By Banya Hongsar – Peace is for all. Peace is Burma’s new destiny. Civil war has damaged the nation and destroyed lives. What is the alternative?
Mon political leaders based in liberated areas are facing new challenges. Politicians and ethnic leaders have a daunting task this year to unconditionally cease civil wars and resume peace talks in Burma. The New Mon State Party (NMSP), the principal political organization of the Mon people in southern Burma, has been seeking self-determination rights within Burma for half a century. The time has come for a new agenda of peace talks.
Cease-fire groups, so called ‘peace-dealers’ or groups that have ‘returned to the legal fold’, are now facing the new question of whether they should completely disarm. The alternative is that new battlegrounds will appear in the next few months and years in Burma’s border areas. The new constitution and 2010 elections have provided no guarantee for self-determination rights of the ethnic population who control the seven ethnic states. A few remaining armed organizations are juggling whether to search out the last opportunities for a cease-fire, or to distance themselves further from Burma’s new government.
It remains to be seen whether the Ethnic Nationalities Council and the newly-formed alliance, the United Nationalities Federal Council, will have a key role to play in achieving a breakthrough after they have failed to establish meaningful tripartite dialogue in Burma. Burma’s individual ethnic political and armed organizations like the New Mon State Party and its armed wing, the Mon National Liberation Army, are faced with the difficult task of overcoming pressure from the military government as the new government may or may not invite an ethnic alliance for peace talks, as has been proposed by ethnic leaders in recent weeks.
The leading Mon political organizations have also been facing new challenges in maintaining their legitimacy to represent the entire Mon-speaking population in Burma and Thailand. The new challenges have been triggered by a lack of political participation by the Mon population in urban and rural areas in the last ten years, while the majority of people are pre-occupied with struggling with economic hardships and the unstable domestic economy that has been seen all over Burma. The young generation and students have been enticed to leave home for Thailand, Malaysia, and other countries in Asia to search for employment and better economic conditions. The lack of social and political participation of the Mon population in Rangoon, Pegu, and Moulmein has presented difficulties for the leading Mon political organizations. However, a legally-registered new force, the All Mon Regions Democracy Party, won a total of 7 seats in the State Assembly and 3 seats in the National Assembly in Burma’s 2010 election. Does this offer a new hope or a new political dimension for the Mon?
The New Mon State Party, the longest-standing political organization of the Mon people, sacrificed some of its influential power with the urban Mon population after entering into a cease-fire agreement with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the previous military government of Union of Myanmar. Despite its attempts to master institutional structures and gain power within the framework of the ‘legal-fold’ during the last ten years, the party actually has limited power and bargaining chips to deal with the SPDC’s policy on holding the upper hand power in all local, state, and union (federal) matters.
Mr. Nai Chan Toi, the party’s main strategist who is known as “Mr. Player” within the party’s inner circle, reinforced his message to the entire Mon population during the 3rd National Conference, emphasizing the strength of the Mon people and their responsibility to overcome the present policy of Burma’s military government. We must look closely at what is going on around us, and how it applies to Burmese policy, he said. He resigned from the NMSP in 2009 and now resides in a new home in the city, having left the liberated area for now.
The NMSP has wasted no time in engaging in widespread social, cultural and political movements for the entire Mon population in the last ten years in terms of expanding Mon language schools, cultural associations, and national schools in Mon State. The party also sponsors the annual National Seminar and Conference, attended by 100-140 social and political representatives in each of the last ten years. The best example of the NMSP’s vital output is that a new Mon political body, the Mon Affairs Union, was born in 2006 with a new mission and policy direction to broaden the role of Mon political institutions and structures both in Mon homelands and in Thailand with the support of overseas Mon organizations.
The NMSP and its armed wing, the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA), are now looking at new policy options to engage in a new political direction under the theory of “Social Democracy” for Burma. The Peace Journal, published by cease-fire organizations in Burma, has highlighted that a new direction for new policy options is necessary for the survival of the cease-fire groups in Burma’s new social and political environments. With its full membership of around 3,500 and over 800 armed personnel on the ground, the NMSP and the MNLA are now engaged in new efforts to overcome the problems of their peoples’ welfare by providing educational assistance, running self-help schools, mobile clinics and health care centres, and child care centres in remote areas of southern Burma. The party has had success in administering over 600 schools with a total 4,000 students and over 20 local health care centres across southern Burma and along the Thai-Burma border.
However, with a massive increase in the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to various human rights abuses committed by the government’s troops in southern Burma, the NMSP’s Mon National Relief and Development Committee is unable to cope with many of the large-scale problems of IDPs. This is a new development based on reports available from the local media and human rights agencies.
Ban Ton Young Camp is a resettlement site for IDPs where most settlers build their own huts for temporary shelter in the southwestern area of Thailand’s border with Burma. The party does not have sufficient resources or staff to accommodate the influx of new IDPs arriving in its controlled territory. The Mon relief agency has very limited funds, and relies on handouts from overseas charity agencies, as well as small income-generating projects within the IDP community. The functions of the party will be weakened if the needs of its members and their families are unable to be met in the next few years while the population of IDPs increases in the border areas.
While the party’s resources and power to challenge the pressure of the military government on issues of power sharing and self-governance in Mon State are very limited, the leaders of the party have been working for greater political gain through the cease-fire process which has only weakened the position of the party during the last ten years. The party lost two of its territories after the cease-fire talk, which resulted in loss of revenues and strategic locations when two NMSP battalions split in 1996 and 2001. The lessons were well learned, and now the party handles every issue with caution and sensitivity. The assassination of its key politburo member, Col. Min Htut, in 2002 was a starting point for the party’s leaders to openly and frankly discuss policy issues and structural reform within the party.
Within its 27 key central committee members and other local cadres in southern Burma, the party is holding its faith for the survival of the organization and its core values of democratic principles and equality. A new leadership, under President Nai Htaw Mon and General Secretary Nai Hongsa, with the support of political mentor and Vice President Nai Rot Sa, has provided energy and determination. This new generation of leaders, which holds equal levels of education and political skills with the USDP’s current top officials, is able to astutely analyse the current trends of Burma. Although the party has not received universal support from the entire Mon population, these leaders have a thick skin to listen and learn on the ground. “I am fighting not for welfare rights, but for political rights,” General Secretary Nai Hongsa once said in a meeting with the Mon Unity League.
Despite the fact that the MNLA has very limited military personnel and resources, the army is capable of protecting and defending its liberated areas from threats by the government troops. For example, the army successfully escaped from the Three Pagodas headquarters in 1991 during a massive attack by the government forces. The MNLA has only lost 971 members in the last 50 years of civil war and armed conflict with the Burmese. However, this is not to claim that the Mon army has the strength required to defeat and attack all government troops based in southern Burma. The question is, if there were no Mon army, what would happen to Mon political activists and other rights groups were they to be totally controlled by the government of Burma? The MNLA deserves some credit for providing a safe haven and security for local rights groups who have been brutally repressed by the government during the last 60 years.
Mon political leaders in the liberated area have limited time to find alternatives unless its internal strength is rebuilt and a strong leadership circle is restored with new blood within the party. The party could hope for the best, but it must prepare for the worst. Peace will never be achieved without a price. President Thein Sein’s government requires the promotion of peace for its political interests and its economic links with China. Mon groups need to set a new agenda for working towards this peace and how to bargain for it in the tricky arena of politics of Burma.
