“The armed conflict has been a waste of money, a waste of time and a waste of energy,” U Aung Naing Oo said of the various wars waged in Myanmar since it gained independence nearly 70 years ago. “It is not economically productive, so if we want to catch up with other countries in the region, we need to end the war as soon as possible,” he said.
For the past four years, U Aung Naing Oo has been contributing to the effort to end the fighting through his work at the Myanmar Peace Center, where he is the director of the peace dialogue program. The MPC was established by President U Thein Sein in 2012 to facilitate dialogue between the government and ethnic armed groups.
It has achieved some success, but not the legacy of an inclusive national peace accord that U Thein Sein had hoped to clinch before his term ends on March 31. In October, eight armed ethnic groups signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government. Some of the country’s largest and most powerful armed ethnic groups refused to sign and fighting continues, notably in Kachin and northern Shan states. (Courtesy of Frontier Myanmar)
