One Year Later, Myanmar’s Tragedy Is Still Playing Out

Global Asia

It has been just over a year since tanks rolled into Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, and its largest city, Yangon, taking over the reins of power and putting in a junta, the State Administration Council. Many outsiders were stunned by the military violence that the coup of Feb. 1, 2021, unleashed on the population and startled by the strength of the resistance, peaceful as well as violent, that is continuing all over the country. 

This is not the first time the Myanmar army has gunned down pro-democracy demonstrators. That first happened when students demonstrated at Yangon University after the initial military takeover in 1962. In the mid-1970s, it happened again when people from various walks of life protested against the dictatorship. During a massive nationwide democracy uprising in 1988, the guns were used to silence the people as a new junta took power. Similar demonstrations were crushed in the 1990s and again in 2007, when Buddhist monks marched against the regime.

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The Military Never Went Away

In the past and again now, groups of hardened militants fled to the borders to take up arms against the military after protests were met with bullets. This time, however, the fighting is not confined to ethnic frontier areas. Local “People’s Defense Force” units have sprung up in many parts of Myanmar’s heartland that have not seen any significant insurgency since the years after independence in 1948. This is happening as a new generation, regardless of ethnicity, do not want a return to the bad old days of absolute military rule. Many outside observers believed that the military dictatorship ended when elections were held in November 2010, and Thein Sein, an ex-general and leading member of the former junta, became president in March 2011. He ordered the release of political prisoners and allowed parties, including the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi, to operate openly. Press censorship was lifted and new civil society organizations were formed. The notion that Myanmar was going through a transition to a civilian-based system of government became widespread, at least among foreign observers. The Thein Sein government also initiated a “peace process” whereby the country’s ethnic armed groups were invited to talks with the new government and the military. 

Thein Sein was hailed in the Western media as “Myanmar’s Gorbachev” leading the country toward a better future. That impression was strengthened when the NLD won a landslide victory in the November 2015 election and was allowed to form a new government. The NLD scored another, even bigger, victory in November 2020, and was about to form a second government when the military stepped in and arrested the entire cabinet, including President Win Myint and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi. 

After last year’s coup and the brutal suppression that followed, it should be evident that the upbeat assessments over the past decade were gross misinterpretations of what was happening. It should be enough to read the country’s 2008 constitution, which was drafted under military auspices and laid the foundation for continued military rule regardless of who formed the government, to realize that the 2010, 2015 and 2020 elections were not part of a transition to a new political system. The constitution states that the “Defense Services” shall “be able to participate in the National political leadership role of the State” — and they have done so, by holding 25 percent of all seats in the National Assembly and securing control over the three most crucial ministries: defense, home affairs (which includes the internal security apparatus) and border affairs. 

Chapter 12 of the 2008 charter details the complicated rules for constitutional amendments, which effectively give the military veto power over changes in the present power structure. Minor constitutional changes may be considered by the parliament if 20 percent of the members submit a bill. But a tangle of 104 clauses states that major changes cannot be made without the prior approval of more than 75 percent of all members of parliament, which, in effect, gives the military veto power against any attempt to change the constitution. But even if, miraculously, more than 75 percent approved of a change, a nationwide referendum would have to be held where more than half of all eligible voters cast ballots. 

The generals have stated time and again that it was their duty to uphold and defend this basically undemocratic constitution. On Jan. 28, 2021, only days before the coup, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said that the Myanmar military “needs to abide by the constitution,” which he described as the “mother of the law.” He has even claimed, most recently on Oct. 12, 2021, that the military takeover was constitutional because the 2008 charter says that the military can assume power in a state of emergency if asked to do so by the president. The problem, though, is that president Win Myint never did that. Instead, he was deposed on Feb. 1, 2021, and replaced by the military-appointed, non-elected first vice president, ex-Lieutenant-General Myint Swe, who is best known for the brutal crushing of the 2007 monks movement — and for fraud and the mishandling of aid intended for the victims of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. At the time, labels on boxes stating that this was “Aid from the Kingdom of Thailand” were pasted over with new ones saying the boxes were donations from Myint Swe and the military. 

What Did Happen in 2010? 

If it was not a transition, what did happen after the 2010 elections? The answer is obvious: The unprecedented openness that people came to enjoy led to a transformation of Myanmar society. An entire generation learned how to use the Internet, communicate on social media, and to hold workshops and seminars on subjects related to democracy and civil rights. That, in turn, gave birth to what is called Generation Z and the massive opposition to the coup, first by peaceful means and then with armed struggle. The NLD and other political parties have been forced underground, and the so-called peace process is dead, while urban activists have joined forces with ethnic rebel armies such as the Karen National Union and the Kachin Independence Army. As one Myanmar observer put it at the time of the coup: “The military has messed with the wrong generation.” It is unlikely that Thein Sein and the other generals had expected this kind of development when changes were introduced after the 2010 election. 

So why did the military agree to open up the country? The heavy dependence on China was one very decisive factor. Western sanctions and boycotts over many years had led to a reliance on China for trade and diplomatic support, and, according to internal Myanmar military documents seen by this writer, the situation had become so grave that the generals believed the country was in danger of losing its sovereignty. In order to become more acceptable to the broader international community, it would be necessary to make certain changes, which the generals could afford to do because the 2008 constitution safeguarded supreme military power. 

Another reason was that the old strongman, Senior General Than Shwe, who had been in supreme power since 1992, was about to retire. He wanted to secure his legacy, not as a despot but as someone who had created a new nation, including, as many rulers elsewhere have done, building a new capital, which he did at Naypyidaw. He was also, insiders say, worried that he and his family might sooner or later face the same fate as that of his predecessors, generals Ne Win and Saw Maung, who ended their lives in disgrace and shame. Therefore, he selected not one but three successors: General Thein Sein, prime minister and Secretary 1 in the junta of the time, the State Peace and Development Council, would be president; General Min Aung Hlaing, not a particularly strong and charismatic officer, would be the military chief and be promoted to Senior General; and General Shwe Mann would become the speaker of the lower house of parliament and later chairman of the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). With power divided among those three, Than Shwe would be safe. Or so he thought. 

Military Miscalculation

The first miscalculation was Shwe Mann, who realized at an early stage which way the wind was blowing. He began co-operating with Aung San Suu Kyi, which led to his downfall. In August 2015, Shwe Mann was removed as head of the USDP and, in April 2016, sacked from the party altogether. Eventually, in 2019, he formed his own political party, the Union Betterment Party, which failed, however, to win a single seat in the November 2020 elections. 

Thein Sein fared much better. He broke Myanmar’s international isolation and became the darling of the West. All that praise overlooked the fact that he did little more than implement policies that had been laid down by the military leadership before the 2010 elections and his subsequent appointment as president. Thein Sein also showed his true colors when, in January 2020, he endorsed the policies of the military, saying that Myanmar faced growing threats to “territory, race and religion” and called on the people to vote for candidates who would “protect the country” in the upcoming November elections. Since last year’s coup, Thein Sein has made donations to families of USDP members who have been killed or wounded on suspicion of acting as military informants. Needless to say, he has not donated any money to the many families whose loved ones have been gunned down by the military and the police for demonstrating peacefully against the coup. 

But what should have been obvious did not prevent, for instance, Marte Nilsen, a researcher at the Norwegian government-funded Peace Research Institute Oslo, from reiterating the myth of a “reform process.” In an article published as recently as Dec. 13, 2021, in the Norwegian magazine Bistandsaktuelt, Nilsen described Thein Sein as head of a “reform government.” It is worth noting that three ministers in the cabinet appointed by the State Administration Council also served in that supposed “reform government” headed by Thein Sein: ex-Colonel Wunna Maung Lwin, then and now foreign minister; ex-Brigadier-General Khin Yi, immigration and population minister then and now; and ex-General Maung Ohn, then deputy home minister and now information minister. In 2007, Khin Yi, then the police chief, led the bloody crackdown on the monks’ movement. Aung Naing Oo, the State Administration Council’s investment and foreign economic relations minister, was not a minister under Thein Sein but served as his foreign investment czar. 

The military accepted the outcome of the 2015 election, but only after Than Shwe had intervened and sent not an army officer but his non-political and popular-music loving grandson, Nay Shwe Thway Aung, better known as Phoe La Pyae, as his personal intermediary. But a second NLD victory was more than the military could accept, and the generals began talking about “voter fraud” while international and domestic poll watchers insisted that the 2020 election was largely free and fair. 

The State Administration Council has promised to hold elections some time in 2023, but even that depends on how and when the military restores control over the country. Few believe that those elections, held under strict military scrutiny, will be anything like free and fair. The armed opposition, on the other hand, may have widespread popular support, but the dozens if not hundreds of People’s Defense Force units lack a common strategy, and their weaponry is no match for the well-equipped Myanmar military. At the same time, the military is stretched thin over too many fronts to defeat the resistance. 

There seems to be no light at the end of this tunnel, no sign of any movement that could break the vicious cycle of popular protests and violent military suppression that has plagued Myanmar since Ne Win’s coup back in 1962. The bottom line is that the military has been in power under different guises since then, they are not going to give up, and nothing is likely to change unless and until there is a split within the military. But that could also lead to an even bloodier civil war, a potentially devastating scenario for which the outside world and all those involved in Myanmar must be prepared. If that does not happen, Myanmar’s decades-long civil wars will most likely continue to bleed the country for years to come, with no real winners or losers.