The Opinion Pages  | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR 

In Myanmar, a Soft Coup Ahead of an Election

By MIN ZINSEPT. 11, 2015

Campaigning formally started on Tuesday for Myanmar’s first general election since the end of direct military rule, but don’t be fooled by the display of colorful logos and slogans from various political parties: The army is back in force.

Military apparatchiks in the nominally democratic government have refused to amend the Constitution to allow the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to run for the presidency. Last month, Thura Shwe Mann — a rival of President Thein Sein, a high-ranking general in the previous military government — was forcibly removed from his position as chairman of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (U.S.D.P.).

The purge was more than standard internecine strife; it was an internal coup by the president and his traditional backers, mostly among the military. It was also a sign that with an election just weeks away, the army is eager to reassert control over Myanmar’s political process, and remind all contenders for power that it will allow liberalization only so long as reform ushers in what top generals have called a “discipline-flourishing democracy.”

The rivalry between Mr. Thein Sein and Mr. Shwe Mann, also a senior general in the former junta, is long-standing.

Thura Shwe Mann, speaker of the lower house of Parliament
Photo: Khin Maung Win, AP

But lately Mr. Shwe Mann had proved too good at leveraging his position as speaker of the lower house of Parliament to cater to the clientelistic interests of some legislators, offering them higher salaries and pork-barrel spending. He had also been building bridges with the opposition and had dared to challenge the military directly.

Some weeks ago, the army chief wrote a three-page letter to Mr. Shwe Mann detailing his missteps: among other things, supporting Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s call for a high-level political dialogue, and backing a bill proposing to lift the army’s veto authority over constitutional reform. In late July, the army circulated a petition to impeach him.

When last month Mr. Shwe Mann and other U.S.D.P. leaders rejected more than half of the retired senior officers the army had preselected as candidates to put on the party’s ticket for the November election, the generals had had enough. Late at night on Aug. 12, the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is directly controlled by the military, sent some 400 police officers to surround U.S.D.P. headquarters and obtain Mr. Shwe Mann’s demotion.

That show of force smacked of the strong-arm tactics favored by the old junta. Thura Aung Ko, an ally of Mr. Shwe Mann who was also recently sacked from a senior position at the U.S.D.P., told the media that Than Shwe, the general who led Myanmar from 1992 to 2011, probably had played a role in the purge. Party insiders I have spoken to over the past few weeks said the same thing.

U Htay Oo, who now chairs the U.S.D.P. along with Mr. Thein Sein, told me that Mr. Than Shwe regards the party — whose predecessor he founded two decades ago — as his brainchild, and that he had planned for it and the army to jointly run Myanmar for several decades after the country’s ostensible move toward democracy in 2010. Mr. Shwe Mann’s rising influence seems to have forced Mr. Than Shwe’s hand, convincing him that the military needed to step in to save his vision of the U.S.D.P.

Mr. Shwe Mann has remained speaker since being deposed as party leader. (There are rules about how to strip him of that post, and the army apparently is bashful enough not to bypass them.) He has been keeping a low profile. Yet to the dismay of the military and the party’s new leaders, Parliament voted to suspend discussion of a bill proposing his impeachment: Mr. Shwe Mann’s power may have been undercut, but he does not stand alone. Distrust between the army and civilian politicians has continued to grow in the meantime, as the military has resumed pushing for more senior officers to be included on the U.S.D.P.’s ticket.

When the people of Myanmar vote on Nov. 8, they will be electing representatives for 75 percent of the seats in Parliament; under the Constitution the other 25 percent are reserved for the army. All legislators will then elect the president by a simple majority from among three vice presidential candidates: two nominated by each house of Parliament, the third designated by the military.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi cannot be a candidate for the presidency, but her party, the National League for Democracy, is nonetheless expected to do well in the popular vote — and perhaps well enough to have some clout in choosing the next president. Except that, of course, with the military’s one-quarter quota of the seats in Parliament, the system is inherently stacked against the opposition.

To win the presidency, the candidate backed by the N.L.D. and its allies would need to secure a supermajority among the nonmilitary members of Parliament. Yet a candidate from the U.S.D.P. who was endorsed by the army, being assured the votes of military representatives, could become president even if the party lost the popular vote.

Mr. Thein Sein’s putsch against Mr. Shwe Mann put a dent in the legitimacy of the government — which is now redoubling efforts to secure a major cease-fire agreement with ethnic armed groups so it can claim to have ended Myanmar’s long-running civil war. But by sidelining a leading figure of the U.S.D.P. whom Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had called an ally, the president managed to undermine two rivals at once while consolidating his ties with the military. The army, for its part, is once again manipulating Myanmar’s political scene to ensure that it remains in charge, election or not.

Min Zin is a contributor to Foreign Policy’s blog Democracy Lab, and serves as a Myanmar expert for think tanks and NGOs like Freedom House.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 12, 2015, in The International New York Times. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Is Burma’s Opposition Ready for the Post-Aung San Suu Kyi Era?

• BY MIN ZIN
• AUGUST 18, 2015 - 5:40 PM

Burma has a national election coming up in a few months, and its outcome is uncertain. But one thing is already clear: Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the immensely popular leader of the democratic opposition, won’t be a candidate for president. That’s because the country’s military-dominated political establishment has refused to countenance any changes to the current constitution, which includes strictures that prevent her from becoming head of state.

And that, in turn, means that the opposition movement already has to start addressing an impending leadership vacuum. The problem has been compounded by Aung San Suu Kyi’s refusal to cultivate a successor. The election, scheduled for Nov. 8, would seem to offer an ideal opportunity for cultivating a new generation of political activists and pro-democracy politicians — not least because Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), currently doesn’t even have enough qualified candidates to contest every constituency that’s up for grabs. Yet when she recently had a chance to bring some fresh blood into her party’s electoral list, the Lady (as her admirers call her) demurred.

The general public, as well as a majority of the members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, are keen to see her seek unity with the largest and most respected pro-democracy group outside the NLD — namely the 88 Generation, made up of the leaders of the 1988 student-led uprising that transformed Burmese politics. (Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of activists were killed in the crackdown by the ruling military junta at the time.) The NLD’s Central Executive Committee had urged including leading members of the 88 Generation on the party’s electoral list. Yet the Lady recently shocked many of her supporters by rejecting the applications of more than 20 candidates (the precise number is unclear). She accepted only one.

The 88 Generation and Aung San Suu Kyi are old allies in the fight against dictatorship. The student revolt gave Aung San Suu Kyi her first opportunity to present herself as a national political leader. The NLD even adopted the student union’s symbolic fighting peacock as its own symbol. For more than a quarter-century, the members of the 88 Generation have supported Aung San Suu Kyi with unyielding faith. Its members endured harsh consequences for their loyalty, including long stints in prison. This year the group even stood by the Lady during her fruitless campaign to pressure the military into allowing constitutional amendments that would enable her to run for the presidency.

The NLD leaders’ rejection of the new recruits thus came as a particular shock. Observers were particularly caught off guard by Aung San Suu Kyi’s refusal to accept Ko Ko Gyi, a top leader of the group who spent over 17 years in prison for his political activities and who is widely regarded as a rising political star.

The Lady’s decision prompted unprecedented complaints and street protests by NLD activists across the country, who claimed that her ruling flouted party procedure. Hundreds of local NLD officials have either resigned or been expelled by the party as “punishment” for their refusal to go along.

Inside sources in both the NLD and the 88 Generation told me that the decision to turn down the new arrivals was Aung San Suu Kyi’s own. “She was afraid to recruit politically influential figures because she does not want any rivals for the throne of the party or the country,” said one former high-ranking party official. Key members of the 88 Generation told me that Aung San Suu Kyi said she was worried that accepting the newcomers might stimulate factional conflict within the party.

The paradox is painful. The woman who once articulated a powerful philosophy of “freedom from fear” now seems to have succumbed to it.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s rejection of the 88 Generation is not an isolated case. The party’s relations with other political allies are also strained. The NLD recently decided to contest almost every constituency in the states dominated by ethnic minority groups, which are usually represented by their own political parties — parties that are also natural friends of the NLD because of their opposition to the authoritarian policies of the central government. The NLD declined to negotiate with the ethnic minority parties about candidates and voting districts, deciding instead to treat the local political groups as outright electoral competitors. One of the most respected ethnic minority leaders, who once headed a body that brought together representatives of the NLD and the ethnic minority parties, has accused Aung San Suu Kyi and her party of “lying” to the ethnic minority political parties about their election plans.

The NLD also has poor relations with civil society groups, which used to be staunch supporters of the party. These groups accuse the party of disregarding democratic principles, above all its reluctance to denounce harsh government crackdowns on public protests, particularly the recent student demonstrations for an education reform bill. In June, NLD officials sought the help of civil society groups in checking for flaws in voter registration lists. Only a dozen groups, a small fraction of the total, agreed to cooperate with the NLD. Since then, though, even this limited collaboration has fallen apart.

So why has the Lady chosen to burn her bridges like this? There are two possible answers.

First, she believes that she can still lead the NLD to a landslide election triumph. She is firmly convinced that she can rely on her personal standing to carry her to victory. She has urged the crowds who greet her at rallies to “vote for the party, not the name of the candidate,” according to Radio Free Asia. Observers believe it is highly likely that the NLD will win the popular vote and control of the lower house of parliament, but that still won’t give it control of the government or the presidency, given the constraints placed upon Burma’s political system by the current constitution, which was drawn up under the old military regime.

Second, Aung San Suu Kyi has apparently been banking on her recent political friendship with Shwe Mann, the speaker of parliament, to help her forge a post-election coalition. Some NLD insiders had suggested that Aung San Suu Kyi might endorse Shwe Mann — himself a former general with ties reaching deep into the political establishment — as a presidential candidate, rather than someone from her own party. Her hope, apparently, was that, once in power, Shwe Mann would push through the reforms that would enable her to run for president later on. This strategy would help to explain her rather cavalier attitude toward so many of her longtime allies.

The generals, however, have now thwarted this plan. On Aug. 12, in what some have described as a miniature “coup,” the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) purged Shwe Mann from his post as the head of the party (thus effectively robbing him of his power base in parliament). His fate now appears precarious, and his alliance with Aung San Suu Kyi has become a liability. (Reuters reported that Shwe Mann was removed from the USDP thanks to his “ties to rival party leaders,” citing the president’s spokesman.) The political demise of Shwe Mann now dramatically narrows Aung San Suu Kyi’s options in post-election horse-trading. The loss of her ally from the ruling elite may well mean the end of her last chance to achieve the presidency.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s strategic blunder on alliance politics has not only created a leadership vacuum within her party. It is also likely to prompt a split within the main opposition party once the elections are over. Her authoritarian leadership style, her failure to build up proper party institutions, and the likely inflow of opportunists after an election victory will all contribute to a more fragmented party in the future.

Unless the second-tier leaders of the overall opposition movement begin serious preparations for the post-Aung San Suu Kyi era, the movement will face serious problems. Even if the NLD wins the most votes in the November election, Burma will still have a long way to go before it achieves anything remotely resembling a democracy. But the country might get there a little bit faster if the new generation of opposition leaders can find a way to unify the pro-democracy movement once again.

The photo above shows Aung San Suu Kyi registering as an election candidate at a district court in Rangoon.
Photo credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images

Corrections, Aug. 19, 2015: Aung San Suu Kyi told supporters to “vote for the party, not the name of the candidate,” according to Radio Free Asia. An earlier version of this article mistakenly quoted her as saying, “vote for the party, without taking into consideration the ‘stature’ of those selected to contest the election, and not even giving a look at the name of the candidate.” The words “without taking into consideration the ‘stature’ of those selected to contest the election” were written by an Irrawaddyreporter when paraphrasing Aung San Suu Kyi’s remarks. Burma’s ruling party is the Union Solidarity and Development Party. An earlier version of this article mistakenly called it the Union Social Development Party. Based on an interview with the president’s spokesman, Reuters reported that Shwe Mann was removed from the USDP thanks to his “ties to rival party leaders.” An earlier version of this article mistakenly attributed the quote “ties to rival party leaders” directly to the spokesman.

Why There’s Less to Burma’s Peace Process Than Meets the Eye

Why There’s Less to Burma’s Peace Process Than Meets the Eye

• BY MIN ZIN
• MAY 26, 2015

If you’ve been following the news from Burma over the past two months, you’ll have probably heard encouraging talk of a looming end to the country’s decades-old civil war. According to the headlines, negotiators from the government and ethnic rebel groups have been closing in on the holy grail of a Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA), which aims to halt 60 years of ethnic conflict. Lately, though, it’s become painfully apparent that there’s a bit less to the whole story than meets the eye.

In a meeting last week, President Thein Sein urged the leaders of Burma’s political parties to work with him on launching an inclusive national dialogue aimed at creating a lasting basis for peace. The dialogue, which will include representatives from a wide variety of groups and institutions, is supposed to take a place before the general election later this year. The president described the dialogue process as a crucial precondition to reforming the constitution and establishing a federal state. According to the government’s peace roadmap, the conflict parties are supposed to draft a framework for political dialogue within 60 days of official signing of the ceasefire. The dialogue process is supposed to start within another 30 days after that.

The president is clearly eager to achieve a ceasefire agreement — a goal that has consumed enormous amounts of his administration’s energy over the past four years — as soon as possible. It’s important to remember that, even though the point of the NCA is to stop the various sides from killing each other, it’s not supposed to be a comprehensive peace agreement. Even so, reaching a ceasefire would be a major accomplishment for the Burmese president, and it’s clear that he doesn’t have much time in which to make it happen. By early 2016, he’s almost certain to have left office (since there’s little indication that he’s planning to run for a second term), and he’s eager to conclude the NCA and launch the dialogue while he’s still in power.

Yet his strategy raises questions. First of all, is it really feasible to reach the ceasefire agreement before the election? The answer is a qualified “yes,” since an NCA signed in haste will almost necessarily be fragile and incomplete. Second, will the ceasefire agreement necessarily lead to a political dialogue prior to the elections, thus promoting the broader peace-building process? Here the answer is almost certainly “no.”

Several of the major armed groups and the government reached a preliminary agreement on a draft text for the NCA on March 31, but the deal has yet to be signed. (The photo above shows President Thein Sein presiding over the March 31 negotiation.) Delegates of the rebel groups that agreed to the draft, and who have said that they would submit the text to a gathering of the ethnic leaders for final approval in early June, are now saying that they want to amend key sections.

While the United Nationalities Federal Council, an alliance of ethnic groups, has been insisting that all armed groups should be included in the NCA, the military has refused to deal with one of the alliance’s members. That exception is the MNDAA, the political organization of the Kokang, who are currently locked in intense combat with the Burmese military in their remote northeastern territory along the border with China. Even though the alliance keeps insisting on an inclusive deal, I suspect that the government can eventually manage to persuade most of the ethnic armed groups to sign the NCA, thus putting the Kokang issue aside temporarily.

And this could lead to a rather ironic situation – namely that the ceasefire might end up being signed at a moment when more people are fighting and dying in Burma’s internal wars than at any other time in recent memory. In the northeast part of the country, the Burmese military is continuing its fight with the Kachin and the Kokang and their allies; in the west, government forces are still clashing with the Arakan ethnic rebels. The Burmese military has a long history of using “divide and rule” tactics against its ethnic rebel enemies; given the current situation, one is tempted to suspect that this is one area where little has changed.

And what about the groups that do sign up for the deal? Here, too, there are a whole series of problems that have to be addressed.

Signing on to the NCA is just the first step in a long and complicated process. Ensuring that the signatories live up to their commitments under the ceasefire is going to be a challenge. Based on past practice in other conflicts, a full-fledged ceasefire agreement should commit each conflict party to establish a military code of conduct dictating how their troops should behave, as well as an independent ceasefire monitoring mechanism to enforce the code. In Burma, though, the parties have not made any corresponding agreements, so there is no real mechanism to prevent backsliding.

Establishing a political dialogue will also require plenty of complicated negotiations. First the various parties have to agree on a group of “inclusive representatives” who will draw up the framework of the dialogue. Then the parties have to figure out who will actually take part in the process.

Another major obstacle on the path to a lasting peace is the Burmese military’s declared “six-point principles.” Its most controversial demand is that the ethnic armed groups must adhere to the 2008 constitution written by the military junta that then ruled the country. The constitution maintains a leading political role for the military, including an effective veto over future amendments. The ethnic groups worry that accepting the constitution could limit their room for maneuver in future negotiation with the government. An insightful report recently published by the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute neatly captured the sentiment among the ethnic groups when it noted that “acceptance of the present political system could mean envelopment in a constitutional straitjacket that will make meaningful dialogue impossible.”

At some point the peace process also has to address even more fundamental questions arising from the need to reform Burma’s political institutions. How should a new federal structure allow the regions to share power with the center? What about policies for disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating rebel fighters, as well as for reforming the Burmese military itself? And what can be done to end the broad range of highly destructive economic habits that have emerged during the long years of civil war, such as illegal resource extraction, land grabbing, and a rampant drug trade?

Finally, all the parties involved in the ceasefire also have to figure out how to reconcile the dialogue process with the possibility of a change in the government as a result of the election. (The precise date of the vote has yet to be determined, but right now a date in November looks most likely.) Sources close to the government have told me that the ethnic groups should seize the opportunity to sign the ceasefire agreement and enter the political dialogue before the vote. The implication is that the ethnic groups should seize what’s on offer while they can, since the next government could prove either unpredictable or more hardline. Ashley South, a consultant who has advised some of the ethnic groups, warns that a future government may not prioritize the peace process the same way that the current one does: “Indeed, a future government (especially if led by the [democratic opposition]) is likely to press the ‘reset button’ on political negotiations,” he noted.

Despite all these difficulties, though, it’s important to point out that at least one thing has changed for the better. President Thein Sein and his team deserve credit for creating a culture of dialogue where, until recently, only the principle of confrontation reigned. Today both the Burmese military and the major ethnic rebel groups are constantly being nudged back to the negotiating table by the president and his peace team even as bloody battles continue. The long-standing enemies are still talking. This is to be welcomed — even if the bar seems low to some critics.

So yes, talking is better than shooting. But those involved in the peace process still have plenty of work ahead of them if they want to prevent a return to war.

STR/AFP/Getty Images

The Real Problem With Myanmar

The Opinion Pages  | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR 

The Real Problem With Myanmar

By MIN ZIN, MAY 15, 2015

YANGON, Myanmar — The next general election, scheduled for late this year, is not shaping up to be the benchmark of democratic consolidation that many Myanmar observers had hoped. The government, which is still largely controlled by senior military officers, has failed to strike a power-sharing agreement with either the mainstream opposition or ethnic armed resistance groups. Not only does this endanger the legitimacy of the election, it also exposes a dangerous leadership vacuum within both the government and the opposition.


In 2011, the junta that had ruled the country for over two decades undertook vast reforms. The 2008 military-drafted Constitution remained, and the new president, Thein Sein, was a high-ranking general. But the new government formally became civilian, and the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to participate in politics again: Her National League for Democracy (N.L.D.) ran in the April 2012 by-elections. Though that helped legitimize the new government, it also gave the opposition a place in Parliament, and it suggested that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi would eventually be permitted to run for president.

Today, that tacit understanding looks like it was a form of cooptation. Since the defeat of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (U.S.D.P.) at the 2012 polls — the N.L.D. won 43 of the 44 seats it contested — both the Thein Sein administration and the military have been anxious not to lose any more ground.

Notably, the government has been resisting calls to amend the 2008 Constitution. One controversial clause bars any citizen of Myanmar with a foreign spouse or foreign children, like Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, from running for president. Another set of provisions limits the rights of ethnic minorities. There has been little progress on changing those clauses partly because of various divisions within the establishment: both between military hard-liners and self-styled democratic reformists, and among the reformists.

For a time, the Thein Sein administration seemed to be pushing hard to conclude a nationwide cease-fire accord with armed ethnic groups, which have waged war against the central government for over six decades, demanding equal rights and a federal union. A successful deal would perk up the ruling party ahead of the election. Failing that, the effort itself might earn the government some credit, while deflating the opposition’s calls for extensive reform.

Some major ethnic armed groups and the government agreed on a draft text on March 31, but the deal has yet to be signed. While the United Nationalities Federal Council, an alliance of ethnic groups, has been insisting that all armed groups should be involved, the military has refused to deal with the Kokang, whose insurgents have been fighting it especially hard.

Yet even as the military scuttled the Thein Sein administration’s efforts on the cease-fire accord, its representatives in Parliament urgently endorsed a motion to pass new laws guaranteeing “power-sharing, resource-sharing and tax-sharing” rights for ethnic minority states and self-administered areas. This was a gambit by the generals to win over the ethnic political parties in Parliament, as well as score points for getting something done when the government is stumbling.

The so-called reformists are also divided. The House speaker, Thura Shwe Mann — the third most-powerful general in the junta, who had expected to become president in 2011 — has mobilized Parliament to pressure Thein Sein into holding multiparty talks on constitutional reform; this, in order both to assert himself and make an overture to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. A meeting was held last month — with Thein Sein, Thura Shwe Mann, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the army chief, among others — but no substantive progress was made, only underscoring the various splits within the establishment.

Even if an elite consensus could be struck, it would be exceedingly difficult to modify the Constitution in time for the election, at least if it is to be held in November, as currently planned. Amending the text’s most significant provisions, including those on the eligibility of presidential candidates, requires both over a 75 percent majority in Parliament and a simple majority in a national referendum.

That is a very high bar to pass at any time, but it would be a logistical nightmare to organize a national plebiscite during the monsoon season, when even the main roads in Myanmar’s major cities get flooded. And since the Constitution allots 25 percent of the seats in Parliament to the military, the generals in effect have veto power over any constitutional reform. The army chief has said that the Constitution, which grants the military vast prerogatives, should not be amended so long as it guarantees the country’s stability.

Sources close to the military have told me that they think the Constitution will not be amended before the election, and that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi stands virtually no chance of running for the presidency this time. Yet it is still unclear who else the N.L.D. may field as its presidential candidate: Thanks partly to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s secretive, personality-driven style, there are no designated second-line leaders within the party.

Still, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has a decisive role to play in the election. Even if she does not run for president, the N.L.D. is expected to win a majority in Parliament, meaning that she could become House speaker, a powerful position with control over the legislature’s agenda and procedures. And because of infighting on the establishment side, she may wind up being the election’s kingmaker.

Under Myanmar’s nominally parliamentary system, the president is not directly elected by the people, but through a complicated parliamentary procedure: After the popular vote, incoming members of Parliament elect the president by a simple majority from among three vice-presidential candidates, two of them nominated by each of the houses of Parliament, and the third by military representatives.

Since the ruling U.S.D.P. is unlikely to win a majority in either house, both Thein Sein and Thura Shwe Mann would need the military’s endorsement to become president. But Thein Sein, once the protégé of the former dictator Than Shwe, has been falling out of favor: The generals think he kowtows to the West and is too soft on ethnic armed groups. And they are wary of Thura Shwe Mann, whom they suspect of seeking rapprochement with the opposition.

Some N.L.D. insiders have indeed suggested that Ms. Aung Sang Suu Kyi might endorse Thura Shwe Mann for president over someone from her own party. They say she may be hoping that once in power Thura Shwe Mann would then push through the reforms needed to eventually make her eligible for the presidency — a questionable proposition, and reminiscent of her tacit understanding with Thein Sein, which is the main cause of the current deadlock.

All this uncertainty might seem like good reason to postpone the election: Better that than risk seeing the military refuse to honor the results or a full-on confrontation over reform. But a delay is also an unattractive option for the generals, as it would hurt their standing, especially internationally.

This quandary only goes to show that it isn’t the next election that should be considered a measure of Myanmar’s progress toward democratization. Rather, the real test is whether the country’s political elites can finally come to a viable power-sharing agreement. Short of such a deal, leadership vacuums on all sides will threaten the country’s stability even if the election takes place.

Min Zin is a contributor to Foreign Policy’s blog Democracy Lab, and serves as a Myanmar expert for think tanks and NGOs like Freedom House.

Burma Takes a Big Step Backwards

• BY MIN ZIN
• MARCH 12, 2015

Earlier this week, the Burmese authorities staged a violent crackdown on unarmed student protesters and their supporters, arresting at least 127 and seriously injuring dozens of others. The latest violence took place after a weeklong standoff between students and police in the town of Letpadan, 90 miles north of Rangoon, Burma’s largest city. It was the second such incident within the space of just a few days. On March 5, pro-government plainclothes thugs charged protesters in Rangoon itself. Burmese civil society groups and international watchdogs are decrying the violence. The U.S. State Department has also condemned the crackdown.

Since January, thousands of students, including high schoolers, have been marching — in some cases for hundreds of miles — from major provincial cities to Rangoon. They’re doing so as part of a protest against Burma’s new national education law, which they believe is explicitly designed to curb academic freedom. After a series of talks with student representatives, the government agreed to amend the controversial law, and a special parliamentary committee is now debating the proposed changes. But the students pulled out of the discussions last week in response to a police blockade of their main protest group in Letpadan. Then the government attacked. In a country where students have played a crucial role in advancing political change — from the independence movement in the early twentieth century to the democracy movement of the late 1980s — the latest brutal crackdown does not bode well for Burma’s political transition.

In the past, the regime has successfully combined harsh violent reactions to dissent with political ploys to weaken the opposition, confuse the public, and defuse international pressure. Perhaps the regime is now studying this page of their old playbook and considering whether to apply it again. If it does, we can expect several rounds of talks between President Thein Sein (or Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing) and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Though such talks are not likely to facilitate a political breakthrough, they could eclipse the headlines of students being beaten and jailed.

Nonetheless, if previous patterns are any indication, Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), will probably swallow the bait again and seize the opportunity to downplay the student movement while advancing her political agenda. “The NLD never supports the use of violence,” she said when asked to comment on the latest violence. “There is nothing special we have to say. The rule of law is for everyone.” Later the NLD joined the general chorus of condemnation, stating that the government’s harsh action against the protestors was “not appropriate in a civilized society.” In fact, both the government and the Suu Kyi-led mainstream opposition view the student protests as an unwelcome challenge.

For the government, the student reform campaign is a conspiracy by radical veteran communists seeking to unseat the regime through confrontation. Late last month, the Ministry of Education circulated a confidential memo among senior university administrators alleging that the education bill the student protesters propose is nothing more than a communist attempt to overthrow “the current democratic system of governance.” For her part, Suu Kyi views the protests as a distraction from her own focus on changing the current military-authored constitution, which contains a number of provisions specifically aimed at preventing her from becoming president. Only by getting rid of these provisions can she hope to be elected to the country’s highest office. In recent speeches and interviews, the Lady has cautioned the students against exerting pressure on parliament about the education bill, while urging the public not to lose sight of the priority of constitutional reform.

It is true that some student leaders hold increasingly strong views and employ increasingly radical tactics. But this is because they have noted the obstructionism, the broken promises, and the delaying tactics of the government since it tabled the education bill early last year. It is true that some veteran activists, who the government alleges are communists, aim to exploit the students for broader purposes (such as regime change). Nonetheless, most student activists remain focused on the goal of educational reform. More importantly, the conspiracy theories fail to address the people’s genuine grievances or offer any viable solutions.

It’s also true that the protests have become a distraction, at least temporarily, from much-needed constitutional reform. But this has far less to do with the students’ demands than with the government’s brutal crackdown and the opposition’s conspicuous inaction. The student movement has gained momentum because the mainstream opposition (above all the NLD) has failed to speak up about injustices ranging from land grabs to ethnic conflict, labor unrest, and, of course, educational reform. It is also possible that the opposition feels intimidated because the student protests mark the first national grassroots movement in 25 years which stands outside its purview.

“The students are the winners” has now become a major slogan on Burmese social media. But the reality is rather more complicated. Ironically, the first winner will probably be Aung San Suu Kyi and her party. Because this latest crackdown calls to mind the military’s past brutalities, people are more likely to cast protest votes against the military-backed ruling party in the next general elections scheduled for later this year. This will give an added boost to the NLD, which already enjoys strong public support.

If more urban protests ensue, however, and if instability intensifies as a result of the military’s latest campaigns against rebellious ethnic regions, the generals could step in to declare a state of emergency and postpone the general elections. The constitution allows the armed forces to sideline parliament and rule the country directly when a state of emergency is declared. The recent military takeovers in Egypt and Thailand are attractive models to Burma’s generals. After the Thai coup, Burmese army chief Min Aung Hlaing visited Bangkok as the first leader from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to meet with the military junta. The Burmese general made a point of praising his Thai counterparts for “doing the right thing.”

Senior Burmese officials have told me in private that there are regular high-level exchanges between two armies. Burmese generals are keen to learn how the Thais managed to pacify their notoriously fractious country, while the Thai army admires Burmese constitution that enshrines the army’s leading role in politics. The officials I interviewed last November told me that senior Burmese officers have also been carefully studying the situation in Egypt with interest as well. One thing’s for sure: In this case, the army will be the real winner.

It’s highly unlikely that the victims of this week’s violence will ever see the perpetrators — above all the minister of internal affairs — brought to account. As usual, the government will set up investigative commissions run by its own officials, but there will be little in the way of substantive follow-up. Senior spokesmen have repeatedly asserted that what happened in Rangoon and in Letpadan was in accordance with the law. Though the government has now released 17 of the detained students, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced that any unlawful activity or “attempts to destabilize the country” will be charged and punished. Failing effective disciplinary action by the executive branch of government, it will be left up to parliament, which was quick to unanimously condemn the United States for sanctioning a notorious regime figure, to demand an accounting. Will its members live up to their responsibilities? Will the country’s unreformed judiciary allow attempts by victims to sue their abusers? The answers to these questions will show whether Burma’s embattled political transition has any life left in it at all.

Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images