How Can Myanmar’s Enemies Actually Sit Down Together?
“If there is a will, there is a way.”
For Myanmar, that applies even more strongly. The country has had enough explanations of why peace is difficult. What is desperately needed is people willing to ask:
“All right. We know why it is difficult. Now—HOW DO WE DO IT?”
That is exactly the direction we took with this Five Cs → practical peace mechanism piece.
Myanmar does not suffer from a lack of proposals for peace.
It suffers from a lack of trust, security and a workable mechanism through which people who fear one another can safely begin talking.
For decades, Myanmar’s conflicts have repeatedly demonstrated the same vicious cycle:
fear → armed resistance → military response → atrocities and displacement → deeper hatred → greater militarisation → even greater fear.
Breaking that cycle requires more than another appeal for “dialogue.”
It requires answering the difficult practical question:
How can we create conditions in which people who genuinely fear that talking may lead to their own destruction nevertheless feel safe enough to sit at the same table?
The previously proposed Five Cs — Ceasefire, Conciliation, Consensus, Constitution and Confidence — provide a useful framework.
But the Five Cs should not remain merely principles.
They need to become a mechanism.
1. CEASEFIRE — Stop killing before asking people to negotiate
The first requirement is obvious but extremely difficult:
People cannot negotiate effectively while they are still fighting for survival.
A ceasefire does not necessarily mean that all political disagreements have been solved.
It means:
“We agree to stop killing one another while we try to solve them.”
A Myanmar ceasefire should therefore include:
- cessation of offensive military operations;
- cessation of major armed attacks;
- protection of civilians;
- release or exchange of appropriate detainees and prisoners as agreed;
- humanitarian access;
- protection of aid workers;
- reopening of essential transport routes;
- restoration of communications where possible;
- mechanisms for reporting violations.
But a ceasefire without monitoring can easily become merely another temporary pause before the next offensive.
Therefore, Myanmar needs an independent ceasefire-monitoring mechanism.
It could involve trusted ASEAN representatives, the UN, neighbouring countries and other mutually acceptable international observers.
The monitors should not become another occupying force.
Their task would be simple:
observe, verify, report and help prevent escalation.
2. SECURITY GUARANTEES — The missing bridge to dialogue
This may be the single most important practical issue.
Imagine asking an armed organisation:
“Please come and negotiate with the people you have been fighting.”
Their first question may be:
“What happens to us if we put down our weapons and they attack us?”
Likewise, another side may ask:
“What prevents them from using the ceasefire to regroup and attack us later?”
These fears are not imaginary.
Therefore, peace negotiations require reciprocal security guarantees.
The principle should be:
Nobody should have to trust the other side completely before entering negotiations.
Instead, the system itself must provide enough security to make initial trust possible.
This could include:
A. Safe-conduct guarantees
Delegates travelling to negotiations must receive internationally or mutually guaranteed safe passage.
B. Protected negotiation venues
Negotiations should take place at neutral locations acceptable to all major parties.
C. No retaliation for participation
Participants should not be arrested, attacked or punished merely because they entered the peace process, subject to clearly defined exceptions for serious criminal conduct.
D. Third-party guarantees
Where necessary, ASEAN and other mutually acceptable international actors could provide guarantees.
E. Reciprocal restraint
While negotiations continue, parties should commit themselves to avoiding actions that fundamentally change the military or political balance.
The purpose is not to make everyone trust everyone else.
It is to make betrayal more difficult and cooperation safer.
3. CONFIDENCE-BUILDING — Start small
Myanmar’s greatest problem is not simply disagreement.
It is mutual fear.
The military fears losing control.
Ethnic armed organisations fear losing their territories and political rights.
The NUG and democratic forces fear being permanently excluded.
Minorities fear majoritarian domination.
Civilians fear both armed conflict and political repression.
Displaced people fear returning home.
Everyone has reasons to distrust someone else.
Therefore, demanding immediate “national reconciliation” may be unrealistic.
Trust should be built incrementally.
Instead of asking:
“Do you trust us?”
Ask:
“What small action can we take today that will make you slightly less afraid of us tomorrow?”
For example:
- humanitarian corridors;
- reopening hospitals and schools;
- removal of certain checkpoints;
- restoration of local services;
- prisoner releases;
- return of displaced civilians;
- restoration of telecommunications;
- protection of religious sites;
- suspension of inflammatory propaganda;
- local ceasefires;
- joint humanitarian projects.
These may appear small compared with constitutional reform.
But peace is often constructed from small acts of demonstrated reliability.
4. THE DIALOGUE TABLE — Nobody can be permanently excluded
A sustainable settlement cannot be created by two or three powerful groups deciding the future of everyone else.
Myanmar’s political reality is too complex.
A meaningful national dialogue should therefore include, in an appropriate format:
- the SAC/military;
- the NUG and democratic forces;
- ethnic resistance organisations;
- other armed organisations;
- political parties;
- civil society;
- women;
- youth;
- ethnic communities;
- religious and community leaders;
- representatives of displaced populations;
- other affected minorities.
This does not mean that every organisation must sit in the same room on Day One.
That may be impossible.
Instead, the process can be multi-layered.
Track I — Principal political negotiations
The major armed and political stakeholders.
Track II — Ethnic and federal negotiations
Focused on autonomy, federalism, natural resources, security arrangements and territorial questions.
Track III — Civil-society dialogue
Women, youth, religious communities, professional organisations, displaced people and other civilian stakeholders.
Track IV — Technical negotiations
Experts dealing with:
- constitutional arrangements;
- economics;
- justice;
- security-sector reform;
- humanitarian affairs;
- reconstruction;
- elections;
- decentralisation.
These tracks can eventually converge into a national settlement.
5. CONCILIATION — Use trusted intermediaries
Myanmar’s parties may not trust one another.
But they may trust certain third parties more than they trust their opponents.
ASEAN could therefore play an important facilitating role.
Malaysia, as ASEAN Chair in 2025, already demonstrated the potential value of active regional diplomacy.
Other neighbouring and influential states could also contribute, provided that their roles are accepted by the participants.
The key principle should be:
Facilitation, not domination.
The mediator should not dictate Myanmar’s political future.
The mediator should help Myanmar’s own stakeholders negotiate it.
6. THE TRANSITIONAL NATIONAL CONSENSUS GOVERNMENT
This is where the Five Cs can move from a peace framework into an institutional mechanism.
Myanmar could consider establishing a temporary:
Transitional National Consensus Government — TNCG
The important word is Transitional.
It should not become another permanent government.
Its purpose would be to create the conditions under which Myanmar can eventually return to legitimate constitutional government through an agreed political process.
The TNCG should therefore have a limited mandate and limited lifespan.
Its responsibilities could include:
- maintaining basic administration;
- facilitating humanitarian assistance;
- beginning reconstruction;
- protecting civilians;
- preparing constitutional reform;
- coordinating return and reintegration of displaced people;
- beginning security-sector reform;
- preparing conditions for credible elections;
- supporting reconciliation;
- implementing agreements reached through the national dialogue.
It should not simply be:
one side replacing another side.
It should represent a temporary political bridge between war and a new constitutional order.
7. THE MILITARY QUESTION CANNOT BE AVOIDED
Any serious peace plan must confront the most difficult issue:
What happens to the Myanmar military?
Simply demanding:
“The military must disappear.”
may satisfy anger but does not necessarily create a workable transition.
Conversely, demanding:
“The military must retain its existing political privileges.”
would make genuine democratic federalism extremely difficult.
A realistic transition therefore requires security-sector reform through negotiation.
Possible stages could include:
Stage 1
Military withdrawal from routine civilian administration and political governance.
Stage 2
Separation of military authority from executive and legislative institutions.
Stage 3
Professionalisation and restructuring of the security sector.
Stage 4
Integration or coordination of appropriate armed elements under an agreed federal security architecture.
Stage 5
Long-term civilian democratic oversight.
The details would need to be negotiated.
But the principle should be clear:
A democratic Myanmar needs security institutions that protect the state and its people—not institutions that determine who governs the state.
8. JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION — Peace cannot mean forgetting
There is another difficult balance.
Victims need justice.
But if every participant believes that entering negotiations automatically means imprisonment or destruction, some may choose to continue fighting indefinitely.
Therefore Myanmar may eventually need a carefully designed combination of:
- accountability for the gravest crimes;
- truth-seeking;
- reparations;
- victim participation;
- institutional reform;
- reconciliation mechanisms;
- appropriate forms of conditional amnesty where legally and politically justified.
Peace and justice should not be presented as absolute opposites.
The objective should be:
maximum accountability compatible with achieving a sustainable end to mass violence.
9. CONSTITUTION — Build the future before fighting over the past
The final constitutional settlement should address the fundamental causes of Myanmar’s conflicts.
Among the essential questions are:
- federalism;
- equality of citizenship;
- ethnic rights;
- minority protection;
- democratic representation;
- decentralisation;
- judicial independence;
- rule of law;
- civilian control of the security sector;
- equitable resource sharing;
- protection of freedom of religion and belief;
- protection of fundamental human rights.
And critically:
No community should need to fear that democracy means permanent domination by another community.
A genuine federal democratic constitution should therefore protect both:
majority rule
and
minority rights.
One without the other is dangerous.
10. CONFIDENCE — The ultimate test
Eventually the question becomes:
How do we know that the peace will survive after the mediators leave?
The answer cannot simply be:
“Because everyone promised.”
Promises are important.
Institutions are more important.
A durable settlement needs:
- independent monitoring;
- agreed dispute-resolution mechanisms;
- constitutional safeguards;
- judicial protection;
- transparent resource-sharing;
- civilian oversight;
- guarantees for minorities;
- economic reconstruction;
- safe return of displaced people;
- credible elections;
- continuing international engagement during the transition.
In other words:
Trust should gradually move from personalities to institutions.
THE FIVE Cs — NOW BECOME A ROADMAP
The original Five Cs can therefore be transformed into an actual sequence:
1. CEASEFIRE
Stop the killing.
↓
2. SECURITY
Guarantee that participation will not mean surrender to destruction.
↓
3. CONFIDENCE-BUILDING
Demonstrate cooperation through small, verifiable actions.
↓
4. CONCILIATION
Bring trusted neutral facilitators into the process.
↓
5. CONSENSUS
Create an inclusive political dialogue.
↓
6. TRANSITION
Establish a limited Transitional National Consensus Government.
↓
7. CONSTITUTION
Negotiate a federal democratic constitutional settlement.
↓
8. JUSTICE & RECONCILIATION
Address atrocities, victims and historical grievances.
↓
9. RECONSTRUCTION
Rebuild communities, institutions and the economy.
↓
10. CONFIDENCE
Hold credible elections and transfer authority through an agreed constitutional process.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE
Perhaps the greatest mistake in Myanmar peace efforts has been assuming that political agreement must come before security.
For frightened people, it is often the opposite.
They need enough security to begin talking.
Then enough confidence to continue talking.
Then enough dialogue to reach consensus.
Then enough consensus to reform the constitution.
And finally enough institutional confidence for former enemies to accept political competition instead of armed confrontation.
Therefore:
We should not ask Myanmar’s enemies to trust one another first. We should build a system that makes it possible for them to take the first small step without trusting one another completely.
That is the real meaning of peacebuilding.
FROM THE CIRCLE OF FEAR TO A CIRCLE OF TRUST
For more than seven decades, Myanmar has been trapped in a Circle of Fear:
Fear → Violence → Retaliation → Atrocity → Displacement → Hatred → More Fear.
The objective of the Five Cs should be to reverse that process:
Ceasefire → Security → Confidence → Dialogue → Consensus → Constitutional Reform → Reconstruction → Reconciliation → Trust.
This will not happen overnight.
There will be setbacks.
There will be spoilers.
There will be people who benefit from war and therefore oppose peace.
But that does not mean peace is impossible.
It means peace needs architecture, not merely aspiration.
CONCLUSION
Myanmar does not need another peace conference where leaders shake hands, issue statements and return home to continue fighting.
It needs a protected political transition in which every major stakeholder can see a future in which it can survive without permanently controlling everyone else.
The central bargain could ultimately be very simple:
The military must have security without political domination.
Ethnic nationalities must have autonomy and equality without endless war.
Democratic forces must have political legitimacy without revenge.
Minorities must have citizenship and protection without having to fear the majority.
Civilians must have peace without being forced to choose between competing armed powers.
And Myanmar as a whole must have a future in which political disagreement no longer automatically becomes armed conflict.
That is why the Five Cs should not end with Confidence as merely an abstract virtue.
They should become a Peace Mechanism.
Because the ultimate objective is not simply to persuade Myanmar’s enemies to stop fighting.
It is to create a Myanmar in which they no longer need to fight in order to feel safe.
