The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, 10 years on

Hello friends.

Here’s another of my irregular series of impressions.

Wednesday marked the 10^th anniversary of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement of October 15 2015.

Between 2010-20 Myanmar tried elections, a managed transition under military control, and multilateral peace talks. This didn’t work – mostly because of the Myanmar Army. This time round, Burma deserves better.

I believe I was the only foreigner to attend both Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) ceremonies, in October 2015 and February 2018.

Much has been said and written about the NCA. The Transnational Institute for example has just reissued their comprehensive report on the agreement (available also in Burmese). I’ve written quite a bit about the NCA in my ‘new’ book – which I’ve been working on for a decade and is inching closer to completion (fingers crossed).

Following are just a few impressions.

My involvement with the peace process began in January 2012, just after the first (informal) Karen National Union (KNU) bilateral ceasefire with the military-backed USDP regime. Together with Charles Petrie and colleagues, I was privileged to be part of the Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI – ‘the Norwegian Initiative’), tasked by the KNU and President U Thein Sein with testing the emerging peace process. That April, Charles and I had the extraordinary experience of accompanying senior Myanmar military and government officials from Yangon to the front-lines, where Karen National Liberation Army friends walked us through the landmines into the rebel-held jungle. Our purpose was to consult with internally displaced Karen villagers regarding the just-signed (formal) KNU ceasefire.

Three-and-a-half years later, by the time of the NCA on October 15 2015, the MPSI had disbanded. No more occasional sups of U Aung Min’s legendary Johnny Walker Blue Label whisky. By 2015, most foreign governments and the international aid industry had swung behind the military-backed Myanmar Peace Centre, and the peace process was beginning to stall.

I hadn’t realized how sharp-elbowed the big international ‘peace NGOs’ are. As the peace process was internationalized, the anti-politics machine kicked in, turning sites of social and political conflict, and potential negotiation, into technical problems amenable to the fix of foreign aid (and more expert consultants, like me).

I remember the night before the NCA signing ceremony, playing the guessing game in the Kempinski Hotel bar (swanky nouveau riche): would Aung San Suu Kyi attend the ceremony? She didn’t - setting the tone for a distinct lack of enthusiasm regarding the peace process under the subsequent National League for Democracy government (which was removed in the February 2021 coup).

A few of us foreign experts and hangers-on had been invited for the NCA signing, in my case by the KNU. I and a couple of friends got good seats near the front, and were feeling quite pleased with ourselves – before being ushered to the back row by flustered MPC lackeys.

Eight Ethnic Armed Organisations signed the NCA that day – of which only two (the KNU and Restoration Council of Shan State) had substantial troop numbers. Despite this lack of inclusion, when KNU General Secretary Kweh Htoo Win and Minister Aung Min took to the stage to read sections of the NCA text, prior to the signing ceremony, It felt like an historic occasion.

Within weeks of the NCA however, despite Myanmar Army Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing signing the agreement, the military was violating the NCA provisions. The brief period of partial reform and peace-building in Myanmar was coming to an end.

In June 2011 (just six months before the KNU ceasefire), the Myanmar Army had been careful to re-start fighting with the Kachin Independence Organization in the north. Myanmar has never been at peace, since before independence.

Nevertheless, during the first year of the NCA there were some important and unprecedented developments, including public consultations undertaken by the KNU and other signatory Ethnic Armed Organisations, together with civil society groups. I was present at the main Karen consultation in the Karen State capital Pa’an, in late 2015. Representatives of all Karten stakeholder groups were there, including the three Karen Ethnic Armed Organisations, two Karen political parties, churches and the Buddhist Sangha. For the first time, almost the whole of Karen political and civil society came together to agree positions on some key aspects of the peace process and ongoing ‘political transition’ (or so we thought). The only absence was the Kayin Border Guard Force.

There were consultations in other areas too - including PaO, Chin, Mon, Karenni and Shan - but by the end of the year the Myanmar Army had started to clamp-down on such activities. At the same time, it was increasingly apparent that the Joint (ceasefire) Monitoring Committee would be dominated by an uncooperative Myanmar Army. The third element of the peace process under the NCA was ‘interim arrangements’: an important principle (Chapter 6 of the NCA) recognising and supporting Ethnic Armed Organisations’ impressive services delivery and governance functions.

To take just one example, the KNU education department to this day provides schooling to nearly 150,000 of the most vulnerable and marginalised children in the country. (Since 2021, these schools have come under regular attack from the Myanmar Army, which has launched repeated airstrikes against schools, hospitals and places of worship, killing thousands of civilians including many children.) While recognition of EAO services and administration was an important element of the NCA, there was no mechanism to address the many resulting issues and tensions. The peace process became framed in terms of ‘convergence’ between Ethnic Armed Organisation systems and those of the government. Inevitably perhaps, this donor- and state-driven agenda undermined the autonomy for which Ethnic Armed Organisations and indigenous communities had long been struggling.

Problems with the peace process were already evident by the time I attended the second NCA ceremony, on 13 February 2018. This time I was a guest of the New Mon State Party (NMSP), which signed the agreement together with the Lahu Democratic Union. I remember driving through the yawning and nearly deserted streets of Naypyidaw, sitting behind the NMSP Chairman Nai Htaw Mon in a Pajero, beside two venerable monks and a Norwegian colleague. We passed Myanmar flags and white dove billboards, en route the National Convention Centre. A group of military, government and MPC big-wigs greeted us on regal steps, leading up to a vast entrance hall. This time, I caught a glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi (only our second ‘meeting’) – before being whisked away by MPC goons to the sidelines, as the event proper got underway.

By now, the Myanmar Army had already started shelling Karen civilian communities on a regular basis, including near MPSI pilot project villages in the hills above Kyauk Kyi (Lerdoh) in eastern Bago Region. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the Myanmar Army did not respect the peace process; the ‘international community’ turned a blind eye.

After Min Aung Hlaing destroyed legal and constitutional rule in Myanmar with the 1 February 2021 coup, the KNU and other Ethnic Armed Organisations (later joined by the NMSP-Anti Dictatorship) declared NCA null and void - wrecked by the Myanmar Army. Today there is a new and vibrant struggle in Burma, building self-determination and democracy through bottom-up federalism.

My overall take on the NCA: for the KNU and other Ethnic Armed Organisations, and particularly for civilian communities, it was worth trying to make the peace process work, after seven decades of armed conflict. The problem wasn’t with the NCA text - but rather the Myanmar Army and government (including NLD leaders’) unwillingness to seriously address the political and human rights grievances of ethnic nationality communities, or the demands and aspirations of minority political and civil society leaders.

Back in the MPSI days, we saw the peace process as a not particularly well-designed experiment. The result of this test was to demonstrate that the Myanmar military and government are unable and/or unwilling to address key ethnic grievances and demands.

This is important, because the present junta in Myanmar is preparing for elections in late December, which the NLD and most other opposition forces will boycott. There is a risk that these fake polls will serve as an ‘escape ramp’ – resulting in continued military rule.

The best case scenario on offer is (managed) victory for a military-backed ‘civilian’ party, possibly followed by some kind of negotiated settlement, perhaps eventually resulting in a multilateral peace agreement. As sketched above, we tried that with the NCA, and it didn’t work – mostly because of the Myanmar Army.

So - why did I go to the NCA ceremonies? Out of solidarity with the KNU and NMSP; because back then I still half-believed in the peace process; out of curiosity. (BTW I haven’t been to junta-controlled Myanmar since the coup.)

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BTW – last week’s blog was published (slightly revised) by Mizzima on 10 September:

Building Back Better in Burma: What might ‘recovery’ look like?

Anyone wanting to support solidarity and relief in Burma, please help the Free Burma Rangers.

You can still watch ‘Myanmar Army on the Ropes’, produced by me, Yan Naing and Tom Sheahan on the Al Jazeera YouTube channel –

winner of New York Film Festival - Golden Tower award for best politics documentary !

These episodes and reflections will remain free to all Substack subscribers. I’m eventually going to start serializing Nancy and the Count, book one – the novel which predicted 1027! - and will ask for paid subscriptions.

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