Myanmar after the Coup - Transcript

 | 00:00:02 Speaker 1 | This is the Nordic Asia podcast. Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. My name is Kenneth Bo Nielsen , I'm an associate professor of anthropology at Oslo and also the coordinator of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies. The theme we will be debating in this podcast is Myanmar after the coup. I'm joined by Kristian Stokke, professor at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography in Oslo, and Marte Nilsen, senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo PRIO. Both Kristian and Markt were part of a recent webinar on the same theme organised by our network. And I'd like to thank you both for being here today to continue this conversation. As our listeners will know, on the 1st of February, Myanmar's military seized power after detaining the country's civilian leadership. The coup was staged on the day parliament was scheduled to hold its first session since the November elections, in which the National League for Democracy, the NLD, won a large majority of the body's available seats. The military and its political allies have since the election raised allegations of fraud but have not been backed by the election commission. Citing the 2008 constitution, the military has now declared a yearlong state of emergency and says it will hold a free and fair election once the state of emergency is over. The coup has reversed the limited political reforms that the military itself installed in 2011 to create a so-called disciplined democracy. However, the military seems unable to control or hold back the democratic revolution of Myanmar that has taken place in the same period. Resistance against this coup has been extensive and the past weeks have seen tens of thousands of people taking to the streets daily to protest the coup in demonstrations not seen since the Saffron Revolution of 2007. The response by the military has been one of repression and violence. Indeed, as we record this podcast, we have just received news that upwards of 40 protesters were killed in Myanmar yesterday as the 14th of March. 
 | 00:02:36 Speaker 2 | So a new record death toll. In this podcast, we discuss the events leading to the coup in Myanmar and its implications. What does the military intend to achieve during the state of emergency? And what will the coup and the widespread civil resistance mean for Myanmar's democratic future? Questions. OK, let's begin with the context, please explain to us what happened on the 1st of February and perhaps more importantly, why it happened. Thank you. And as you said, to justify the takeover, the military claimed that there was a national emergency situation that required a coup to restore stability and democracy. So they argue that it is within the Constitution for the purpose of democracy. This claim is dismissed by almost everyone and the general agreement that this and an unconstitutional military coup. And then the question is, how can we explain this? Some observers emphasize internal factors within the military mean online personal ambitions and the appointment of his successor as chief commander. But more broadly, the coup is most likely about civil military relations. Since the political opening in 2011, the opening was designed and implemented by the military from a position of strength. It was not a negotiated transition to democracy, but it created a hybrid regime with extensive powers for the military and military dominated open economy and client list cease fire deals that gave the military the upper hand. Also in the armed conflicts after NLD landslide victory in 2050 and the last five years have seen a contentious coexistence between the NLD and the military in government. That India has tried to reduce the power of the military through constitutional change when the military was trying to undermine the government and discredit Aung San Suu Kyi personally, most dramatically as seen in the massive ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya in 2007. The military's power was also challenged by an obvious attempt to negotiate peace in the so-called ANGLONG peace process. And the military may have feared for their economic interest as business tycoon tycoons have become more autonomous and some of them have also aligned with Canada. And because Emily was expected to pursue economic reforms in the next government, period. So these power struggles within the coexistence environment gave the military a sense of political marginalization and created a fear that their political and economic order was threatened despite strong constitutional protection, the common expectation before the election last November was that the NLD would be weakened, but instead they want an even bigger landslide victory than in 2015. 
 | 00:06:00 Speaker 3 | This outcome to the symmetry that they will not been back government power within the electoral system that they have created and then this very strong position on the reform agenda also raised the fear of further constitutional changes and other reforms. It seems that the military felt marginalized and probably humiliated and was fearful for the coming government, period. In their view, they had to intervene before it was too late, which meant taking power before the new parliament was constituted. The president elected and the government formed. That is why the coup happened and why it happened exactly on February 1st.
 | 00:06:52 | Yes, seen from from the outside of the school may indeed seem a little bit puzzling, the armed forces, as we know, already held significant power through the 2008 constitution. And as I think you wrote on your Facebook wall after the coup, Kristian, the constitution that is now suspended was in fact enacted during junta rule to ensure the continued power of the military in spite of democratic election. Marte, what increased power does the military now have? And perhaps more importantly, what do they want to achieve politically and economically?
 | 00:07:33 Speaker 4 | Thank you, Kenneth. Well, to start with, I don't think they wanted to do a lot of changes, and as Kristian very well outlined here, they've worked 20 years now for this specific structure of of a discipline, flourishing democracy that they worked so hard for. I think this more about trying to secure their power. And I feel that they feel like they were losing control and also been quite impatient and irritated with the NLD, who's winning such a landslide election time after time. And and on the side of the military, they feel like NLD is very incompetent as opposed to themselves. So so they're really frustrated by this whole situation. And I think what they really wanted to do was to do with Thailand to do what Thailand, the neighboring country, did some years ago when they took the military, took power in 2014 to sort of readjust the political system. Tightening some constitutional loopholes, rewrite election laws, maybe ban some politicians, some political parties, and then hold elections. And in Thailand now, the coup maker is the prime minister. So these kind of structures, I think what they plan to do now, they totally underestimated the resistance that they would face doing this kind of thing. And now that as far as protesters go and political parties and all the political actors in Myanmar now, the military has broken that pact that so that was installed and that every political actor sooner or later went into to to to accept this 2008 constitution as a framework for political reform. Now, this is all broken. So the military has worked very hard for 20 years to get the system and now they themselves have broken it. 
 | 00:09:44 Speaker 2 | You mentioned the the resistance now and the demonstrations against the couso, so let's dwell on this theme for for some time, Kristian. Who are the actors and the groups involved in these demonstrations? And how has it how has it all been been organized so far? Yes, it is indeed a large scale mobilization and a very complex plan that is a true multitude of resistance. I think that within this movement that we can identify four main political forces. The first one is the NLD, the ruling party. On the day of the coup, the party leaders called for popular resistance to non-violence and peace and indeed has formed a committee representing the union, parliament and appointed acting ministers. This means that there are two bodies that claim to be the legitimate government in Myanmar, the military junta and the CERP. The second main force is the civil disobedience movement, which was formed on the second day of the coup. CBN stems from workers and their unions in private and public sectors. Workers in garment factories, hospitals, schools, banks, state ministries, mining, transportation and energy have left work and declared a general strike. This has made Myanmar very difficult to govern for the military and has also brought the economy to an almost standstill, including import and export trade. Third, the general public and especially youth have participated in large scale public demonstrations since the first week of February. When the demonstrations were dominated by CVN, youth came to symbolize the movement later and took the lead. It is also the youth that is now at the forefront of the self defense that is organized in many neighborhoods and have emerged in recent days for the ethnic nationalities, which are a bit hesitant at first but since gained a prominent position in public protest and in the broader movement. The ethnic nationalities have been especially important in broadening the political demands in the beginning. The call was for the return of the previous hybrid order, the release of political leaders. Now, the demand is much broader than that for federal democracy based on the new constitution. If you look at it historically, the ethnic movements and the democracy movement have existed for a long time, democratic movement going back to the late 40s or 50s, the analogy to the 1988 democracy uprising. 
 | 00:12:50 Speaker 5 | What is new now is the prominent position of workers and unions of youth generation set, the military assumed that they could control the resistance by taking out the ethnics and then the idea, but they were taken by surprise by the scale and the power of workers and youth and being able to handle it any other way. They have instinctively turned to what they know best, brutality. So this is where we are now in an escalating dialectic between resistance and military force. 
 | 00:13:30 Speaker 2 | So Marte Nilsen, we heard from from Kristian now a description of what what is indeed a very diverse movement with a number of different actors and different groups involved in these protests. Is there a chance that the military might succeed in manipulating some of these internal divisions among different groups of protesters to to its own advantage? 
 | 00:13:58 Speaker 4 | Well, the Myanmar military are experts in divide and rule, but I think now that the gloves are off, so it's not they're not able to do that to the same extent that they're done before, because this unique alliance that Christiane describes between various actors in Myanmar society, but also this combination or alliance between the democracy protesters and the peace movement is really, really unique. It's a fragile alliance, but not least because the extreme violence from security forces is taking its toll. And we see that the last couple of weeks that it's been increasingly hard to keep together. But it's not because of the usual divide and rule. It's more because of the brutality of the of the Myanmar military. And I think the CDM, the civil disobedience movement, is key. And it's also because it's it's been a platform for police to defect from the security forces. It hasn't been as many in numbers as it would be needed for for a turn of this conflict. But it's a platform where police at least have have been able to to join the movement as well. And this movement has been unique. And the reason why the military could not do what the military did in Thailand that I talked about because it's been so unified while in Thailand, the situation is, of course, completely different because you still have a divide between the population. And this has to do with the monarchy as an important institution. But in Myanmar now, it's really the first time we see a strong alliance between ethnic minorities and students and young people, workers and all this kind of combination. We've seen it partly in 1988 and after the the student uprising there. But but this is the first time you have this consolidated in a different way. So so it's quite unique. 
 | 00:16:09 Speaker 2 | It's an interesting, interesting comparison between the situation in Myanmar now and what's what's happened in Thailand. Uh, Marte, if we turn even further to the international scene, we have seen Indonesia's foreign minister cancel a scheduled visit to Myanmar last month. We've seen quite large crowds of pro-democracy protesters surrounding, for example, the U.S. embassy calling for the newly elected president, Joe Biden, to intervene to stop the military and to free the country's detained leaders. We hear from the European Union that they are preparing to widen the sanctions on the armed forces to target also the businesses they run. It seems that even the UN Security Council has now been able to issue a joint statement condemning the coup with even Russia and China backing this statement in spite of otherwise quite often voicing opinions in support of noninterference. So much that could. Could you tell us a bit more about the position of some of these key global actors and what this is likely to mean for how the conflict evolves? And then perhaps, Kristian, you can add your reflections afterwards. Well, the Myanmar military quite have quite some resilience when when it comes to to resist international pressure. A colleague of mine, they just recently compared it to the Taliban as the only way only other military force was not at all affected by international politics. But I think the fact that the United Nations Security Council has been able to unite and have, like, united statement on on Myanmar now is very important. And I think it shows also that even though Myanmar is very strategic country geopolitically in the region, we see that China is also not very happy with the instability that this coup has cost. And they haven't been consulted in in this before the coup and they are quite concerned. So this is quite significant. But I was in a workshop just last week with activists from all over Myanmar. And because of the extreme violence that they're facing, it's they are becoming increasingly frustrated and desperate. So there's a there's a huge call on action from Myanmar protesters right now because they really are doing everything right when it comes to being a non-violent opposition. And but they are extreme. They face extreme repression. And now it's it's time to leave geopolitics to decide and act. So not just statements, but political pressure and active diplomacy. And I think and, well, China is China and Myanmar has a very difficult relationship, a very intense but difficult relationship, and I and them and the Tatmadaw then Myanmar military don't really trust the Chinese very well. And the Chinese don't really trust the military that much either. But they are they are going to be cooperating because of there is so many economic interests that China have in Myanmar. So they will not be they will cooperate with whoever is in charge in Myanmar. But because of this difficult relationship, I think ASEAN now with the Southeast Asian countries are very key in trying to negotiate a solution where the Myanmar military finally stop the the violence against the civilians, because ASEAN has invested a lot in in Myanmar over the years, the 10 years as well. 
 | 00:20:24 Speaker 4 | And even though they have this very strong position of not interfering with other countries, ASEAN countries are also quite sick and tired of of Myanmar being sort of the top on the list on every international meeting and convention that they are part of. So they don't want to have Myanmar as the trouble country back again. And also, China has a lot of leverage on these countries. So it's possible that if ASEAN finally is able to unite and and work constructively on this issue, that that could be a possible solution, at least in the short term. But in the long term, this is a this is a political struggle for Myanmar and it will continue to be so.
 | 00:21:16 | Kristian, can I ask for your reflections on this question to.
 | 00:21:21 Speaker 5 | Now, I very much agree with what you just said. I think that what we see now and what we have seen in recent years is that the political developments in Myanmar is very much internationalized. Myanmar has gone from being somewhat marginal location in international politics to become centers to center stage and in the geopolitics in Southeast Asia. And you see that the democracy movement is calling for international intervention and they expect the international community to take action. And for them, this conflict is so important. This is the one that they cannot afford to lose. And they find it very difficult to understand that the that the international community is not coming to their side and backing them actively. Of course, it's not going to be solved by military intervention. But the but the activists expect at least political support and maybe also economic support for the strikers and their families and so on and so forth. I think that their experience in from the movement side is that the internationals either don't do enough or they they will land on the wrong side, even if it's unintended. So the activists are not satisfied by statements, although they are important to the Security Council resolution is very important, but they expect more and that they do not tolerate any any initiative, any contact with the military that can be seen as lending the smallest piece of legitimacy to the junta. That's why we saw the demonstrations outside the U.S. embassy and that's why China is now coming under attack. And we might see more of that. We don't know exactly what happened with the Chinese owned factories that were torched yesterday. But but this is possibly another sign of the internationalization of the conflict. 
 | 00:23:45 Speaker 2 | This brings us to to an interesting theme that we also discussed at length when we had a webinar on this theme earlier this month where both of you mentioned this relative lack of clear and unambiguous solidarity statements with the protesters from both many governments across the world, but also from quite a few civil society organizations, including those in the Nordic region. Kristian how, in your view, how can civil society and that would in this case include also the Burmese diaspora? How can and should civil society stand in solidarity with the protesters?
 | 00:24:28 | Yeah, I think it's a broad range of actors and not just civil society and the diaspora, but it is also businesses, states, international organizations, political parties, academics. But in general, it is important that on the one hand that international actors put as much pressure as possible on the military regime itself. There must be no kind of recognition, formally or informally for the regime, and there should be targeted economic pressure, including sanctions on military leaders and their business interests. On the other hand, it is also important that the international actors find ways to support the movement through statements of support and by offering humanitarian, economic and political assistance to key actors in the movement. So far, states and international organizations have strongly condemned the coup, and there have also been some sanctions against the military. And that's very good. What surprises me is that there have been relatively few statements of support for the demonstrators and a few signs of aid to the CERP and to the CDM. I find it also surprising that the humanitarian and development NGOs, international NGOs, seem to have chosen relative silence without offering a clear and explicit explanations for this. This is in contrast to international human rights organizations that have been much more outspoken. It is also very different from the diaspora organizations and international trade unions. Both of those have been outspoken and have found ways to support protesters, strikers and their families, including economically. So I think it is possible, but it is a question of interest and to do so. I think that it is time to turn to political democracy support, not the indirect institutional or economic support for state building and and so on the rails in the past. Given what we have seen in recent weeks. This relative silence and passivity that I. That I think might... Although I should be a little bit cautious because there might be more than what I'm aware of, but given this relative inactivity, I think that it might be necessary to look for nonconventional ways of channelling political democracy to support other than the well established development NGOs and maybe, for instance, emphasized diaspora organizations or international trade union federations.
 | 00:27:46 Speaker 2 | Marte, can I can I ask for your views also on this question of international solidarity? 
 | 00:27:53 Speaker 4 | Yeah, I agree with Kristian that it's crucial now to to channel aid and funds to the protest movements and to the CDM and to the to the committee representing KiranSoloto , the union parliament and and but also this. I'm more than statesmanly. I'm I'm really looking for political pressure and acts of diplomacy that there's there is more pressure put on the actors and also the actors in the region, I think, because now it's we have a very precarious situation because Myanmar is a heavily armed country with multiple active civil wars. And there is a risk now that if there's no perceived to be no action from the international community and the region, we risk that some of these armed groups will go together and form a federal army and that violence will increase and escalate even further. So and that will be in no one's interest. And it could possibly also destabilize the entire region. So it's not just about the situation for the people in Myanmar, but which is, of course, is my concern primarily. But this is also a concern for for the entire region. And geopolitically, there will be no no one's interest to have a full scale civil war flaming up in Myanmar at the moment. And if there's if there is no clear action from from international actors, that might be the risk. 
 | 00:29:33 Speaker 2 | So this, in a sense, brings us to to the question of the future, I mean, it's hard to prophesy and especially so about the future. But if we were to wrap up this conversation with your reflections on what we should be expecting to hear from Myanmar during the next couple of weeks or the next couple of months, what what kind of what kind of scenario should we be mindful of? And what are we what are we likely to see as we follow events unfolding from from the Nordic region here? Christian, could I could I hear your thoughts on this first? 
 | 00:30:15 Speaker 3 | I will briefly suggest three possible scenarios and one scenario which is suggested and maybe. Advocated by some international actors and said there should be dialogue negotiations to basically to return to the political order that existed before the first of February. I don't think this is realistic now. I don't think it's possible to get the dialogue going. I don't think there's any deal to be had with the military at this moment. A second scenario is that one of the two sides in that and as they get to a point where it becomes clear that they're winning, maybe there will be negotiations to try to define the terms for the exit. So, for instance, if the democracy movement is putting so much pressure on the military that they that they have to give up, then then their exit can be negotiated, that this is also not a very likely scenario in at least in the short run. The third one is that you will have some kind of a drawn out conflict and a further escalation of this now, but not any kind of clear resolution. That will be a very costly scenario, unfortunately. And right now, it seems to be the most likely scenario for the coming weeks. 
 | 00:31:57 Speaker 4 | For the next weeks and even months, I don't really know, but I think in the long run, just because exactly because this pact that we talked about, the political pact that the parties have accepted from the military is now broken. I think that. We would not go back to what was the situation with with the military controlling the the politics to such an extent, I think in the long run this will hopefully. But I also believe it will lead to to more democratization down the line. But in the short term, I'm thinking what can stop the violence? And although it's really, really hard to know at this stage, and there still is a possibility that the Myanmar military will will remove its current leaders, the general Min Aung Hlaing , and also a second general Soe Win to sort of try to restore their I don't know what to call it, dignity or something, but that they will that is the only way to sort of break that, the change of chain of violence right now that they they are stepping back and then they have to remove the the lead general because he's invested so much in this. And that has happened before in Myanmar. So it's not entirely impossible. But of course, this window is slowly closing. But I think in the long term, nonetheless, we we could easily come out with with a more happy outcome. But the problem is we don't really know how much suffering there will be in between. 
 | 00:33:50 Speaker 2 | Marte Nilsen and Kristian Stokke, thank you for joining us for this fascinating and interesting conversation on Myanmar at the coup. My name is Kenneth Nielsen and thank you all for joining the Nordic Asia podcast, showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia. 
 | 00:34:10 Speaker 1 | You have been listening to the Nordic Asia podcast.