A/HRC/39/CRP.2 Significantly, it is also responsible for the collection of taxes. The GAD falls under the Ministry of Home Affairs, one of the three ministries controlled by the Tatmadaw. B. Ethnic and religious diversity 1. Ethnic diversity and insurgencies 84. The territory of present-day Myanmar is inhabited by a large number of groups with various ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds. The largest group are the Bamar, who are believed to comprise 60 to 70 per cent of the total population. They are predominantly Buddhist and most live in the central lowlands of the country. Many other ethnic groups, with their distinct cultures, languages, traditions and sometimes religions, live mainly in the peripheral areas, near the borders with Bangladesh, China, India and Thailand. Before Burma gained independence, General Aung San and a number of ethnic leaders agreed, at the Panglong Conference in 1947, on a constitutional framework that recognised the distinctive identities of minorities and granted them a high degree of autonomy 99. The Panglong Agreement has never been implemented. 85. Several of these groups hold deep-rooted grievances, struggling for greater autonomy and an equitable sharing of natural resources. Since independence, the incessant ethnically based armed conflicts have been used by the Tatmadaw to justify its power, presenting itself as the guarantor of national unity. While successive Governments have made overtures towards negotiated peace agreements, hostilities have continued, in recent years predominantly in Kachin and Shan States. These conflicts indicate that the nation-building efforts of the military have failed:100 there is no unifying “Myanmar” national identity, resentment against Bamar-Buddhist domination has grown, and the Tatmadaw has failed to end the insurgencies by military or negotiated means. Notably, under military rule, the concept of “national races” has gradually become the key criterion for membership in the country’s political community,101 creating a common “other”. The military regime has constructed eight major ethnic groups (Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Bamar, Mon, Rakhine and Shan), broken down further into 135 “national races”. There is no scientific basis for this division, which contains both gaps and overlaps. The arbitrary list defines those who “belong” in Myanmar; all others, regardless of how many generations they have lived in Myanmar, are considered outsiders or immigrants. This includes the Rohingya. According to the Tatmadaw, “Despite living among peacocks, crows cannot become peacocks”. 102 86. Since 2016, the NLD-Government has led a peace process, the “Union Peace Conference-21st Century Panglong”; sessions have been held in August 2016, May 2017 and July 2018. In the run up to the third session in July 2018, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar expressed concern that “the peace process appears to be losing its momentum”, with “ethnic armed organizations” pointing to a failure by the Government and the Tatmadaw to take steps to earn the trust of stakeholders, 103 and through their blocking of internal consultations by parties to the Conference. 104 Nevertheless, all members of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee, who had previously not been 99 100 101 102 103 104 See 1947 Panglong Agreement (available at https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/ MM_470212_Panglong%20Agreement.pdf). M. Walton, “Nation-Building” in Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar, A. Simpson, N. Farrelly, I. Holliday eds. (London and New York, Routledge, 2018), pp. 393-403. N. Cheesman, “How in Myanmar ‘National Races’ Came to Surpass Citizenship and Exclude Rohingya”, Journal of Contemporary Asia (2017), 47:3, pp. 461-483. Tatmadaw, Directorate of the Public Relations and Psychological Warfare, “Myanmar Politics and the Tatmadaw” (2018), p. 115. Hard copy on file with the Mission. A/HRC/37/70, para. 40. Ibid. 25