Guest contributor
Igor Blazevic
Myanmar’s neighbours are betting on a false reset. The only viable exit from war is a federal-democratic alliance rooted in civilian rule and Bama-ethnic cooperation.
Let me start with the question: Are we anywhere close to a pathway to peace and federalism in Myanmar?
The simple answer is: no, we are not.
Myanmar is on a trajectory of continued war by the military junta against the resistance and liberation forces – and, importantly, against the civilian population. The military’s war against the resistance is, in practice, primarily a war against civilians.
I intentionally say “military junta” and not “new government in Naypyidaw,” because one is the same as the other. There is nothing new, and it is a serious mistake to pretend there is a difference.
Then comes a second question: does a pathway to federalism and peace exist at all in Myanmar?
Yes, it exists as a possibility and an opportunity. But Myanmar is not moving in that direction now.
Before I explain why, let me add something important. There is no path toward peace in Myanmar that does not pass through federalism. No federalism, no peace. It is as simple as that.
The other side of the coin is this: does the federalist path automatically lead to peace? It can. Myanmar indeed has a historic opportunity in the Bama-ethnic alliance that has emerged as a consequence of the Spring Revolution.
But it is not automatic. Finding a federalist consensus will be a complex process. It will require responsible statesmanship, wisdom, and a readiness to compromise on maximalist aspirations.
Misreading Myanmar and making the wrong policy choices
So why are we nowhere near a pathway to peace at this moment?
The single most important obstacle is Min Aung Hlaing himself. As long as he is treated as an inevitable part of a solution – or even as the cornerstone of a solution – there will be no solution.
The second, more immediate problem is that false narratives and wishful expectations have taken over reality. The policy decisions and diplomatic engagements of Myanmar’s neighbours, regional actors, and, as a consequence, much of the broader international community are now guided by these false narratives and wishful expectations.
This approach is not merely wrong because it wastes time and energy on false solutions. It is directly harmful. It is making a very serious crisis even worse. Wrong narratives, wrong expectations, and wrong policy decisions are fuelling and prolonging the war, deepening the crisis, and pushing the country further toward economic and societal breakdown.
One may ask: what are these wrong narratives?
There are many of them, and they come in many shapes and packages. One day it is the formation of a “new government” and the inauguration of a “new president.” The next day it is the supposed release of President Win Myint and the transfer of Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest.
The next it may be a “100-day peace offer,” or ambitious plans for the renewal of big infrastructure and connectivity projects. Every few days we see a new smoke bomb: a new false narrative, a new false expectation, or new fake breaking news.
All these false narratives and misplaced expectations can be summed up as one self-deceptive package. The first claim is that junta elections have created a new government and opened a new phase, a new cycle, an opportunity for a reset.
The expectation is that this “new government” will somehow be more pragmatic and reasonable.
The second claim is that neighbours, regional countries, and other members of the international community have no alternative but to deal with and engage this self-appointed entity in Naypyidaw as the central government.
The third claim is that the negotiated surrender of Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs) is both to be expected and inevitable – not because they want it, but because a combination of pressure and incentives will make it seem more reasonable and more attractive than the continuation of armed resistance and liberation struggle.
The fourth claim is that domino ceasefires will happen any day now. The fifth is that the crushing defeat or collapse of the Bama resistance is a sad but inevitable fact to happen.
The sixth is that all this, taken together, will lead to gradual de-escalation of the conflict, stabilisation across the country, humanitarian access, the release of political prisoners, and an opening for engagement with “third way” political actors.
Border trade will resume. Resource extraction will become accessible again. China will be able to build bridges, roads, railways, and dams. Others will jump on their business and connectivity opportunities. Thailand will get back its border trade. Migration pressure will abate. Perhaps even refugees and economic migrants will return.
From the point of view of Myanmar’s neighbours, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states, U.N. agencies, investors, traders, international non-governmental organizations, peace funds, mediators, and dialogue facilitators, these all sound like good things. Who would not wish them to happen?
However, the reality is and will be the opposite.
There is no new government and no civilian government. It is the same military cartel, made even more internally cohesive through generational change and the consolidation of Min Aung Hlaing’s personalist dictatorship.
There is no strategic pivot in Naypyidaw, and no readiness for even the slightest compromise. What we have are the same objectives: ruthlessly crush the Bama resistance and punish EROs for “betrayal.”
There will be no 2010-2011 type of top-down transition. What we have instead is new confidence and a hardened position by Min Aung Hlaing and the military. Nor is there any readiness for a 2016-2020 type of negotiated cohabitation.
The aim now is total victory – a final solution, with all that the word “final” connotes.
So there are no prospects for de-escalation and no prospects for peace under the current approach. What is happening, and what will continue to happen, is the junta’s atrocious war of terror against the population.
There will be no humanitarian opening. Humanitarian needs will continue to grow, driven by the ongoing war, bombardments, and scorched-earth operations, and also by external shocks such as droughts, floods, and increases in global fuel and food prices.
The illicit economy – scams, drugs, and trafficking – will continue to grow. The economy will continue to be mismanaged and plundered to sustain the war effort and Min Aung Hlaing’s Napoleonic vanity.
Stability will not return. There will be more destruction, deeper poverty, more refugees, more young people fleeing, fewer children accessing education or having enough food and healthcare to grow, and further fragmentation of territory controlled by different armed groups.
There is an alternative
Myanmar as a society, and its decades-long conflict, are extremely complex. But at the same time, the choice facing the country and the region is strikingly simple.
Myanmar’s neighbours, regional actors, and anyone who cares about the people of the country, regional security, or even business and connectivity opportunities, do have an alternative.
On one side, there is a genuine alliance of ethnic and Bama political actors that offers a solid foundation for a solution. On the other side, Napoleonic Min Aung Hlaing and the current incarnation of military dominance offer nothing that can become the basis for a sustainable solution.
On the side of the Bama-ethnic alliance, there is a broad alliance with nationwide potential. On the side of the regime, there is a narrow, kleptocratic gang.
The Bama-ethnic alliance is supported by the people and feels accountable to the people. It is from the people and for the people, and it can rule through the consent of a diverse population.
On the other side, there is a predatory, Spartan army that sees people as both a threat and a source of extraction. It can rule only through repression and fear.
The Bama-ethnic alliance recognises, accepts, and endorses the diversity of the country, and is committed to federalism.
The military, on the other hand, offers a rigid, military-dominated, centralised state in which only systemic corruption will be decentralised through mafia-type structures: top generals as capi di tutti capi (boss of all bosses), and smaller bosses occupying their own smaller turfs for illegal and legal business.
The Bama-ethnic alliance is committed to accountability and service provision. The military regime will continue to rule as it has ruled so far: through deep systemic corruption, the absence of rule of law, and lawless exploitation of the population and the land.
It is strikingly simple to recognise what can be the basis for a solution to Myanmar’s crisis, and what will only perpetuate all the ills that have held the country back for so long.
The primary question before everyone dealing with Myanmar is which trajectory they are contributing to: the trajectory of illusory authoritarian consolidation, ongoing war, destruction, and possible societal breakdown, or the trajectory that resolutely bets on and invests in the Bama-ethnic alliance, while constraining the capacity of Min Aung Hlaing and the military to wage war.
This is the critical point where the current approach of Myanmar’s neighbours and regional actors is mistaken. They are doing nothing to constrain the war-mongering side. On the contrary, they are enabling it and increasing the resources of the side that aims to crush its opponents at any cost.
At the same time, they are in different ways constraining the capacity of the Bama-ethnic alliance to defend the population, provide governance and services, produce and trade, tap available resources, and obtain and distribute urgently needed aid.
History has shown us many times that wars of aggression and subjugation are not stopped by appeasing and enabling the aggressor, while pressuring and constraining those who are defending themselves.
The beginning of an exit from Myanmar’s deepening crisis will come when neighbours and ASEAN members recognise that a federal, democratic Myanmar is the only alternative to continuing war.
How the new coalition is different from previous alliances
The Bama-ethnic alliance I have described is not abstract. It is a real force. It overcame the initial putschist crackdown on mass non-violent civic protests. It found the courage and determination not to give up. Since then, it has built military capacities, liberated significant territories, and started to build governing structures on those territories.
The Myanmar Spring uprising to the 2021 coup would long ago have been repressed and suppressed, as many other popular uprisings have been suppressed by brutal authoritarian state power in many other countries, if Bama-ethnic cooperation and alliance had not been, and did not still remain, a reality on the ground in many different modalities.
But this Bama-ethnic alliance now also has an institutional form and a gravitational centre in the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union, or SCEF.
Around this gravitational centre is a broader ecosystem that shares the same basic principles and the same common vision for the future of the country. This is the best real existing option for an exit from war and state failure in Myanmar.
One often hears the sceptical question: how is SCEF different from previous alliances – whether the National Unity Government, the “K3C (an alliance of the Karenni National Progressive Party, Karen Nation Union, Kachin Independence Organization and Chin National Front), or the Brotherhood Alliance (the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army)?
The answer should start by stressing that SCEF was not intended to be something completely new. It is a continuation of the collaborative struggle against military dictatorship since the coup, repressive and predatory rule, and forced and discriminatory centralisation.
The SCEF is continued cooperation in a common struggle, taken to the next level.
Its formation is taking place in a specific context. Myanmar’s neighbours and regional actors have increasingly begun to side with the military regime, seeking to impose bilateral ceasefire deals on revolutionary and liberation actors while effectively endorsing continued military domination over the people of Myanmar — a future the people of Myanmar have stubbornly rejected, and still reject.
The formation of SCEF is therefore a resolute political act rejecting any “solution” that is not based on federalism, the democratic will of the people, and civilian rule. It is a determined and united rejection of domestic and external pressures on revolutionary forces to accept a “solution” through bilateral ceasefire deals.
It requires confidence, political courage, and a sense of historic responsibility to take a firm stand before powerful neighbours and say: we are ready to negotiate, but together, and on the basis of principles we all agree upon. We are not ready to fall once again under military dominance, one by one, through your “ceasefire” deals.
There are also several truly new aspects of SCEF.
SCEF brings to the already existing Bama-ethnic alliance an important degree of institutionalisation and power-sharing that was not there before.
To understand why this is important and necessary, one must understand the tectonic change that has taken place in Myanmar over the last five years, since the 2021 coup.
After five years of heroic and determined liberation struggle, there is now a new political geography in Myanmar. What has happened is the political birth of ethnic nation-states – some, not all.
These proto-nation-states are still unfinished projects. Much still needs to be achieved and developed. But they are a new and irreversible political reality.
There is only one way this new reality can be reversed: a Sri Lankan-type defeat of the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), through genocide and mass-scale atrocities.
In the case of Myanmar, however, the central authority in Naypyidaw would need to repeat this criminal, genocidal feat multiple times – against Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Ta’ang, Karenni, Karen, and others.
And since Myanmar is not an island, but a country surrounded by crossable borders, Bangladesh would not be the only country forced to receive hundreds of thousands of desperate fleeing civilians. So this is not what the neighbours will allow to happen. That is why I say, it is irreversible change.
With this new political geography, the initial structures of Spring Revolution political leadership – the NUG, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), and the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) – have ceased to be able to accommodate the new political reality on their own.
SCEF, as an emerging federal, authentically power-sharing governing structure, has a realistic chance to accommodate this new political reality and institutionalise mutual cooperation.
It can transform cooperation from something ad hoc and transactional into a daily decision-making and operational routine.
The Spring Revolution and liberation struggle cannot claim only control, legitimacy, and governance over liberated territories and nascent ethnic proto-states. It must of course do that, and it must carry responsibility for liberated territories.
But at the same time, it must also claim to represent the centre and the whole state of Myanmar. The centre and the Union cannot be left to be captured by the military regime and Min Aung Hlaing, and then used, with the full power of the internationally recognised state, against liberated territories and emerging ethnic nation-states.
The NUG and CRPH alone are no longer enough to credibly claim legitimacy over the centre and over Myanmar as a whole.
That is why it was necessary to form SCEF as an institutionalised, power-sharing, federalised structure with the full legitimacy of being from the people and for the people.
Two predictions and two recommendations
Let me conclude with two predictions, mainly addressed to diplomats and international actors, and two recommendations meant primarily for Myanmar revolutionary stakeholders.
The first prediction is this: the wrong choices of Myanmar’s neighbours are prolonging the war and deepening the crisis in Myanmar.
The second prediction is that the current bet on a three-step exit from the post-coup crisis will fail.
That three-step bet is to normalise Min Aung Hlaing and military authoritarian control over Bama proper; pressure and incentivise EROs into soft negotiated surrender; and allow the defeat and pacification of the Bama resistance as the supposedly unavoidable price for future peace and stability. This will fail.
My first recommendation to Myanmar friends is this: do not abandon the Bama-ethnic federal-democratic alliance. Believe in it. Invest in it. Build it. If this alliance is broken, the clock will start ticking toward the rise of true revanchist military-Bamar-Buddhist Nazism.
That will be a monster against which none of the liberated ethnic territories will be able to defend itself alone.
My second recommendation is to be careful with the ethno-centric principle. Some federal units in a future Myanmar can and should be ethnic nation-states. But Myanmar as a whole cannot be constructed exclusively on an ethno-centric principle. The country is too diverse and its population too mixed for that.
A future Myanmar will need a compromise hybrid federal model, merging ethno-centric federal units and territorial federal units. It will need to carefully balance four critically important principles.
The first one, it must satisfy demands for collective self-rule.
Second, it must not constrain the democratic majority too much.
Third, it must have strong laws and institutions that protect individual and minority rights, because in every part of Myanmar there will always be someone who can be discriminated against as an individual or as a member of a minority group, and every ethnic group in Myanmar will have some of its kin living in territories where another group is the majority.
And last but not the least, it must make sure that decisions can be made and implemented. It must avoid constant paralysis of decision-making at the national, Union level. In today’s unstable and dangerous world, and in today’s disruptive global economy, Myanmar will need a functional central state able to make and implement decisions
Igor Blazevic is a lecturer at the Educational Initiatives Myanmar and Senior Advisor at the Prague Civil Society Centre.
DVB publishes a diversity of opinions that do not reflect DVB’s editorial policy. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our stories: [email protected]
