral process the release early releases of a certain number of political prisoners some moves to reduce censorship a national ceasefire process with the ethnic armed groups and more at that time and we're talking now about five years ago six years ago we did our part to help support and encourage further reform we restored full diplomatic relations that's a term of art we had diplomatic relations with berma consistently without interruption from independence but we moved up to place an ambassador the good derrick mitchell in that role we re-established a us aid mission inside the country we supported the renewal of assistance from international financial institutions and we began some easing of our sanctions we think collectively working with many here in the room many around the world that that produced some good results the 2015 election an nld victory which for that movement that political party and its supporters achieved a result that had been denied for 25 years but never never lost the aspiration to see that dream realized so a year ago after or after ansan su chi president tin cha the national league for democracy took office we saw some early moves fulfilling campaign promises fulfilling expectations for many the release of many political prisoners the launch of new reforms the spearheading of a national reconciliation process and some early moves to tackle those fundamental inherited challenges rekind state a true national peace reconciliation process and really thorny things that had never been dealt with except in a negative way like land tenure and corruption from the u.s. perspective we wanted to recognize the scope of the changes the scope of the transition and we conducted some pretty intense consultations with our congress with the newly elected government in berma with other partners and we concluded collectively that sanctions had for the most part run their course they had been intended to provide incentives for a democratic reform process which had been taken had taken place in a very significant manner i think the other governments and organizations including some of you here today can take pride in those many decades of efforts to help the people of berma change their country that was a successful progress now we find ourselves in a position to use more traditional tools to support this government in meeting the expectations of its people especially with regards to economic growth and development now speaking of expectations they are sky high unbelievable expectations all of them genuine all of them heartfelt all of them were the basis of reality the population wants dividends from democracy wants to see results from decades of suffering and struggle to get to this point they want to see the alleviation of poverty some basic choices about their own destiny ethnic minorities of course want an end to discrimination some control over their resources a part a part of this pie the human rights community would obviously like to see many issues addressed would like to see the new leadership which includes a Nobel peace laureate govern like a Nobel peace laureate the Burmese military the tom adoe wants its traditions its practices its position protected and the international community would like to see its advice and counsel applied i just can't imagine governing with that set of expectations and i think the truth is it's literally impossible to meet all of them in one year and i dare say maybe impossible to meet them in a single term or even in a generation many burmese have had scant opportunity to govern or to gain public policy experience over these last couple of generations capacity is very low this is an untested government starting almost from scratch nonetheless we too in the united states have expectations we have hopes for this country well it has made notable remarkable progress we are not blind to many of the difficult issues that remain and must be addressed an election a democratic transition cannot alone solve all of the complex problems there are the macro level issues and challenges that you're all aware of you're discussing today national peace and reconciliation i've already cited economic prosperity consolidation of democracy it's not yet done establishment of a real true functioning government and society in addition to these from our perspective the new government must take steps to address continuing armed conflict kuchen state and shan state are the most notable at the the current time must address the allegations of sustained abuses against the rahinga minority address chronic underdevelopment in many places but in particular rakhine state chin state there are poor education and health care systems that have been broken for a long time and let's not lose sight of the fact that many burmese fled their country over the decades hundreds of thousands remain in refugee status or in other capacities and would like to return and contribute to their country but they need the right conditions to do so so this list is long and daunting and even though i point to high expectations i acknowledge that we contribute we have some expectations as well i think many of you can agree and thus the nature of your discussions today that among these challenge challenges perhaps the two greatest are the peace process and the situation in rakhine state which is not new those of you who know the country well know that this is a problem that's been around for decades if not more than a hundred years i referred earlier to some of the current headlines and violence in the country displacement allegations of abuses are fairly well covered i think what's less well addressed are both some encouraging steps and some other aspects to challenges there have been concrete steps taken towards a nationwide ceasefire agreement that's not yet done that remains a work in progress but there have been some bold steps the historic pan-long peace conference is in some regards unprecedented certainly has not been attempted since the 1940s and it's been more inclusive more substantive than anything in the interim and there have been early efforts in rakhine state on the tricky sensitive issues regarding citizenship and development for all of the populations that reside there as if berma did not have enough on its plate there are emergent new challenges and i referred earlier to a set of inherited thorny issues but there have been some new ones that have cropped up the coordinated deadly attacks in october and november on border security units in rakhine state we really haven't seen that before and that cost lives and created a increased environment of tension we know what the response has been in the allegations of abuses just a short while ago in january the brazen daytime assassination of a respected muslim rights attorney ukoni was a sad moment for this country and the nature of that deadly attack is a rare and poses a whole set of new questions and perhaps even challenges so that's the discouraging part i think the optimistic part that i previewed is that berma has the ingredients for success this really is the best opportunity in perhaps two generations to set the country on a successful track for the country to restore not only its own house but its rightful place in the asia pacific i am not forgetting that berma was once the rice bowl the intellectual heart and center of all of asia this country was a model that other countries aspired to achieve was a place to send sons and daughters to get a good education with its resources both human and natural berma deserves to restore that position and play a role in the region and in the world so i cited and let me just be brief about this part that we have a partnership now and many would question what are we doing to help what are we doing to address the challenges and help with the opportunities we literally now have a partnership the us-meanmar partnership that was announced by state counselor don san su chi and president obama last year was launched in november and i was pleased to lead a u.s. delegation from washington join our ambassador there scott marciel and conduct a series of consultations in discussions with 22 ministries civilian military everything was on the table we discussed collaborative ways to improve human rights promote economic growth encourage responsible investment business practices including in the complex jade and gemstone sectors and work together on a whole host of issues this was refreshing and again i want to refer to my personal perspective starting in this country almost three decades ago now this is a whole new chapter this is a new era where problems are not denied are not discussions are not shut down very frank very open and pretty widespread acknowledgement of what needs to be addressed going forward since 2012 we have committed some 500 million in assistance that's going from inside the country an incredibly low number in previous years for the peace process we are endeavoring to help achieve a legitimate inclusive peace building mechanism in rekind state us aid and others have committed over 60 million dollars for economic development food security health programs in rekind we're promoting development for communities affected by inter-communal violence in the past efforts to improve relations between the rekind and rohingya communities help with livelihoods and early recovery there are still some 45 000 persons that we are helping who have been affected by conflict displacement and extreme poverty in that part of the country since 2015 i'm not accounting for previous years but just in the last two years we have committed over 100 million dollars in humanitarian aid for members of vulnerable communities throughout the country and outside the country i think we have reason to be very proud about that ladder category because many donors have shifted all of their attention inside the country and as i mentioned there are still hundreds of thousands outside in need and we remain a very key leading donor we've been active in the rule of law sector helping with assistance to parliament justice institutions civil society to pro to conduct legal reforms give attention to rule of law and human rights such agencies as a u.s patent and trade office training judges government officials in protecting intellectual property rights complying with the requirements of international agreements that the berma now subscribes to our treasury department has provided technical assistance on money laundering tax collection support for public financial management reform and there's lots that we're doing on economic development we now have in place in country a foreign commercial service office which has increased trade by over 300 percent close to 400 percent that's all relative you'll know with our sanctions and the country's self-imposed isolation we're basically started close to zero so but nonetheless it's about trade it's also about american jobs as it is about bernie's jobs our overseas private investment corporation opic has extended the process for a a loan of over 200 million dollars for the construction of cellular towers berma's infrastructure is very very low our export import bank is now working in the in the realm of export credit insurance loan guarantees direct loans to improve trade flows and help berma enter the international economy and at the same time help our economy too there are other areas i won't list them all but a couple that we're quite proud of last september our first group of peace corps volunteers arrived in berma they're focusing on education they're off to a great start and i think as we had anticipated and hoped being very well received by their communities and i dare say that berma will be in a position soon to to plead for a doubling a tripling of the number of volunteers who've been started since last august we also have a u.s. department of agriculture office in rangoon and after the historic visit i referred to last september we have reinstated gsp trade benefits for berma a couple of things we've done with the bermes military now before there are shocks and gasps this is very nascent and there is a reason because the elected government hopes that we will have nascent engagement with the bermes armed forces the top medow why there's a desire to transform this institution which is very critical for the transition for the country success into a professional institution subordinate to elected government integrated into regional security structures respectful of human rights and international norms so we have had very low level contacts where there have been discussions on human rights standards professionalization some very low level participation in multilateral conferences this is not for the military leadership we're not yet at that stage it's very nascent but as i said it's important and it's recognized as important by the civilian elected government who has asked us to explore these kind of efforts a partnership between our two countries is about friendship but it doesn't mean we have no differences bermes a sovereign country with a sovereign independent government and so we raise our concerns about violence about displacement in rakhine state about human rights allegations of human rights violations by security forces we encourage the ending of conflict full humanitarian access we call on the military to support the civilian government and we work with others in the international community to address these areas of concern this week in janeva discussions are underway at the human rights council we hope in a collaborative productive way forward but nonetheless a lot of the concerns are on the table to be addressed so the bermes people have expectations we have expectations but i dare say that democracy is not only a work in progress but it's a hard work in progress safe to say after 240 years we still work on aspects of our own democracy and ultimately it's not for us to solve it's the bermes people it's their institutions their government their military to deliver on reforms consolidate democracy but our commitment is to work collaboratively with the democratic government civil society others around the world in a transition that we hope in every way succeeds the 55 million plus people of berma deserve it the country has a promising future as i said at the outset it is bumpy anyone who has been there spent time there knows how complicated it is 55 million people 55 million different stories and aspirations 125 130 plus different ethnic groups religions the diversity of this country is quite stunning we hope it finds strength in diversity and we hope it can do so with the help of its friends its neighbors and its partners and that's why i strike that tone of cautious optimism we hope there's no looking back those were very difficult days there's no comparison the climate of fear that the people lived in for such a long time has been diminished considerably and there is room for hope and that's why we hope it succeeds thank you very much i hope also to take some of your questions but it's a pleasure to be here with you all today jason jason somebody thank you ambassador patrick murphy as a fellow foreign service officer i congratulate you and my message for your statement is that thank you very much we take your statement as a testimony to united states commitment to me and your suggestions your view and how we work we will work together will be very taken very seriously and i i assure you that we will work together that the the path that we have laid down yes with regard to the optimist cautious optimism i agree with you because when you look at the people who are from Myanmar those who were uh uh mima said mima citizens uh before and and the folks who are the mima citizens now when you look at the history of our country all the people in our country pamaa the chim chim shim karen we all took challenges this is the this is i think it is in our blood that we take challenges we all are risk takers that is why we take the challenge i i liken this spirit as the spirit of your forefathers who for independence who took the challenge to bring the country independence from the rulers we will take this as a very good example and this is how we work together among the people who are diverse in our country this uh no one will disagree with what i say now there's a chin national and there there are billion nationals chin and rakhine national we all agree that we have we are diversified but we have our common goals this is how we work together and also uh uh with regards to what you have mentioned about the peace corps this is the very good beginning i will be having a uh meeting with the peace corps those who are going to mima in the near future those who have uh uh anagon training in the us and this is what i wish to do in our in in your country to promote people to people connectivity to promote people to people uh relationship friendship and so on so let us work together that will bring uh common good to both our country and also peoples of our two countries thank you very much thank you ambassador uang lin i think you create an opportunity for me to acknowledge the issuance today of the kofi anon commission report with a series of uh serious recommendations and the government of bermas immediate response accepting uh those recommendations this has been a good process the formation of the commission for anyone who knows the complexities inside the country i won't go into all the detail but it was a bold move to invite the formation of a commission with an international component to it and now expectations speaking of expectations will be high on on the implementation of the recommendations but it is a good start to acknowledge and accept them uh so a helpful step today but thank you ambassador i'm chosen that from voice of america uh could you elaborate a little bit more about the military to military relations with bermas and are you optimistic that you could successfully persuade the bomb military to respect the human rights and to become a professional thank you yeah thank you i think it's an important question about the military to military relationship first of all i think it's all relative the united states has such relationships throughout the region and in the majority of countries there are military military relationships that encompass military training defense sales uh contact exercises uh there's a whole range of activities that are considered standard and normal very few uh in fact almost none of what i've just described exists in the military to military relationship with the top medow what i'm referring to is very nascent contact and strictly limited to the topics that i noted professionalization human rights international standards the process of filling fulfilling the role that is subordinate to an elected civilian government this is new particularly for military uh that is used to ruling the roost and has been had been in control for over 50 years of every institution every aspect of governance and the economy so transitioning away from that uh is a process and we want to encourage it that's why i talk about very nascent limited engagement in terms of the hopes that you raise the question of what can we hope to achieve i think we have to try i think uh the bernie's people deserve a system a government where the military plays a more traditional supportive role focused on national defense right-sized professional adhering to standards and many would agree there's a lot of room for improvement in those categories i don't think we conclude that we exclusively are in a position to shape and influence entirely our modest efforts right now are extremely limited and nascent given the nature of the situation and the various constraints i think for the most part that are obvious some constraints are legislated uh and we're not looking to uh have our congress change those legislative restrictions right now it's too early these are early days part of the bigger challenge i referred to is the consolidation of democracy the country is not yet in a position to say the transition to democracy is complete and that process is going to require the participation and support of the tatmado the armed forces i think right now safe to say in some it's it's about exposure this is an armed forces that largely has been working internally and is unfamiliar with international standards is unfamiliar with the world view on how militaries should operate in the modern era and so it's a beginning i think of a long a long process to come thank you for your question patrick thanks for that overview us from our relations could i know it's a bit of a tough question but um it's wondering uh what you talked about was sort of the policy under the previous administration i'm wondering if you can give us some guidance on what the new administration is thinking about me and mar we had uh um ambassador scott marcia was here i know he was doing consultations year building the white house and congress is there um can you from based on what you've heard so far give us guidance on what might happen on the aid capacity building and other types of relationships thank you yeah thank you murray fair enough question and i think the way to answer it would to be for me the best position i meant to speak more broadly about the asia pacific region uh we haven't had a specific policy review on on berma me and mar but it does fit into the broader context and the new administration has reaffirmed the u.s. commitment to the asia pacific as an asia pacific nation and there are many components in that engagement in that relationship that remain consistent and important uh the trade and economic foundations security matters uh people the people contact uh and the like uh secretary of state tillerson is currently in asia uh reflecting uh the importance of this engagement going forward uh just uh a little less than a week ago last friday secretary of state tillerson met with the representatives of the azian member states here in washington uh seven ambassadors uh two chargers and a representative of a of a tenth embassy and reaffirmed for the azian missions and their countries and ambassador uh uwanglin was there representing uh me and mar reaffirmed that we are engaged we are committed we will be at the table the architecture in the region is important to us and berma me and mar is a member of this architecture by virtue of its azian membership and by that i refer to the azian regional forum the east asia summit the lower maykong initiative which is an american initiative uh and other groupings um our commitment will remain very sustained there and so i think all of these things are at play in our relationship with me and mar we are committed to this country's progress and its aspirations to achieve peace stability and prosperity thank you last two questions thank you ambassador for coming here to speak with us today my name is yvonne is camea my question is you have um talks about now the sort of uh cooperation and the the kinds of factors that we're cooperating with uh me and mar berma on several factors economic political and such but some of the uh speakers here today have also talked about perhaps giving me and mar me and mar berma the the chance to let it flourish on its own develop its own sort of democratic processes so i just want to know what your your insight on how you think the line between more us uh presence in me on me and mar versus letting it just giving letting it on its own devices be like where is the line do you think yeah thank you sure i'll take two questions my name is ron kray bill i've worked in peace processes throughout the world uh as mainly as a private consultant and also through un uh offices uh i wish i shared your optimism for me on mar uh right now i don't see it it is true that all peace processes are difficult and um but the thing that is required to make progress when things are difficult is some kind of a learning curve i spent six years in south africa doing the peace process there and that was also very difficult but at key points there were major crises and that facilitated then a shift and a a conversation and one saw adjustments in the process so there was an ongoing correction course which in in the end set up a process that worked i'm discouraged about me on mar right now because i don't see any learning curve whatsoever i see a situation in work in which from a standpoint of process design that is building trust around the process and making decisions in ways that actually get the key parties to trust and invest in that process i see terrible mistakes being made and i see no meaningful conversations anywhere about what those mistakes are and how those mistakes destroy trust and therefore it's very hard for me to see that things will be righted so um i guess my question is what are the ways in which the friends of me on mar can encourage a dynamic of learning from what has happened so far of of meaningful conversations that actually get to the heart of the concerns that particularly the ethnic peoples are feeling and are expressing in many different ways including armed response but certainly we know from history and from conversations with those people in those groups that armed response is not the only way to deal with those concerns a lot of it as was said earlier is about meaningful participation and i'm deeply concerned that i just don't see it happening and didn't the u.s government sort of throw away its last tool to create an incentive for such meaningful conversation by removing the sanctions a year ago if they had been there it seems to me there would have been at least some incentive for the tamadol and and the military to step back slow down and actually learn from from the process from the states thank you uh first the the question about you know berma and its own uh responsibility going forward i think to reiterate what i shared in my remarks is that ultimately it is up to the bermes people their government their institutions the tamadol the armed forces we can only hope to play a helpful productive role as a partner as a concerned member of the international community when i talk about our assistance uh in the bigger scheme of things these are modest amounts and who knows what the future portends for foreign assistance but 500 million dollars certainly a lot for our taxpayers but in the scheme of bermas needs it's a proverbial drop in the bucket i don't think ultimately if we had all the resources uh to bring to bear uh that we would ultimately be the only factor the institutions other donors and let's remember ultimately it's not governments from outside there needs to be a very heavy component uh for the private sector because as on sunsuchi said when she was here there are opportunities she welcomes business it's our position uh in our policy that such business should be responsible should have high standards should be contributing uh to the solutions not to the problems but private sector investment and trade is going to be a huge factor for how that country can succeed going forward so i don't disagree if there have been observations here that that berma needs to stand on its own two legs ultimately that is true in this fragile period though i think we can all recognize that that help is in order um the the daunting set of challenges are so enormous uh any one of the top 10 challenges could be the undoing of this transition i don't think any of us would aspire to see bermago backwards and i think that's a good transition to the question about about peace and conflict i will be the first to acknowledge from my experiences in some troubling parts of the world it is a difficult complex process i don't disagree that there are concerns with the steps taken or not taken over the last year in berma however i do think it bears repeating after 50 years of repressive military rule this is a difficult starting point for any new government after 70 years of conflict and violence without cessation you can't find one period where these longest running conflicts in the anywhere in the world have been interrupted that is a challenging starting point even if the previous military regime had decided we're going to do things differently we're going to open up and maintain power but we're going to solve peace that was never a priority a true priority until the reform period began so i look at what the the reason i'm optimistic um and i know that word sometimes comes with emotions for some but yet i can't help but be optimistic when i look at where the country has been in the past and the ingredients they have now to get some of these things right i don't disagree with you that um and say that it's not challenging that there could be setbacks that uh that threaten the transition but the early steps taken on assembling in a meaningful way in inclusive gathering of all of the the parties and ethnic armed groups you know is without precedent that was never attempted by the military regimes the early steps on economic development on dealing with land issues that are complicated corruption and the citizenship issues that are so sensitive in rakhine state none of these have been meaningfully attempted before and so i think the question the more fundamental question comes how can we help how can we help them right wrongs learn the lessons you're right they need to learn lessons early on and make the right steps going forward and i hope at a gathering like this is part of that process to advise and be productive the final thing i will say on that question and and i say this from having lived in the country and and been there like some of you for for many many years it is a complex place the more i know about berm of the less i know it is phenomenally the the woven web of of groups and personalities and issues and it just is not a place that can be fixed overnight and i i wish the best and i want to ensure that we are taking steps and i think that's a u.s. government position that are not counterproductive it is so complex there are moves and advice and pressure that we can apply that actually make the situation the situation even even worse than it is now yeah on that note please join me in thanking patrick murphy for joining me thank you all change your somebody so good afternoon everyone um we'd like to start the session soon so um i implore all of you to take your seats well good afternoon um we're about to start the third session on rekind state and in in a day of very difficult complicated topics this is definitely one of the most complicated and most vex i think everyone here is probably aware of the very um dire circumstances situation in rekind state especially since the october 9th attacks and what has been happening in in northern mong door um professor yang he lee released her her report to the human rights council on monday and today the coffee and an advisory commission on rekind state issued its recommendations which is a very important document in my view but with this panel instead of of just seizing on recent events in rekind state we're going to call on the three panellists to to provide a bigger picture of what's happening in rekind state not just on on the rehinja situation but also in in matthew alton's in oxford and he's going to skype in to look at at broader issues of religious tensions and islamophobia in the country um so to start off steve ross is a program manager for the center for humanitarian dialogue he's been doing excellent work on rekind state over the past couple of years dr joyan line is the director of the center for diversity and national harmony in yangon and on skype there should be dr matthew alton um who is one of the key there he is um uh good evening matt is is one of the the key um academics working on um religious issues um in contemporary me and ma steve's going to go first and then we're going to cut to uh to matt in oxford um and then the endure will will wrap up and we'll open up for questions so steve thank you dav and thank you usip for for hosting this this timely and important event uh as most of you are following the situation in rekind quite closely i will focus my my remarks uh less on the current dynamics on the ground and a bit more on some of the challenges and constraints uh towards progress as well as uh concluding with with a handful of of recommendations so first to echo some of the comments that ambassador mitchell made this morning uh one of the the key challenges is the that security actors retain control over administrative functions of state um and this is something that has long been the case uh in rekind and is especially uh a concern in northern rekind which is very heavily securitized uh and the the recent events have have resulted in a further securitization of of this situation particularly in northern rekind less so in central and southern rekind to compliment that civilian actors have uh somewhat limited role and are constrained in what they can do in terms of implementation so there are very significant implications for uh the ability of civilian actors to implement policy pronouncements on the ground um and this is compounded by by a number of other challenges um there's a secondary challenge which is that because of a limited civilian presence especially in in northern rekind there are challenges in accessing information and so a reliance on security actors for information about what is happening on the ground and that results in a feedback loop that has uh an effect on policy as well as uh how policy is implemented on the civilian side uh even when civilian officials are well intentioned uh they've faced challenges in creating an enabling environment through the processes by which they have tried to implement policy to build trust between uh communities at a local level uh one element of that is is very highly centralized decision making uh in napida which has uh resulted in a sense that communities are are not consulted or involved in decision making processes which is an element that came up as well in the the panel earlier this morning and there isn't an articulated strategy for how to deal with rekind um with decisions seeming largely ad hoc or reactive um and this creates a degree of uncertainty uh and a belief that uh there there isn't a plan among local communities that that can be acted upon uh and that they're aware of and and can be bought into uh compounding this challenge is weak communications internally there are challenges with information flows both up and down within the government so uh policy decision is not effectively communicated to officials at the local level on the one hand and on the other hand uh the consultations that are taking place at a local level when there is is information that is collected there that could be useful to influencing how policy is implemented that information is not carried up the chain in addition there are challenges in terms of how uh external commuter communications operate um the way in which local consultations are conducted by by government and the way in which meetings are conducted with local communities are not always effective and are seen by some of those communities as as paternalistic and providing information rather than a genuine dialogue process and some of the ways in which the the government has communicated after the October 9th attacks and the subsequent response have been very very narrow in their their scope and have not allowed for the possibility that some of the things that that we are now seeing to have occurred to have occurred um so while process has the potential to build trust between communities as well as between communities and government uh it has thus far uh it one year into to this administration it has not had that role um there have been some improvements in the way that uh the the government has communicated to external audiences uh there's uh renewed efforts to reach out to local communities in rakhine uh both rakhine and muslim and there's some opportunities for further engagement there a further challenge is that uh the the muslim community in in rakhine does not have a strong domestic constituency uh there's no one that is is really advocating on the behalf of this community and that creates challenges both because the uh the government isn't pushed by its domestic constituencies to to make progress on this issue and also because it's it's given or perceived as given outsized attention by the the international community relative to all of the other challenges that that me and mara is facing um i just want to dig in to to two issues in particular uh to highlight some of these challenges and and how they play out in practice one is is citizenship which is one of the most complex uh issues in rakhine and and one of the most fundamental challenges towards towards moving forward uh i think citizenship is often viewed as a a silver bullet to uh resolving the legitimacy of the the muslim population in rakhine to improving their their access to rights but in reality the situation is is much more complex there are those in in rakhine that do have citizenship documentation but for a number of reasons uh face difficulty in accessing rights and and freedom of movement um furthermore uh the rakhine community will not take a piece of paper in and of itself as a means to recognize this this community as as legitimate uh and so much more is needed uh to uh to to bring about sense that the the muslim community in rakhine belongs there among the ethnic rakhine community and that's something that is going to take a very long time uh to develop um that said i think that there is space within the current legal framework which is not ideal but i think there is space within the currently legal framework to um address the the citizenship issue and uh there's ways uh to to build trust in the process such that it can move forward um in terms of why there's mistrust um on the one hand there is instinctual mistrust in the muslim community because of a history of um of documents being canceled or revoked uh because of uh recent processes being stalled uh and because of the government's focus at this point on a national verification certificate as opposed to jumping straight to a full citizenship process and so all of these things have combined to create mistrust among the muslim community in this process on the rakhine side there's also a strong degree of mistrust uh because of some historical cases of corruption and perhaps those who are undeserving uh receiving citizenship documentation and there's a broader degree of skepticism about government intentions uh as to as to this process and so this creates mistrust among the rakhine as to the current process uh the the way that has been undertaken has not served to to build trust further the there's as as with rakhine as a whole there isn't an articulated strategy about uh what is going to happen what are the steps uh that will be taken what is the timeline uh and uh there are things happening on the ground but they seem to be happening in isolation as a part of um rather than a part of a broader plan a further challenge is is that policy pronouncements are not necessarily matched by implementation on the ground uh so one example of that is last year the central committee on peace stability and development in rakhine state announced that those holding trifold cards which is a prior form of of documentation uh before 1982 would automatically be given citizenship documents but this hasn't been something that's been followed through on another recent example is that there has been some willingness among a small part of the the muslim population to partake in this national verification certificate process but those that have participated have not yet been verified as citizens whether full or associate or some other form of citizenship so there hasn't been follow through um again poor information flows up and down and a lack of understanding about uh what's happening at a local level in napidaw and uh a gap between policy pronouncements in napidaw and the way that they're they're implemented on the ground um there's also an incredible amount of pressure on officials from the the rakhine community the ethnic rakhine community um and i think one of the the core challenges is that there is a lack of recognition about how important it is to do outreach not just to the muslim community but also to the rakhine community uh and we discussed earlier some of the grievances that the rakhine community have vis-a-vis the the central government and i think just taking a very brief step back it's worth thinking about the situation in rakhine as a trilateral conflict in a lot of ways there's the inter-communal dimension between rakhine and muslims which is one of the more prominent there's the the conflict and and grievances between the the muslim community and the the central government uh but there's also a significant set of grievances between the rakhine community and the central government and this is something that doesn't get as much detention as as it deserves and is is something that i think can open the door to success in the other elements of this this triangular conflict but in terms of the rakhine pressure on citizenship uh there's been a series of protests there protest plan for all of next week a police case has been opened uh against the the rakhine state immigration officer uh over one uh case of citizenship being granted and uh there's there's a very very strong and visceral reaction within the rakhine community to how this process is progressing and uh there's been a lack of engagement on the government side to explain the process to the rakhine and to try and get them bought in or at least to tacitly accept some of the elements of of this process um there's also i think an important distinction between what's happening in in urban areas and what's happening in rural areas uh at at a rural village level there's a strong desire by both rakhine and muslim communities to get access to livelihoods education healthcare the desires are basically the same with the situation somewhat more acute among muslim communities because of uh both social and and official restrictions on on movement the challenge is actually on the the urban side where most of the the rakhine political elites reside and where most of the opposition to these processes lays so if if a constituency can be uh brought up from from the rural communities where there is more support and there is a necessity to work and live together uh there there might be more opportunities for for these processes to go forward that said even if progress is made in citizenship processes themselves the ministry of immigration has only limited control over what happens after citizenship has been granted and the the security forces would need to be bought in to for example providing security in an active manner such that communities feel safe traveling from one place to another rather than in the passive manner in which it is is now provided and that transitions a bit to um to the issue of freedom of movement um it's a broad advocacy point that has been repeated over and over for the last several years that that freedom of movement should be improved for for muslim communities uh but the the situation is is much more complex than just saying that the the situation should be improved um first there's two different types of of restrictions on movement one is a relatively official restriction in terms of movement between townships or from rakhine state to to other areas in rakhine the other is a more social form of movement restrictions whereby local communities either rakhine or muslim do not feel safe to travel uh from village to village or from township to township and this uh requires security buy-in to to be able to address it effectively such that security actors are actively providing security to to all actors in in rakhine um a further challenge is that government actors and especially security actors in rakhine are highly risk averse and there's not perceived to be a benefit by taking risks and doing things that uh that necessarily improve the situation um and so they're uh this dynamic uh combined with short periods of time in a particular place to uh two-year stint uh at a local level in rakhine means there's a lack of incentives to to to move forward um before going into a handful of recommendations uh i want to caveat them by saying that i think that this is a process and the events in rakhine need to be led by the people in Myanmar and the people in rakhine state and that there are limitations to the influence that the international community can have and there's also uh as as was alluded to just a moment ago uh some concerns about the the way in which external actors engage being counterproductive uh one example i think of this is that in the immediate aftermath of of the election there was uh very high expectations and i think quite a lot of pressure on uh on the government to demonstrate and uh there was a rushed citizenship process at this time that wasn't particularly well thought out and it soared further mistrust so we need to very carefully calibrate uh advocacy and support for what uh what there's space for on the ground where there's room for policy implementation uh just some very very brief recommendations uh or or suggestions uh for for engagement further one is i think there's there's quite a lot of space and scope to support the efforts of things that have the the government's ear already uh one which Dave alluded to is in in his introduction is the the rakhine advisory commission led by kofi anan um and the the support for the recommendations that that they have made in their their interim report with a final report expected later this year in august and second is is further efforts and further support for the the quiet diplomacy efforts that are happening behind the scenes that are that are having a much more positive effect than uh some of the naming and shaming techniques that are are more traditionally associated with external engagement on the on the rakhine issue and in particular i think there are western governments that have played a positive role in this and uh in the region indonesia has played a quite positive role behind the scenes in encouraging the the government to to take a look at the issue from a regional perspective in terms of engagement with civilian actors i think there's a way that uh the international community can support civilian actors to play a more significant role in governance in rakhine and action policy policy advice must take into account uh how difficult the situation is on the ground and the constraints that the government actors are facing two further recommendations quickly and i'd be happy to go into more detail on these in the question and answer one is in terms of engagement with security actors it's one of the recommendations that comes through in the interim recommendations in the the rakhine advisory commission uh that there should be uh support for um security actors on this issue and that that support should come from the international community and finally and another recommendation that comes through in these these interim recommendations is the importance of looking at uh this situation from rakhine from a regional perspective and in particular uh the the mi and mar bangladesh relationship and seeing it as a a regional issue uh with uh the call in the the interim recommendations for a joint commission to look at some of the the bilateral issues that uh that could be addressed rather than viewing this as as conflict excellent thank you very much dear we're over to matthew walton i may not have mentioned in the introduction that matthew walton is the young sansa chief fellow in modern burmese studies at san antonys college at at oxford and he joins us from oxford um today matthew over to you great thanks so much dave can everybody hear me is this volume level okay that's perfect okay great so i should say um i'm i'm stepping in via skype to uh to replace uh my friend and colleague uh usip colleague susan hayward uh who was supposed to be talking on this panel and couldn't um couldn't today when it got rescheduled so i'm channeling not only my views but a few of hers as well most of you will know that we write together uh frequently so we have similar views on this so i want to make four uh broad points today um and the first one is that i think in general we need to start adopting a different approach to analyzing and engaging with mabatha um i think there's way too much generalizing in the way that media scholars analysts government officials everybody deals with mabatha i'm gonna pick on the irawati for just a second but this really could could be almost anybody's reporting just a few days ago they had an article entitled mabatha takes aim at the media um and this was about uh filing a 66d suit against soi win with miam arnau for something that he had written about uwarathu um so it's connected to uwarathu who's a mabatha member it was a suit filed by a mabatha member but at least thus far this does not look to be a kind of mabatha official mabatha initiative and i think it's kind of sloppy reporting that to say that that mabatha is doing it i think what this reflects is the tendency especially on behalf of of you know miamars uh media and the big media outlets that have this sort of pro democratic pro progressive um anti mabatha uh slant i think it's a tendency to to equate uwarathu or you know the loudest and most extreme voices with mabatha as a whole and to label the whole thing buddhist nationalism or buddhist extremism i think this is not accurate i also think it's potentially really counterproductive so it's counterproductive because we want to be able to make space here for alternative interpretations notions of protecting buddhism of propagating buddhism that might not be exclusionary to non buddhist that might not be anti muslim and we want to make space for the people that we know exist within mabatha to move it in those sorts of directions treating this organization as a monolithic anti muslim extremist group is not only inaccurate it's dangerous so demonizing mabatha doesn't help uh it doesn't help us open up that space uh because there are lots of people across the country who still see mabatha as doing important and useful things like buddhist education in rural areas even as they might be getting really tired of people like uwarathu and other prominent voices that say increasingly outlandish things so i want to make clear that i you know i what i'm what i'm asking for is a kind of recalibration of the way that we engage with groups like mabatha it doesn't mean we don't criticize them when it's appropriate or that we shouldn't put pressure on them to reject outlandish things like uwarathu praising the assassins of of ukuni um but we do i think as as as media as scholars as analysts as foreign governments as outside commenters have much more credibility when we don't paint them with broad brushstrokes and i would point out that especially at a time when we're sort of asking buddhist and mianmar not to generalize the entire muslim population based on the actions of a few people it's not really appropriate for us to be doing the same with regard to buddhist in the country so that's the first uh the first point i'd like to make secondly i think we need to to recalibrate our kind of view and expectations of the state sangha mahanayaka committee as well uh as i talk about it here i'm going to use the burmese acronym mahana for this group so you'll recall back in july there was this sort of moment this perfluffle where uh mabatha was kind of claiming a lineage with mahana and mahana came out with a statement saying that actually mabatha was not an officially sanctioned buddhist group and of course the media heralded this as as mahana disowning mabatha and all these things which um i wrote at the time with my colleague on tune we didn't really think was an accurate portrayal of that um we also thought that that the statement from mahana at that time was kind of the minimum that they could do to sort of wash their hands of mabatha and and associated monks without actually taking any more concerted action or taking a stand i think this was largely still accurate the same can be said in terms of their recent response to uwarathu's comments on facebook regarding ukwoni where just a few days ago they initiated a year-long teaching ban uh or sorry preaching ban for for uwarathu um i mean i think there's certainly a case to be said that this is again the minimum that they could have done there's a strong case for more discipline uh kosuewin got in trouble for quoting another more senior monk for saying that this actually could be grounds for disrobing uwarathu so while recognizing that there's a long history in the terabata world of monks condoning killing um you know that certainly it's not something that that is broadly accepted in public discourse and we have should have higher expectations for the sangha committee to do more about that i think increasingly people are trying to sort of think critically and creatively and in a different way about what mahana is and what it could be um the previous line that was always echoed is that this was just a monastic council that was created by the former military government that was just the puppet of the military government and i don't really think that that was ever completely accurate i think what was probably more accurate is to say that it was made up of deeply conservative figures who were interested primarily in protecting buddhism institutionally in yanmar and what that meant of course was you know opposing any sort of broad monastic demonstrations or you know monks criticizing the government or anything like that um but that didn't necessarily mean that mahana was automatically and completely the sort of tools of of the military or military governments so for what it's worth you know i should say that i don't think the monastic council should be the tool of any government whether previous military governments or the current nld government and it's likely that the sangha council is going to eventually have to to enact some sort of reform so we regularly hear about democratization internal democratization among amongst i think there's more pressure uh for that and i think that's probably a good thing that would result in more in a in a in a more diverse view of voices there at the top but i do want to suggest that i think we ignore mahana as a potential kind of ally in the fight for sort of interreligious peace and understanding i think we ignore them as a potential ally at our peril i think they should could be important and maybe really necessary in this as a prominent voice for religious pluralism and tolerance and so i think we need to think rather than talking about them as a you know as a group of irrelevant old monks who just support the military's line i think we need to think about how we could um urge them to to sort of become more active uh voices okay third point we obviously need to expect much more from the nld government uh so they miss i think much a big opportunity back in july 2016 where you had those moments where opium and thane was really publicly critical of mabatha and then they kind of started to take forward this hate speech law but that there really hasn't been much else that's that's happened from the nld government perspective on you know religious pluralism hate speech integration things like that and with no follow-up what really happens is is they miss the opportunity to effectively reinforce this change in culture from the permissive environment that i and others have argued took place under the former usdp government secondly um i want to be careful and how i state this um because ukunis assassination was really sort of tragic and awful but it was and could have been and should have been an opportunity for the nld government to kind of recalibrate its tone on religious violence and and hate speech and everything related there and of course as we know um the government including gonsan tuchi was virtually silent for for about a month um letting the military and the police and the security forces kind of take the lead as the public voices on that um and and it's really left people wondering well sort of what are what are they doing what were they doing about ukunis assassination what were they doing about or author's response on facebook it was just completely unacceptable i mean if the government is scared if they're cautious if they're just disinterested if they don't know what to do i mean whatever the reason it allows this permissive environment to continue where people can can continue to say extreme things and agitate for violence and discrimination so the government really needs to adopt a more nuanced approach as well something that lets them take a hard line on clearly unacceptable things while not at the same time just rejecting buddhist concerns or buddhist actions en masse and i think they're really struggling to find you know a voice on this where they were incredibly timid during the lead up to the 2015 elections on these issues maybe strategically um but they can no longer afford to do that and i think they really need to find find their voice there i think one of the ways they need to do that is um a number of us have said for a while that it's necessary to incorporate religious issues in Myanmar as part of the broader political dialogue process um not necessarily as part of the peace process but the the national reconciliation process this needs to be something that isn't just about ethnicity isn't just about conflict on the borders but that needs to be about inclusion more broadly in Myanmar and that means religious issues as well part of what they can also do is provide more official support for promising and challenging initiatives so almost everything that's being done on inter-religious issues or combating violence communal violence is happening in an NGO CBO space and this is you know good in some ways but it really needs more support it needs official support um at key moments and it also needs official support for kind of cross learning initiatives so that kind of stuff is happening we think about peace support funds inter-communal harmony group CDNH is doing a lot of this stuff to convene discussions i assume we'll hear some about that from Jo but this needs to happen more and in doing so i think it's incumbent upon the government to really play a role in facilitating this kind of learning sharing adapting lessons especially lessons learned about resilience and preventing conflict this is something that you know Steven mentioned that they're not doing a good job of really channeling those lessons the Myanmar media and society project that i work with issued a working paper back in january on what we call sort of success stories for case studies where we would have expected violence to break out but it did not apparently due to certain interventions from civil society groups or other things and i think it's it can be challenging to draw conclusions that might be universally accurate but really important that we have these conversations that can feed into already existing groups and already existing work and i know again hd and and and cdnh are among the groups doing this i think the government really needs to play a role in this as well so the final point that i'll make and this is particularly a strong point from from susan something i agree with as well is that the interreligious uh engagement that exists needs to really move to a much more challenging level that includes intro religious dialogue and engagement um because we've seen a lot of interfaith initiatives all of which are important and part of the picture um but but as susan uh was saying to me the in her recent trips to the country she's really feeling the kind of dialogue fatigue from people the same faces at the same kind of superficial conversations that take place in the same venues and what really needs to happen is the difficult conversations within groups um that some that some uh initiatives are starting to convene and and this is really where we get past the mutual appreciation of aspects of our religions that we all agree in peace and yada yada yada and really into the kind of more challenging um subjects education is absolutely going to be up there of critical importance for this education about each other's religions um you know about international norms uh on religious pluralism things like that so this is why we critically need to publicly and vocally defend initiatives like cdnh's curriculum that has been uh attacked by by a number of groups um and this is also where there might be an opportunity for some uh initiatives that that act as a kind of counter way to malata's dama school efforts something that would be parallel to kind of to to ensure that that um their voices are not the only voices that are out there teaching religious education we need to ensure that these kind of interreligious dialogue uh um efforts are explicitly starting to move towards policy initiatives community initiatives again moving just beyond the effects of the people in the room talking to each other but looking at what can be done and specifically um especially in places where there is an outright conflict at the moment to start to address these more structural issues of discrimination and inequality in the judiciary in policing in the media and all these other places these are the activities that can start they can be taking place right now actively with the collaboration of all of these NGOs and cbo's intergovernmental groups international groups and the miamar government we just need some some more effective kind of uh sharing and learning on this so i'll um stop there and look forward to the conversation afterwards thanks excellent matthews thank you very very much over to you joy online well not the best time to be giving my presentation like immediately after lunch but we'll try our best but thank you thank i would like to thank us impede for inviting me to this event especially for getting a chance to meet up with many of my old friends at this event and both steve and matt have touched on most of the issues i was initially planning to discuss so i will try to say something add something new to what they have already discussed but i will also be equating more or less similar things in my presentation so so let me start with some positive stories whenever we talk about rakhine like often we mainly talk about negative stories and then that often it's also true that we don't really have a lot of positive stories to talk about uh matt earlier mentioned in his presentation about these people from different communities working with each other in rakhine compared to 2015 and and then early 2016 i would say conflict prevention network has become much stronger people from both communities try to contact each other whenever there are rumors and the cdnh the organization i'm a part of we have organized what we call the reconciliation meetings since the middle of uh 2014 even though cdnh was officially formally established in late 2014 we started organizing these meetings early on and at the very beginning one derrick was ambassador a steel ambassador and then like he even came to one of the meetings and all these participants were very belligerent they didn't really want to talk to each other and they like to challenge especially and visit at mitchell like you know they i'm talking about rakhine community activists but over time uh they started meeting and then both sides tried to reach out on one condition uh they were not they didn't talk about reconciliation most names are more willing to talk about reconciliation rakhine most of them even today still are not prepared to discuss reconciliation uh uh in some detail but they are willing the rakhines are more willing to talk about conflict prevention so very recently uh in in boom made which is near the rakhine id become area in sitwe a large number of rakhine community members came out uh in in response to the rumor that a large group of muslims were on their way to their neighborhood and then they didn't know what these muslims were planning to do but what uh there's people rakhine leaders uh who who are part of this conflict prevention network call up their colleagues in the camp and then the muslim leaders didn't even know what was going on and then the rakhine leaders said we had a loud noise from your areas then they started checking what happened was a group of muslim workers who were working at a construction site near boom made they were shouting mainly because they were not allowed to take dinner break then one the rakhine leaders when they heard what was really going on on the ground uh from the muslim colleague they explained it to all these rakhines who were gathering there and then the crowd was dispersed very quickly so we have conducted a number of surveys in rakhine state and we have published two rakhine needs assessments in in both assessments what we found out was this um even though a large majority of rakhine students still want to talk about reconciliation they are willing to talk about conflict prevention and lately like in our interviews more and more rakhines are talking about the need to prevent violence so that i think is a good uh uh that sign and then after the october 9 incident in maundo there were a lot of rumors people like you know we we knew things when when they happened we talked about things when they happened and we didn't talk about things when they didn't happen how things were conflicts were prevented there was a there was a rumor in citri that a group of unknown muslim people were found in the muslim Muslim camp area the same rumor as like you know the muslims from the outside side of the border came into maundo area and then the some muslim rakhine community leaders expressed their concern and some some troublemakers especially troublemakers extremists were saying like you know we got to do something about this then the muslim leaders came together and i call out there but they are they are the rakhine colleagues and i told them look if we found people who didn't belong to our area we would be the first the very first people who will be informing the government and then they also call up security minister and explain to him so it's like interaction like that i mean they have prevented a lot of the conflicts in that area which i think it's something where we we need to we need to talk about to raise hope and optimism uh that for people living in that area and then in in in maundo uh they they now have a joint committee that is a committee the committee has 30 members 15 muslims and 15 rakhine and other ethnic nationalities like that and dinad and murro and muramaji they've been working together very like last week through our organization they organized a training for both muslim and rakhine women a training on how to make soap and then the shampoo and liquid soap i mean that training i think is that they found it really interesting but what that i found really gratifying was just to witness members of both communities like you know coming together at the very beginning they felt a little bit uncomfortable to even be talking to each other three hours later after listening to the two instructors the instructors are muslims from rakhijangong and then like you know they all work together and at one point about like after lunch you don't see the difference between muslims and rakhine animal like different groups like the groups were made out of both rakhine muslims and our group they are group and they're like muslims and rakhine working together to prove that they produce better soap so i mean what i'm trying to the message i'm trying to give here is we're not i mean the situation in rakhine is dire but at the same time not totally hopeless people on the ground of the the regular people they want they want to live move on with their life and then they want to they want peace and stability in their areas and then a couple more things steve talked about citizenship and then compared to the past but i'm not saying that this is that like in a dominant trend in rakhine state but more and more muslims have started to consider applying for the citizenship verification but more so now than before for a number of different conditions under the previous administrations citizenship a pilot project for citizenship verification was carried out in nabong township close to a thousand people were granted citizenship but they went they they couldn't really enjoy citizenship rights especially they couldn't move out of their idp camps and then they didn't know that they couldn't move out either last week and this week we invited muslims from idar muslims from nabong to yangong for a training but the the training for last week the something got round and then we couldn't get permission trouble authorization for muslims without a clear citizenship status but muslims from nabong they didn't need trouble authorization they could come to yangong and then move around like all the different areas and regions freely and then another thing is muslims with three full cuts not just a citizenship they can now apply for passports muslims from muslims from rakhine state can now travel to foreign countries legally the very first group of muslims with three full cuts and then we asked them whether they would try to apply for passports and they didn't they got it and then we sent them to shurilanka with a group of rakhines and then mad walden was absolutely right you can do but mabata is not monolithic you will be surprised to know that chairman of the go mabata and those muslims from rakhine state want to shurilanka together and then they they became really close friends and then it's not easy to bring muslims to the buddhist monks to to for i mean on a trip you need to you really need to serve them food and stuff and the person who took the responsibility of serving food to buddhist monks from baghou is muslim youth leader from baghou and then we we said to him like you know we will take care of the monk and then that this muslim youth leader said to me no no no he is my monk no you us i will take care of my monk and then all the way for about 10 days in shurilanka these muslims from rakhine state and then like you know buddhist monks from other parts of the country they were working together so the kind of even people have started to see the benefits of getting seated joining the citizenship verification process and then this positive development i think is also something we should discuss but further because i was both bros because steve and uh the medworld and uh mentioned it in their presentation like you know the the role the bigger role the government should play um in bringing the different communities together and then the we people civil society organizations and NGOs are talking about all these things at the grassroots level the government hasn't to talk about these things like you know in some detail however regardless of like you know i'm not condoning what happened in maundo and then human rights violations in rakhine state but i mean i've been going to rakhine state since 2012 but the the the big change i i noticed very recently was government officials are now very interested in trying to understand genocide and basic human rights and then also conflict sensitivity approach our organizations have given a number of trainings on those topics to to employees of the general administration department something we couldn't mention a few years ago but we can now discuss that i'm not saying that everyone everyone has endorsed these things but right now at this moment we can start we can open the discussions on these issues with all those people and then i know i don't really have a lot of time i've got like you know one more thing which is we talk about violence all the time whenever we talk about rakhine another thing to we should also pay attention to is maintaining community peace at the grassroots level in northern rakhine state in many other places there are a considerable number of villages that should have experienced violence but that they they have no experienced violence at all and then we have started doing some research and then talking to some others we found out four conditions one is one that a large number of members of both communities i'm talking about in mixed villages more than 50 percent if they if they have to rely on each other uh to make a living for their livelihood you tend to see community members working together to to to prevent conflicts and that that is also very important that mr this recommendations from the rakhine advisory commission one of which is establishing markets for both communities so that they can come together and work so the kind of if they can rely on each other for their livelihood then we tend to we are going to see more peace in that area the second factor we found out is like a social interaction in many communities small villages for instance if you ever get a chance to go to chow tau tau ship i go to a village called count out in count out muslim community leaders are very influential and then there are also rakhine school teachers who used to teach rakhine students and then these the muslim community leaders and the rakhine community leaders they interact with each other or the client peeped like in in in communities where muslims and rakhines interact with each other on daily basis you tend to see the more peace and stability in that area and then the thought factor is leaders village administrators and buddhist monks if they are respected and capable you need both no all buddhist monks are respected by community leaders not all village administrators are capable or respected but in villages where village administrators are respected and capable you tend to see peace in those villages that's why like it's really important for general administration department to pick the right people like for those positions but in the rakhine communities that they cannot elect but in the muslim communities all village administrators appointed on a temporary basis by the general administration department mainly because the law requires village administrators to be citizens of the country but in many muslims i mean their citizenship status is still unclear but because of that they cannot be village administrators legally so on temporary basis they are being appointed and then those capable village administrators can can make a difference and people don't talk about it we we definitely need to talk about it and that like you know whenever we talk about training for government officers we tend to exclude them we really need to provide more trainings for these village administrators and these are the people who are maintaining order and peace and stability in that area and two more factors which is like security officers need to be very careful about the locations of these different villages in in chauk shu where the the special economic zone is being to build one that in 2012 one of the violence took place it was in between the residents rakhine residents of chauk shu and muslims rakhine neck cases from other i shouldn't be saying it like you know some rakhines who live in excluded islands they came down to chauk shu and started attacking muslims and destroying and the chauk the rakhines from chauk shu town itself they tried to protect these muslims so the point i'm trying to make is there are areas with the the hardline rakhine people who are very who are not very educated and often they are also daily laborers they don't really have permanent jobs or they don't really have the the concrete way of making a living that if you have many people in their neighborhood you really need to be careful about good like controlling and containing these people one last thing is the presence of security forces like after what you what happened in mount or you would think both muslims and rakhine would not want the presence of military units and police units in their neighborhood but like you know in mount or areas and some villages that is the case but in the rest of rakhine state when you have the security units in your neighborhood especially the ones led by known rakhine military officers they tend to ensure peace in your area and then a number of challenges like you know most of which steve has already covered so right now there are a number of things we need to be very careful which the first thing is rakhine civil societies are highly mobilized not because of citizenship issue but because of the political ongoing 21st century painlo and political dialogue and they didn't want to be left behind so civil society organizations political parties and community organizations they all came together and are having meetings after meetings in rakhine state and they're terribly mobilized right now and then one more thing is the rise of ethnic nationalism rakhine nationalism in rakhine state so a combination of this high mobilization and the growth of ethnic nationalism a very bad combination so that basically strengthened the positions of hardliners many moderates are involved in these activities but they will not say a word because they could get into trouble when i have been to many of those meetings and then the the voices of the hardliners are much louder than the voices of the moderates so this is what the one worrying situation and i'm both maddened steve also mentioned it intra-communal tension is also growing when you when you talk to muslims they're afraid of rakhine that much they are more afraid of their own people the same form of rakhine people they are they are more afraid of their own rakhine hardliners so they can whenever they they they want to talk about conflict prevention whenever they want to talk about establishing joint committees they say like you know it's the government going to ensure like our safety that there will be the very first question and then like you know who are you afraid of our own people so that's our situation and two more points and i'll stop um the main thing is a lack of comprehensive strategy on the part of the government it might be that they're waiting for the recommendations and reports from the the commission led by mr harnan but right now is that there's no comprehensive strategy and then the government hasn't made it made it very clear how it would interpret the 1982 citizenship law and then the 98 like you know rakhine community leaders came out and protested against the granting of citizenship uh to to muslims and then they're saying that the the process was not done in accordance with 1982 citizenship law all immigration officials including the minister are saying we strictly follow the law but what is not clear is the interpretation there are a number of in a number of areas things are not clear and then we need to have a clear interpretation and the message was not conveyed clearly and then because of that there's still a lot of confusions and then also a lot of uncertainties and then when you have many rakhine civil servants at the township level and the because of the the growth of ethnic nationalism even if they want to do the right thing they did not do the right thing and then like you know the people both community leaders and government officials when they get into trouble for doing the right thing often they are not protected by their superiors so i mean i can go on so i'll just stop here that was excellent joe um thank you very much for all three of the speakers um that was a brilliant job gonna open the floor up to questions we should have about 25 minutes so i'll i'll take two questions i'll take three questions first you there and then at the back so uh she was behind you she was first sorry sorry sorry hi my name is chet said myokdan and i'm a um burmese student i've been studying in the states for eight years now and i'm currently in training at urasia center my question is do you think us should take a hands-off or hands-on approach when it comes to internal politics of miramar specifically uh in the case where the possibility of human right violations exist and if it is a hands-on approach um how can us act as a country that stand for human rights to bring the light to the issue where the members of burmese military raping rohingya woman and killing of the rohingya children and another issue about mr um the the issues that mr johan line talked about um about these rakhine citizens being able to get their passports and being able to travel abroad i'm actually a little bit like pessimistic about it because i don't think at least like a burmese citizen who go back every year um i don't think they're free enough to even travel around the country if you have south asian features if you look like me you're gonna be stopped at every state for looking like this because you're gonna look like they're gonna stereotype you as a muslim they're gonna ask you a series of questions you're gonna be fit into a category and i kind of want to um i kind of want you to talk about that thank you so much okay and uh thanks very much my name is tan luenton voice of america he's a kind of uh little observations and also quite curious question uh my observation is that i visited uh that uh your kind state a year and a half ago i visited maundo citri and a lot of refugee camps both uh defied that muslim and then um so aracan jakai uh it's very little people know that uh internally displaced person mean that they're not only about muslim he's also jakai aracan he is so i visited both but what i found is why these muslims live in the uh they are original place of the so-called refugee camp idp camps and uh various uh squalid situations and population growth and uh they are there so even after that uh what happened that the communal communal violence that's happened in 19 2012 is more than five years they are stay there and if the population is even grow but why then i saw that uh so idp aracan is the kind idp camps most of them are quite in the sense uh assimilated to the nearby uh jakai village or towns so this is my observation but i would just simply wonder that after five years it is not in the foreign country it is in our own country why these muslim idp are not placed in that uh a lot of i saw big muslim villages but quite well to do in especially in the mount or area so fortified muslim villages a lot of muslim area there why can't they be a resettler over there or being be assimilated and then what is in this sense a long-term plan of the government for the those idp camp well why can't they be allowed to in this sense like uh people claim the situation has become calm why can't they be allowed to go back to their original place good and just one more question then we'll ask the panelists to respond thanks uh adam carol again from from a task force yeah i liked the description of the grassroots work that civil society is doing and it points out the importance of communication working on communication and relationship building um and uh it also reminds me that the local leaders don't often get named in media reports that depict one group as victims and the other group perhaps not as victims but they they kind of dehumanize uh those in conflict situations and uh pointing out who the local leaders are even if it's on a very small level it's very important to give people agency so my question is uh there's there's uh the the race and religion laws not even mentioning the 1982 citizenship laws but race and religion that was passed in 2015 when you have such you have some momentum and some good models on the grassroots level then you have this this this void at the government level and so what is the what is needed to move the government forward on reforming and rescinding the race and religion laws and is it uh getting the international community involved as making this a regional issue since there are so many refugees hundreds of thousands everywhere and just the last thing the rohingya refugees as well as other ethnic groups i think it's important here to use their name and it's sad that some groups including the kofi anon report choose not to mention their names thank you thank you um matt perhaps i could ask you to um take the lead on that answering the the last question on the race and religion laws and then we can open it up for for all three of you to answer the other two yeah sure thanks thanks dave um before i do the race race and religion laws i'll just say really quickly that i that i i think we need to be really cautious about the benefits of recognizing agency of local leaders from all sides who are playing a role in conflict prevention um precisely for the reasons that uh gojayan line mentioned that like there are real risks to the people who are doing this stuff right and so we need to record i mean for for our um animal media and society report we we anonymize so much of our case studies precisely because we really felt the need to protect uh informants in in these very risky situations so well while wanting to recognize local agency i also want to throw that out there um so race and religion laws uh so these laws aren't good but i feel like i've been arguing for a while that they're kind of a red herring um they're they're not the primary thing that is being used to repress people on religious grounds i mean you know yes ultimately they ought to get off they need to get off the you know we need to get them off the books um and but but they're um the religious repression that's happening in the country is happening through other laws like the telecommunications law unlawful associations and and things like that and so um i'm i'm actually going to suggest that that the you know the efforts of different groups is is best oriented not towards those really prominent race and religion laws that are likely to um to to spark a real backlash from mabatha it's probably the one thing that will um create a lot of public sentiment uh for mabatha in the moment if if you really attack those laws and and suggest that actually we should go after the laws that that are still being used more often to repress people uh on on religious grounds not to say that they're not bad laws but i think we need to be kind of pragmatic about about that excellent thank you matt um steve would you like to talk about the the idps and and um from from both communities sure uh in terms of idps uh i think there's a couple of points here one is uh that in in 2015 actually under the prior government there there was some progress in resettling idps approximately 25 000 idps were resettled in central rakhine um and a related point to that is that the vast majority of those that are displaced are not from the northern part of rakhine state they're from central rakhine state and uh there was very little displacement in in northern rakhine state uh there would also i think be a concern among the rakhine community about trying to move displaced populations who may not want to go to northern rakhine in the first place to that part of the state because there's a concern about the potential that that part of rakhine could secede or could become its own enclave uh in a way that threatens uh buddhism and threatens the the rakhine control over over that territory um so i think that uh there there was some progress in in 2015 those were the much easier cases people who are not displaced far from their homes uh who could very easily be resettled in their places of origin uh the cases that remain are largely uh in sitway area and in neighboring pakta township and those cases are much much more difficult i will note however that in the the interim recommendations that came out this morning one of the recommendations is to close all idp camps in rakhine state uh and there are few uh camps in particular that are highlighted as ones that can be done quickly uh and and relatively easy easily one is kaman uh one is rakhine and and one is uh non kaman uh muslim um just on the the other point about uh u.s policy um i i think that uh as i said in my presentation it's it's a question of having the right calibrated approach between uh one that is advocacy oriented uh and ensuring that that advocacy does not lead to undue pressure such that decisions are taken somewhat hastily and and potentially in a counter productive fashion um i i think that i i would be one that that stands in the engagement camp that that uh u.s government and and other governments can be much more effective by having a seat at the table and engaging in in conversations with both the civilian and security actors uh in me and mara at a union level but also at a local level and through that type of engagement uh is is is how we gain trust and and influence i'll stop there and chat can i just just add one thing on the on the idp camps um you're right that the rakhine buddhist idp camps around sitwave were pretty bad just as as deplorable i would say is is um is the rakhine camps um outside just just one thing that you said um it would be against the un guiding principles on internal displacement to take the 95 000 people outside of sitway and move them say for example to mongor um i can't see a single international donor that would be a party to that um i mean any any relocation would have to be in safety and dignity and would have to be purely voluntary um and i don't think that's something i mean it's it's one thing that we've got to remind ourselves that the majority of the people living in that camp zone outside of sitway lived in in the town although there were farmers in in peri urban areas around sitway um and they want to stay as close to um to their homes of origin um as they can so i don't think that's a viable option to kind of take them that that far away um over the jaw okay i'll start with this i i i dp question uh the previous government came up with a plan relocation plan uh back then with that they asked me to develop an ashen plan for relocation gave me the information we put it together it wasn't