Myanmar's junta, the State Peace and Development Council, is engaged in secret reconciliation talks with democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi. For now, exiled dissidents and ethnic opponents of the junta watch cautiously from the sidelines. Any solution to Myanmar's problems, though, will have to consider their concerns.
Mahn Nyein looks you in the eye when he talks. A serious man, he's well known for a remarkable exploit in 1970. Then an imprisoned political dissident on Myanmar's inhospitable Coco's Island group, he and fellow inmates built a raft and sailed hundreds of kilometers to the mainland in an escape attempt. They were recaptured, but only he survived.
Today he's a senior official in the Karen National Union, an ethnic organization that has fought successive Myanmar governments for autonomy since 1949. When asked about the ongoing reconciliation talks he was forthright.
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