The course of History and Peace

On Friday 12th October at 11 o’clock Central European time, 16.30 Burmese time, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced.
One of the nominees is Thein Sein, president of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Burma’s official name). For Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), an independent study centre, Thein Sein is one of the five favourites among the 231 valid nominations being considered by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
In the words of the prize founder, Alfred Nobel, the peace prize must be assigned to someone who “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.
In this sense, for Harpviken, Thein Sein would be a worthy winner, because he is “spearheading a gradually evolving peace process in the country. Peacemaking is certainly at the core of the Nobel mandate, and many prizes have been awarded to both mediators and lead representatives of conflict parties”.
However, awarding the prize to Thein Sein would prove controversial. The Burmese president was, after all, a member of the military junta that for many years dominated Burma in one of the most brutal dictatorships of the modern age.
As Harpviken says, though, the Nobel Committee has often insisted that the “prize is not to be for saints only” and in recent years has been particularly eager that it “makes a difference in processes unfolding, even if that may carry high risk”.
Since he was elected president, in February 2011, there is no doubt that “processes unfolding” in Burma have seen an extraordinary acceleration: from the by-elections at which Aung San Suu Kyi (1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her opposition to the regime) was elected to parliament, to the recent declarations by Thein Sein, according to which he would not be opposed to the Lady becoming president, should she win the 2015 elections. So much so, that San Suu Kyi herself admitted: “Parliament has more democracy than I expected”.
For some, Thein Sein’s behaviour springs simply from his desire to wipe the slate clean of the sins of the past. For the majority, it is a strategic calculation. The Burmese “historical compromise” is the only possibility for the country to play on more than one table. This is clarified by an article written by a Burmese civil servant and approved “by the highest authorities”, which states, “We do not want our nation to become a Chinese satellite”. The road to democracy, in this case, is paved with the benefits of an end to the embargo and of economic aid, and is headed ultimately towards the metamorphosis of Burma into the next Asian Tiger.
The biggest obstacle are the conflicts with the various ethnic groups in the country, for which the army has been accused, and found guilty of, all kinds of human rights violations. Thein Sein’s government has established ceasefire agreements with ten of the eleven armed ethnic groups, but the truce remains fragile and fighting continues in Kachin State, where the conflict has already caused thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of internally displaced people. According to representatives of the ethnic groups, then, the acceleration of processes unfolding is rather too quick and risks sacrificing the people’s rights on the altar of economic interest in a race to develop marked by even more profound inequality and unscrupulous territory management. Some even say that Aung San Suu Kyi has become an accomplice of Thein Sein’s for not denouncing government attacks on Kachin, “I do not want to add fire to any side of the conflict,” replied the Lady, defending herself against those accusing her of betraying her humanitarian credentials.
From this perspective, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Thein Sein would be a gamble indeed, definitively legitimising his government and justifying in the name of the greater good new ethnic repressions and uncontrolled development at the expense of the Wretched of the Earth. But it could also turn out to be a decisive step towards democracy, with all of its associated limitations, and lead to the civil reconciliation that would bring an end to over sixty years of civil war.
When I wrote (in italian only) in April that “it would not be surprising – or perhaps undesirable - if president Thein Sein were to win the Nobel Peace Prize”, comparing him to Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last president to rule over apartheid in South Africa (and thus comparing Aung San Suu Kyi to Nelson Mandela), many judged what I said to be provocative, eccentric and political fiction.
But, however this story ends, it is clear that History is moving fast.
As St Augustine said: Solvitur ambulando.

The Thein Sein’s conference at the Asia Society in New York on September 27 last year (with translation). Below: full video (also from the Asia Society) of Aung San Suu Kyi visit in Washington DC.
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