"The big difference between President U Thein Sein?s Union Peace Conference early this year and the 21st Century Panglong Conference is inclusion...AS GUIDED by State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the 21st Century Panglong Conference will convene for the first time on August 31. It will be the first because it will re-convene at intervals of not more than six months. Now that important decisions have been made about convening the conference, we can imagine the shape and form of this historic event. This week I would like to discuss what can be expected from the 21st Century Panglong conference and how it will differ from the Union Peace Conference held by President U Thein Sein in January. The most important difference between the two conferences involves the participants. The main participants in the Union Peace Conference held by Thein Sein?s administration were past or serving military officers from the government or the parliament and the eight armed ethnic groups, including the Karen National Union, that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement last October. The 21st Century Panglong event will bring together representatives from the government and the parliament, most of whom are members of the National League for Democracy elected in its landslide victory last November, along with Tatmadaw officers, signatories and non-signatories of the NCA, and members of civil society groups. It will be an unprecedented, genuinely all-inclusive peace conference. Another important difference involves the classification and status of participants. At the Union Peace Conference, only signatories of the NCA were recognised as delegates and representatives of non-signatory groups were invited to attend as observers. In protest against what they called discrimination, most non-signatory groups boycotted the five-day event..."