Learning from the history of the Panglong conference

The Myanmar government, under Aung San Suu Kyi, has kicked off a new phase of the peace process with the country's ethnic minorities. On April 27, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi held a meeting with the Joint Monitoring Committee, a body representing the army and eight non-state armed groups that signed the so-called Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) last October.

The meeting was the first of its kind since the National League for Democracy (NLD) assumed power on April 1. Probably the most significant development of the meeting was that the state counsellor wanted to convene a "Panglong-style" conference within two months. The NLD leader had publicly voiced her support for holding a Panglong-type conference since the days of her confinement. A few days after her release from house arrest in November 2010, Ms Suu Kyi said, "A second Panglong conference addressing the concerns of the 21st century is needed for national reconciliation." As Myanmar prepares for the Panglong-style conference, there are three important lessons the country needs to learn from the failure of the original Panglong conference: representation, support and cooperation, and constitution. (Courtesy of Bangkok Post: Opinion)