NGOs Mediating Peace

Front matter

| NGOS Mediating Peace | A Promoting Inclusion in Myanmar's Nationwide Ceasefire Negotiations

Julia Palmiano Federer

OPEN ACCESS palgreve macmillan

Foreword

The field of conflict resolution (CR) has seen extraordinary growth and development in recent decades, both in terms of practice and in terms of research and scholarship. One aspect of the CR field that has been particularly active is that of unofficial mediation by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Often going where governments (and especially Western governments) are unable, or unwilling, to tread, and speaking to people and tackling issues that are beyond the reach of official diplomacy, a network of NGOs has sprung up, which is now an integral part of the CR landscape. Some of these are small, boutique operations which are barely visible. Others are as large and well resourced as a small foreign ministry.

This development brings with it a host of important issues. By what professional metrics shall these NGOs and their work be judged? How are they to be held accountable and by whom? What are the ethical standards for those who embark upon these efforts? Who sets and enforces them? These are all critical issues, and the field is grappling with them.

Another key question for the field is whether these NGO mediators have a responsibility to act as impartial facilitators of dialogue, or to try to use their agency in these processes to advocate the adoption of certain norms and standards of behavior into a peace process. If the latter, what norms? Perhaps more importantly, whose norms? It is this critical question which this important book tackles.

Are the norms embodied in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or other such documents sacrosanct or fungible? Are they universal, or subject to subtle variations in different contexts? Though they may argue the former to both questions, most Western governments vii viii FOREWORD and NGOs accept that it is the latter, in practice. How fungible? Under what circumstances? Who decides?

Are these norms truly “universal,” or do they actually reflect more Western, liberal ideas of what peace is and should be? Though they may express sentiments with which few would argue in theory, are these norms, in practice, just another form of justification for the selective intervention by agents of the developed world into the less developed?

Drawing on an exemplary grasp of the issues and the scholarship on the question, and an exhaustive amount of fieldwork, Dr. Julia Palmiano Federer examines this issue in the context of one of the most vexing and troubled conflicts in the world today: Myanmar. She finds that NGO efforts to export the inclusive peace norm into that process may have been superficially successful, but had little lasting impact. Local elites were more than able, while adopting the language, to put aside the real objectives of this norm.

As might be expected from an in-depth and penetrating study of a conflict in which there are no entirely black-and-white situations or easy answers, Dr. Palmiano Federer’s conclusions are uncomfortable for those who champion the liberal peace agenda. But this book raises questions which the field cannot afford to ignore. The objectives of those who champion the inclusive peace norm are that it should be more than a “check-the-box” funding criteria for Western governments and foundations, but should really have an impact on peace processes on the ground. This book is destined to be a key part of the discussion as to how that goal is to be achieved.

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Peter Jones University of Ottawa

Ottawa Dialogue, University of Ottawa

December, 2023

Preface

In 2015, I had the privilege and honor of sitting with an individual from Myanmar who was seen by some as a de facto mediator at the heart of their country’s negotiations that ran from 2011 to 2015, leading to the signing of a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). The NCA negotiations ran over thousands of meetings and aimed to address hundreds of deep-seated issues and conflicts that have bedeviled the country for decades. At the time, I was part of an NGO that was supporting the ongoing peace process(es). In this context, our team sought to provide key political actors with the physical and psychological time and space to rest and reflect on the past, present and future of the process. When the mediator learned that I was researching the NCA process, he told me to make sure that my research and interviews “help the peace process [and] do not harm it.”

These words have stayed close to me. It is why I wrote this book: the aim is not to simply critique, but provide peacemakers, mediators and those who dedicate their lives to building peace (myself included) some reflection space to ask themselves some difficult questions. Why do they do the work that they do? What practices, beliefs and narratives inform their work? What aspects of the work are helpful? Which ones may be doing harm? Such soul-searching questions are important and necessary to revisit often.

With that, this book is first and foremost dedicated to those building peace in Myanmar. As I write this Preface, countless numbers of peace actors in Myanmar have witnessed or experienced horrific abuses of their human rights and have seen their life’s work in promoting peace hijacked during the aftermath of the coup d’état that took place on 1 February ix

X PREFACE

2021 by the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces). While this book analyses the period in the peace process that precedes the coup (2011-2015), the current iteration of the military junta is still pushing the outcomes of the NCA forward, with many of the similar dynamics at the root of the decades-long armed conflict remaining unaddressed. While the book does not address the post-coup context in-depth, I would be remiss to not mention the herculean efforts of many Myanmar peace actors and allies sustaining a vision of peace and trying to remain hopeful and committed amidst the backdrop of unimaginable loss, fear and anger.

In particular, I am indebted to the respondents hailing from the NGO mediation community of research and practice in Myanmar for taking the time to share their passion and views with me. Myanmar has become a second home for me during the research process and I have so many to thank for this. Thank you to all my interview respondents and friends in Myanmar, who took time to share their deeply personal thoughts and opinions. I hope that this book highlights the tireless and thankless work of those who continue to dedicate their life and work to the pursuit of peace in Myanmar. I hope that you hear your voices here.

This book would also not have been possible without the support and friendship of mentors, colleagues, friends and family. I would like to give a heartfelt thanks to the researchers past and present of the Swiss Peace Foundation, including Laurent Goetschel, Sara Hellmiiller, Jamie Pring, Ulrike Lühe, Elizabeth Mesok, Julie Bernath, Toon Dirkx, Dana Landau, Sergio Gemperle, David Lanz, Martina Santschi, Alexandre Raffoul and many others for their support, camaraderie and guidance throughout the research process. I am particularly grateful for the support of the mediation/Myanmar team at swisspeace (past and present) throughout this process, especially the sisterhood of Rachel Gasser who brought me to Yangon for the first time in 2013 and helped inspire me to go on this journey, as well as Rina Alluri, whose family gave me a home away from home. I am also lucky to have connected with many other researchers along this journey, including Maren Larsen, Owen Frazer, Valerie Sticher, Francesca Rickli and Paroma Ghose.

I would also like to thank my colleagues at the Ottawa Dialogue at the University of Ottawa, especially Peter Jones for his steadfast mentorship and Laura O’Connor for her fresh insights, as well as for their initial reviews of the manuscript. Thanks to Mariana Savka for her reviews of the manuscript proofs. I would also like to especially thank Richard Price, Sophie Haspeslagh and Isak Svensson for their inspirational guidance as

PREFACE Xi scholars and educators who have engaged with or supported my research during the development of this book. Thanks also to Shona Loong, Sofia Busch, Matthew Walton, Harriet Martin, Edgard Rodriguez and so many others in the Burma studies research and practice community that have commented on, informed or engaged with my research and welcomed me with open arms.

The research for this book was carried out in the framework of the Swiss National Science Foundation project “Are mediators norm entrepreneurs?” at the University of Basel, and I am grateful to both institutions for making this work possible. The manuscript for this book was produced with the institutional and financial support of the Ottawa Dialogue. A heartfelt thanks to Kelly Burch for her work on the Index of this book, as well as my dear friends Jackson Bahn and Haidee Kongpreecha for their editing work on the manuscript.

Finally, I am so grateful to those who have supported me through the brightest and darkest moments of this journey. To my family and friends in the city of Vancouver located on the unceded traditional territories of the x*mo0k”oyom (Musqueam), Skwxwtt7mesh (Squamish) and salilwatat (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, especially Leanne Saratan, Sarah Vernier, Ashley Macdonald, eastvanwomen and the feminatrix. To Rica Yatco, Ron Yatco, Rielle and Roman: for bringing unbridled love, joy and support into my life. To Monika and Jakob Federer: for your earnest and loving support. To my parents, Benito and Catherine Palmiano: for giving everything so that I could be here.

Lastly, to my husband Wendelin Federer, whose insight, intelligence and love have both lifted me up and grounded me when it counted most. I could not have done this without you (and your early reviews of countless manuscript drafts! )—I am so lucky. To my little ones Alva and Maren, who have brought unmeasured joy and inspiration to my life. I hope that this book makes you proud.

Bern, Switzerland Julia Palmiano Federer

Praise for NGOs Mediating Peace

“A timely and extremely well-researched study, which asks exactly the right questions and draws conclusions of critical importance to peace processes everywhere.” —Thant Myint-U, author of The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century

“A joy to read, even including the footnotes! Palmiano Federer’s critical decolonizing lens brings to life experiences in Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement negotiations to explore limitations and unintended consequences of the inclusivity norm diffusing practices in NGO-convened mediation efforts. A must-read for all those working in and studying unofficial dialogue processes, the book offers a cautionary tale for all but the most elicitive of conflict resolution processes, and poses probing questions for field-wide reflection: to the extent that we [practitioners of NGO mediation] can spread our norms (such as inclusivity), should we? If so, how?”

—Susan H. Allen, Henry Hart Rice Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Director of the Center for Peacemaking Practice, George Mason University

““NGOs Mediating Peace” is a timely and hands-on contribution to current debates on inclusion in peacebuilding. It shows very well the evolvement of the private mediation scene and its close interconnectedness with normative approaches in peacebuilding. Julia Palmiano Federer’s account is critical in confronting the growing amount of literature that engages with the inclusion paradigm with concrete practices. The case study of Myanmar offers important insights of significant relevance for other so-perceived inclusive peace processes as well.” —Jan Pospisil, Associate Professor (Research) at Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations

“In the midst of many academic and “insider” accounts of Myanmar’s peace process, Julia Palmiano Federer’s book makes distinctive contributions that robustly engage with all of the nuance and messiness of the concept of “inclusion.” While looking honestly at the interventions of NGOs to promote “inclusion,” she also critically assesses the targeted use of “spoiler” discourses by both domestic and international actors to practically limit inclusion, as well as the strategic deployment of language of inclusion by armed actors seeking leverage with the military and government. The result is a novel reading of the peace process that generates important insights for peace practitioners and for those who will be part of future

negotiations over Myanmar’s political future.”

—Matthew Walton, Assistant Professor of Comparative Political Theory. Department of Political Science, University of Toronto

“This book breaks new grounds by looking at the role of NGO mediators in conflict resolution and particularly their agency in norm promotion. Based on an impressive wealth of first-hand data, Julia Palmiano Federer analyzes how the inclusivity norm promoted by NGO mediators was localized in the Myanmar peace process and shows how it counter-intuitively contributed to an exclusive, rather than inclusive, outcome. She thereby makes crucial contributions by combining the conflict resolution and norms literatures, by providing an in-depth case study of mediation in Myanmar, and by furthering our understanding of inclusion in peace processes.”

—Sara Hellmiiller, Swiss National Science Foundation Assistant Professor, Geneva Graduate Institute

“This book is not only a must-read to those interested in Myanmar, but is a highly

welcome contribution to peace mediation literature in general. NGO mediators

have remained a surprisingly little researched theme, even though their signifi-

cance has become crucial in promotion of inclusive and locally owned processes in the current peacemaking ecosystem.”

—Marko Lehti, Research Director of Tampere Peace Research

Institute (TAPRI), Tampere University, Finland

Contents

Introduction: Unsettled Reflections From Golden Valley, Myanmar

Promoting Peace or Pushing Norms? Normative Agency and Mediators as Norm Entrepreneurs

New Kids on the Block: The Rise of NGO Mediators in Peace Mediation

CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Unsettled Reflections From Golden Valley, Myanmar

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Despite the staggering differences between each of these countries—in terms of geographies, cultures, people, languages, dynamics of violence, and conflict histories—the interveners who worked in them shared the same daily modes of operation [...]. As I moved from one place to another and found the same kinds of environments, the same types of actors, and sometimes even the same individuals, I started to feel part of a transnational community, a community of expatriates who devote their lives to working in conflict zones. I felt that I had become part of a new world: Peaceland.'

In Myanmar, under U Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government in the first half of the 2010s, Peaceland had a name and a postal code: Golden Valley (Shwe Taung Gyar), 11201 Bahan Township, Yangon. Around gargantuan houses, barbed wire was juxtaposed with jasmine flowers lined up the winding streets. Sometimes one could glimpse the discreet, goldplated signs of private residences. Nestled in uptown Yangon’s Bahan Township, Golden Valley was the unofficial name of the enclosed gated community where embassies, United Nations (UN) agencies, and international NGOs that comprise Myanmar’s quickly growing

'See Autesserre 2014, 2 (“Peaceland” is a “neologism” paraphrased from the word “Aidland” introduced by Apthorpe 2005).

© The Author(s) 2024 1 J. Palmiano Federer, NGOs Mediating Peace, Twenty-first Century

“international community” resided.* No longer home to the few border teachers and humanitarian workers among the first to be allowed limited access to the country, Golden Valley then housed a new set of expatriates: peace professionals, actors that have come specifically to support the nascent peace process initiated by Thein Sein’s newly elected government. Much of this expatriate community came to Yangon after 2013, buoyed by the unprecedented easing of restrictions for foreigner visas.

I had been to Golden Valley several times for meetings and lived adjacent to the exclusive neighborhood’s edge in 2017. I was always struck by the palpable barrier between the serene calm of the quarter and the orchestra of Yangon’s traffic and buzzing energy. The Myanmar Peace Centre (MPC), at the time the epicenter of Myanmar’s peace process, was constructed on one of Golden Valley’s quiet side streets just outside the residential areas. It was here that the majority of the ensuing peace negotiations between the government of Myanmar and representatives of multiple armed groups took place. In an upscale refurbished boutique hotel (a favorite hangout spot of “Peacelanders”), information meetings among international peace supporters would take place monthly. In early 2014, when I first attended this meeting along with 10 other members in the small alcove above the Savoy’s swimming pool, I was struck by the peculiarity of it: why was this group of UN staff, diplomatic representatives and conflict resolution NGOs discussing intricate details to the peace process and their support without the stakeholders themselves? What was their role? Are they facilitators? Mediators? Donors? All of the above?

The meeting attendees were sharing report findings and advocacy papers on how Myanmar’s peace process could include the voices of women and grassroots communities from conflict-affected areas. What did not happen in this meeting? Open discussion on what kinds of activities they were actually conducting with the national peace process actors. In 2015, months before the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) between representatives of ethnic armed groups (EAGs) and the government of Myanmar, the venue was moved out from the small boutique hotel to a much larger one, and again, I witnessed 30 participants crammed into the small meeting space to listen to an international analyst

?The “international community” is a contested term, as it is unclear what or who comprises this label. See Hellmiiller 2018 for a critical discussion on the label of “international” (versus local).

discuss how a policy of all-inclusiveness* had put the negotiating parties at loggerheads and threatened to derail the whole process (a wholly different meaning to the inclusion of women and grassroots communities in the peace process). This analyst, everyone knew, worked directly with the negotiating parties and was worried about this all-inclusiveness position, which dictated that none of the armed ethnic organizations in the 16-member negotiating bloc would sign the ceasefire agreement unless all of them signed. As with my first meeting, there were no national peace process actors in the room.

Being one of these many NGO professionals all trying to support the same national peace process actors made me uneasy. Hearing that this strangely worded all-inclusiveness discourse ended up derailing the process made me more uneasy still. What did it mean? The inclusion of civil society or the women of certain armed actors? Or both? Where did such a normative imperative come from in conflicts fought over political power and territory? I thought back to my first meeting—did the influx of these Golden Valley “Peacelanders” have anything to do with the notion of all-inclusiveness being used by the parties? I knew that a large number of trainings, workshops and coachings on gender sensitivity, human rights and other international norms were being conducted with the negotiating parties and civil society actors (these were never reported at the meetings), but I did not know whether there was a connection between them. If indeed there was a connection, then NGO mediators’ promotion of inclusive peace processes may have had unintended consequences on the outcome of the NCA process. As Myanmar actors chose not to have a third-party mediator, how did conflict resolution and mediation NGOs housed in Golden Valley take on these roles? Did they promote the idea to the negotiating parties that inclusivity would lead to a better outcome of the NCA process? The interconnection between NGO mediators, the promotion of the inclusivity norm, and the all-inclusiveness discourse at the end of the NCA process in 2015 reverberated in my head, and has formed the focus of this puzzle: Can NGO mediators promote norms to negotiating parties in ongoing peace processes? How does this happen?

3A rather awkward and unwieldy phrase in the English language, originally transliterated as 39:05 slos in Burmese. Hereafter referred to without quotations.

*NGOs can be understood as “private actors taking on discreet or public ‘mediative’ or facilitative functions among and between the negotiating parties in a peace process” (Palmiano Federer 2021, 71).

In this book, I explore this puzzle by investigating NGO mediators’ promotion of inclusivity in Myanmar. I aim to do so by uncovering the agency an NGO mediator has in promoting the inclusivity norm to the negotiating parties during the NCA process (2011-2015). Even if NGO mediators should promote norms, is this possible? Can they do so? To answer these questions, I look to norms diffusion literature and scholarship on international peace mediation, and the role that ideas, narratives and identities play in international peace mediation: to what extent peace processes are the site for norm promotion and diffusion, and to what extent NGO mediators are norm entrepreneurs.

1.2 Are MEDIATORS NORM ENTREPRENEURS?

The practice of international peace mediation has grown more political in nature (Hellmiiller et al. 2015), as mediators are increasingly asked to or themselves willingly consider incorporating norms such as gender equality, human rights, and transitional justice and inclusivity in their interventions.® The question of inclusivity, or which actors should be included in a peace process and /ow they should be included is a central issue for mediators. As mediation developed as an important tool for conflict resolution after the Cold War (Kriesberg 2001), scholars researching questions on inclusion and exclusion focused on which armed actors should be represented at the negotiating table within a theoretical framework of bargaining theory (Zartman and Touval 1985). While mediators’ roles in determining who gets a seat at the table are mentioned in mediation literature within the topic of process design, it was not until the development of a literature on “spoilers” (Stedman 1997) in mediation processes that mediators were linked to managing inclusivity. Literature on civil war termination discussed how third parties, such as mediators, should engage with actors designated as spoilers (Zahar 2010). Mediation literature began to take a normative turn with the advent of the liberal peacebuilding paradigm. The body of literature discussing the promises and perils of peacebuilding shifted from describing the role of mediators as peace brokers to describing them as peacebuilders: mediators, in this view, not only had to support negotiating parties stop violence through political

5 The research for this book was done in the three-year Swiss National Science Foundationfunded project “Are mediators norm entrepreneurs?” conducted at the Swiss Peace Foundation and the University of Basel. For more information, see Hellmiiller et al. 2017.

settlements, but encourage the development of democratic markets and institutions in post-conflict and transitioning societies (Richmond 2018). The debates around inclusivity in mediation literature have also shifted towards the modalities of including non-armed actors in civil society, in particular women, youth actors and minority populations. Mediators are often pressured by their mandate-givers (e.g. donors) and civil society organizations supporting peace processes from a distance to meaningfully include non-armed actors in negotiations (Hellmiiller et al. 2015). The professionalization of the mediation field has also resulted in explicitly normative conduct guidelines for mediators, evidenced by the United Nations Secretary General issuing the UN Guidance for Effective Mediation (United Nations 2012). This policy document provides eight “fundamentals” of effective mediation and includes normative imperatives such as inclusivity, defined as “the extent and manner in which the views and needs of the conflict parties and other stakeholders are represented and integrated into the process and outcome of a mediation effort” (United Nations 2012, 11). The centering of inclusivity as a salient norm (Paffenholz and Zartman 2019) that mediators should promote is an example of how the role of mediators has shifted from peace brokers to peacebuilders; not only do they have to end conflicts, but must also integrate norms into the process design of mediation processes and ensure their appearance in peace agreement texts. Despite this development in practice, the role that mediators play in promoting norms around inclusion is under-researched in academic literature.

To address this gap, my book links mediation literature with the wide body of scholarly work on the role of norms in global politics and change. Understanding how ideas shape interests and how norms can be promoted, accepted, rejected, or contested between and among different actors, can shed light on the role that mediators play in promoting norms in mediation processes. One of the most prominent theories of norm diffusion puts forth the notion of “norm entrepreneurs:” actors that attempt to convince a critical mass of actors to adopt a certain norm (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). As these actors were studied at the state and transnational levels, norm diffusion theories also sought to explain why some norms found greater acceptance in certain contexts and not in others. Theories around the localization of external norms addressed this question by positing that local agents reshaped external norms and incorporated them into local contexts through a process of congruence building with existing normative frameworks (Acharya 2004). Norm entrepreneurs diffusing norms from a transnational context to a local one highlights the agency of the “norm-takers” and the “norm-makers,” as norms localize through a process of contestation and reconstitution (Wiener 2004). So are mediators norm entrepreneurs? (Hellmiiller et al. 2017).

So the question “are mediators norm entrepreneurs” can be narrowed to the following: to what extent can (should?) mediators promote the inclusivity norm to negotiating parties in peace processes? This requires focusing on mediators as norm entrepreneurs of inclusion and therefore, on the normative agency they have to promote norms to negotiating parties in a given conflict context. In this book, I seek to understand the conditions under which mediators can influence the behavior of parties regarding the inclusion and exclusion of different actors in a mediation process. I do not assume mediators have normative agency from the beginning, but construct it through a complex process of discursive framing, specific sets of social practices and power dynamics.

1.3. Was NGO MEDIATORS IN MYANMAR?

There is a considerable research gap on NGO mediators. This dearth of previously existing work meant that I had to generate my own data on what NGO mediators’ normative frameworks and normative socialization could be. Looking at the universe of cases where NGOs played a prominent role and which could offer such data, I found that peace processes concentrated on conflict contexts in South East Asia and specifically, ASEAN contexts (e.g. Philippines, Nepal, Aceh and Myanmar) were promising single case studies. Myanmar, like other ASEAN states, adhere to the ASEAN Way, a strongly held normative framework that emphasizes sovereignty and non-intervention. This framework has opened space for private diplomacy actors like the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, the Crisis Management Initiative, who pioneered contemporary NGO-led mediation in by the peace processes between the Indonesian government and the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) in Aceh. In Myanmar, where there is no formal mediator and NGO mediators have taken on mediation rather than facilitation roles.

For Myanmar, I chose the timeframe of 2011-2015 in terms of collecting data, focusing on the NCA process from the opening of the process in

°With the notable exception of Lehti’s 2019 book The Era of Private Peacemakers: A New Dialogic Approach to Mediation, who provides a sophisticated explanation for such a gap.

August 2011 to the signing of the peace agreement in October 2015, under the reform government of Thein Sein. This is the timeline of my process tracing and the period in which I refer to in my data collection. Within the contemporary history of Myanmar, this represents an exceptionally well-delimited timeframe, as Myanmar was going through an extraordinary reform period. Until 2011, Myanmar had been ruled for decades by the military government, while post-2015 is defined by the historic first “free and fair” election that saw the election of the first democratic government headed by national icon Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party and the current conditions under the military coup of February 2021. The focus on this period between the shifts allows me to focus my analysis on this time period accordingly. Myanmar is the largest country in South East Asia, and one of diverse peoples and geographies. From the mountainous northern regions to the watery plains of the southern delta area, Myanmar is a country whose strategic location on the Andaman Sea, abundance in natural resources, and five shared borders’ has contributed to its tumultuous and, at many times, tragic history. It has a population of over 50 million people, although actual numbers are contested and politically sensitive, as some ethnic groups are excluded because they are not considered citizens. Recent attempts to label Jum yo (race, ethnicity or nationality) identity have been intensely criticized by scholars and analysts. The UN’s 2014 attempt at a nationwide census was widely criticized as a contextually inappropriate and dangerous exercise that risked “shattering” Myanmar’s peace and stability at a time of tenuous political transition from a military regime to democracy (Callahan 2014). The ultimately botched census project provides a glimpse into the restive grievances around a central

7 From east to west, Myanmar borders Laos, Bangladesh, India, China and Thailand.

issue: what does it mean to be Myanmar?’ Who is included in this national identity, and who is excluded? Questions around fundamental rights to national belonging form the crux of Myanmar politics: ethnic minorities in the borderlands waging decades-long insurgencies for self-determination, but also incendiary inter-communal and religious’? tensions between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state’? (Crouch 2016), are telling examples. Already in 1982, Robert Taylor offered the somewhat cryptic

8I discuss the difference between Myanmar vs Burma for naming the country in this chapter. However, these distinctions become more complex when differentiating what it means for those who live in the country referring to themselves as Myanmar or Burmese. Those who live in the country are often referred to as Burmese, despite the heterogeneity of ethnic diversity beyond the Bamar or Burmese ethnicity. I also refer use the term armed ethnic groups (EAGs) and the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) as they were terms widely used during the period under analysis (2011-2021) in Myanmar politics. In the post-coup period, terms such as Ethnic Resistance Organizations and the “sit-tat” (military) are used respectively and reflect the current political dynamics of resistance to the coup, in which the broad population does not view the military institution as deserving of the title of Myanmar’s armed forces. For more, see https://teacircleoxford.com/politics /sit-tat-or-tatmadawdebates-on-what-to-call-the-most-powerful-institution-in-burma/.