Week 3: Work trip to Nay Pyi Taw, security briefing
Week 3: Work trip to Nay Pyi Taw, security briefing
I had the opportunity to travel to the capitol city, Nay Pyi Taw, for work. Our organization facilitated a workshop for members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Charter Change on sub-state constitutions. The JPCC, which was formed earlier this year, is tasked with drafting amendments to the constitution and consists of members from representative parties in Parliament. I learned a lot from the workshop and was humbled to be present while Parliamentarians discussed these important issues. That’s all that I can say about the workshop due to confidentiality concerns.
Nay Pyi Taw itself is quite a unique place, and I had heard from several people that it was jarringly empty and a little odd so I didn’t know what to expect. The capital city of Myanmar used to be Yangon, but it was moved in 2005 to Nay Pyi Taw, which was constructed specifically for this purpose. It is spread out and divided into zones- “hotel zone”, “business zone” etc, and it takes about 20 mins to drive from one zone to the next. An iconic photo from Nay Pyi Taw is of the empty 15 lane highway- even during the day, there is not a soul to be seen on this road, so tourists commonly take pictures of themselves sitting or lying down in the middle of this massive, barren highway. I saw it while driving from the airport, but did not have a chance to take the picture myself- but if you google it (or look here go-myanmar.com/naypyitaw) you can find many examples.
As a testament to how empty the city is, I was staying at an enormous, lovely hotel, and it was at maybe 5% capacity, which I think is typical for these hotels (and there are many of these huge hotels in the area). I only saw about two or three other guests on Sunday and then Monday morning there was a handful of people at the breakfast buffet. Interestingly, a handful of organizations (including USAID), have offices at the hotel, and I think some of the staff just live in the hotel.
I flew up on Friday after work, the workshop was on Saturday, and Sunday I was free to explore so I decided to check out the National Museum. The massive museum was, of course, empty except for maybe two other people, and I had a nice stroll from room to room, checking out exhibits on archeology, visual art, performance art, and other cultural objects.
Thinking that maybe all of the people just weren’t at my hotel, I went to dinner at a very popular restaurant and was the only person there, with five servers watching my every move like hawks.
Monday night we held another workshop, and then we all flew back to Yangon.
Later in the week I had the opportunity to attend a briefing meeting of the International Peace Support Group at the “American Club” (a clubhouse operated by the United States Embassy) to take notes for IDEA. When the taxi dropped me off at the address, I was convinced I was in the wrong place because it was the end of what looked like a residential street, with nothing but high security fences all around me. I was about to turn around when suddenly a door appeared in the closest fence and I was ushered inside and escorted to the meeting room. I can’t share any details, but the meeting was an update from various stakeholders on the security situation in conflict regions of Myanmar. I was humbled to be present for the meetings and learn more about these sensitive and evolving situations.
I have a new comparative constitutional project at work, and am headed up to Inle Lake this weekend.
-KLP