Reversing Myanmar's internal strife

• Published date: 10 February 2023
• Publication title: Bangkok Post

This month marks two anniversaries of ongoing conflicts in Europe and Southeast Asia, namely 12 months after Russia invaded Ukraine and two years since Myanmar's military seized power by toppling a democratically elected and civilian-led government under Aung San Suu Kyi.

These two conflicts, the external aggression of a bigger state against a smaller next-door neighbour and a forceful domestic takeover by a power-hungry military against its people, are not meant to be compared, but they do have common traits, including the lack of international legitimacy, the use of deadly force, human rights abuses and the overall perpetration of violence intent on conquest and dominance.

Freeing Ukraine from Russian aggression must remain an immediate global goal for sovereignty-respecting countries while getting rid of Myanmar's military dictatorship should be the aim for justice-seeking and self-determination in Southeast Asia.

To be sure, Myanmar's intensifying civil war is rooted in what happened from 2011-21. This transformative decade was characterised by Myanmar's political liberalisation, economic reforms and development progress, with rising expectations among younger demographics in the 55-million predominantly Buddhist nation. It was as if a dark tunnel of dictatorship and despair was shone with the light of a new future, dim at first and brighter with time. Foreign investment poured in, businesses set up shop, embassies were established. By the mid-2010s, Myanmar was seen to be going somewhere.

But progress meant Myanmar's ethnically diverse society was turning its back on a military past. Elections in 2015 and 2020 shifted the tide of power to civilian rule, as Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won repeated landslide victories over the military's Union Solidarity and Development Party. Less than three months after the country's last election in November 2020, Tatmadaw commander-in-chief Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing pulled the plug on Myanmar's promising decade. Enter the military junta, the self-styled State Administration Council (SAC).

But this time, darkness has not led to despair but nationwide resistance. The immediate aftermath of the coup brought out ubiquitous protests in upcountry towns and urban cities under the Civil Disobedience Movement. It coalesced with a committee representing the NLD members of parliament from the November 2020 election, afterwards coming under the National Unity Government (NUG), which later worked in tandem with...