Myanmar: Building a robust civilian ceasefire monitoring mechanism in Myanmar: challenges, successes and lessons learned; working paper and recommendations report

Executive Summary

Since the advent of Myanmar’s transition to democracy in 2012, peacebuilding practitioners throughout the country’s ethnic areas have begun implementing a new approach to monitoring the fragile and nascent ceasefire agreements between ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and the Union of Myanmar Government.
This approach, which engages the direct participation of communities, is known as Civilian Ceasefire Monitoring, or CCM. While some CCM groups—referred to here as “mechanisms”—draw from previous experiences monitoring conflict in their regions, others are only beginning to develop the tools, practices and knowledge necessary to achieve their goals. These mechanisms are actively engaged in overcoming persistent difficulties of monitoring security, gender exclusion, communication gaps in incident reporting, and building monitor capacity. Many have fostered successful collaborations with local and international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to advance their work.

Despite this progress, significant challenges remain: monitors at village- and township-levels face insecurity and instability; many are not seen as legitimate actors by state government, EAOs or the Joint Monitoring Committee; communication gaps lead to stalled progress in reporting; response processes are inadequate and rarely reported back to communities; gender discrimination remains a persistent and often invisible impediment; and collaboration between mechanisms and the nascent Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) is often stalled. In addition, tensions remain between the stated goals of a mechanism’s focus on monitoring the breaking of a formal ceasefire agreement and engaging in the civilian protection monitoring (CPM) processes that address broader human rights issues.

This working paper presents an overview of the landscape of Myanmar’s emerging and experienced CCM mechanisms, and highlights some of the challenges, successes, and lessons learned from actors in these environments. It also offers recommendations for ways in which the international community can better support these efforts. In seeking to understand what elements are needed to build a robust mechanism in the Myanmar context, we ask: Where are CCM mechanisms operational and what do their structures look like? What issues do these mechanisms monitor and why? How do these groups operationalize their reporting processes, and what communication challenges do they face? How do mechanisms foster a response to incidents as they arise? What role does gender inclusion (and omission) play in these processes, and how do gender dynamics inform or color organizational functionality? Finally, what actions could be taken by the international community to advance the work of Myanmar’s CCM mechanisms?

We address these questions through field research in six ethnic states. As part of Mercy Corps’ Supporting Civilian Ceasefire Monitoring (SCCM) program, in March 2016, the program’s Technical Advisor and field research team visited Kayah, Kachin, Chin, Shan, Kayin, and Mon States, and conducted semi-structured interviews with a sample of mechanism representatives. We present these findings here, and offer recommendations for the international community on ways to respond to this grassroots peacebuilding environment in need of support.

These recommendations include:

1. Bolstering technical and practical support to CCM mechanisms;

2. Implementing cross-learning opportunities focused on gender;

3. Increasing research on gender and CCM;

4. Building the capacity of the nascent State and Union-level Joint Monitoring Committees (JMC);

5. Assisting with relationship management; and

6. Training in the use of a national-level incident database.

The findings presented here illuminate issues to be considered by actors supporting the work of CCM mechanisms, and build on the national-level progress being made by stakeholders in the CCM/ CPM space. Six conclusions emerged, including:
1. Mechanisms are operational across a wide range of areas, with varying capacities.
2. The discrepancy between CCM and CPM is an ongoing debate, with gender playing a significant role in influencing a mechanism’s focus.
3. Reporting processes remain closed communication systems, despite use of formalized tools.
4. Response to incidents is limited, and more effective from the bottom-up rather than the top-down.
5. Mechanism functionality improves when gender inclusion strategies are in place.
6. Support systems are in place, but could be bolstered.