Fast and Strong: Myanmar's Struggle to Resolve the Ethnic Conflict

Since the late 1940's, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has faced a long-lasting ethnic conflict, impacting every part of the country. Although the conflict between the various minority ethnic groups and the central government was rooted in issues of sovereignty, the conflict today appears to have evolved into a constant struggle between each of the states to gain the greatest access to Myanmar's resource production. Despite the fact that the former military junta was democratically replaced by the N.L.D., a democratic political party, the conflict and struggle for natural resources continues, and is now accompanied by a weak democratic state, therefore giving Myanmar both added obstacles of legitimacy and accountability, and added opportunity to end the ethnic conflict with outside-of-the-box solutions.