Khuensai Jaiyen, the editor-in-chief of the Shan Herald News, spoke about why the US should play a stronger role in the peace process in Burma. The Shan Herald News editor discussed how both the Chinese and the Japanese government have recently become directly involved in the peace talks.

“Recently the Myanmar peace talks in Thailand was sponsored by the Japanese while the meeting in Ruili in China the Chinese were directly involved,” said Khuensai Jaiyen, “according to reports the Chinese are even interfering in the internal affairs. Japan and China are rivals so if these 2 major powers take a leading role in the peace process, I doubt the ceasefire will go smoothly.”

Khuensai Jaiyen expressed the need for the US to start taking a more leading role in the peace process to balance things out between Japan and China’s growing dominance in the region.

“Chinese officers were present at the Ruili meeting so some of the decisions about humanitarian assistance and ceasefire monitoring could not be made. If those items were included in the agenda then western NGOs would flood in. This seems to make the Chinese nervous. If China and Japan are allowed to continue pulling strings the peace process will go nowhere, or it will take much longer than necessary,” he said.

Other speakers at the BNI press conference in Bangkok included Sai Lek, BNI’s Peace Process Monitoring coordinator, senior journalist and researcher and Nan Paw Gay, chief editor of Karen Information Center, will discuss the peace process in Karen state.

A full version of Deciphering Myanmar's Peace Process: A Reference Guide can be downloaded from BNI website.  http://www.bnionline.net/