Nearly three years on, Myanmar’s anti-coup movement has achieved considerable success, winning unprecedented public support and rendering the military junta, known as the State Administration Council (SAC), incapable of governing most of the country. The SAC’s roadmap, including peace-making with ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and holding elections, appears to be in disarray.
Operation 1027, launched by the Brotherhood Alliance last October, has captured major towns and hundreds of military bases in northern Shan and Rakhine states. This has created a new momentum putting the SAC’s capability in doubt while giving a morale boost to the entire Spring Revolution. Several bases and towns in Sagaing Region and Chin, Kachin, Karen and Karenni (Kayah) states have also fallen to EAOs and resistance groups.
Meanwhile, coordination between the opposition groups is relatively low. The National Unity Government (NUG), who has the People’s Defense Forces (PDF) as an armed wing, is politically aligned with some EAOs known as K3C—the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), Karen National Union (KNU), Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and Chin National Front (CNF). However, military coordination with these EAOs is loose.
The Brotherhood Alliance members—the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and Arakan Army (AA)—operate according to their own agenda, while other EAOs and several local resistance groups remain unaligned with the NUG.
This weak coordination has raised serious concerns over potential territorial fragmentations, with or without the SAC’s falling. This concern is rational for various reasons.
Ethnic sentiment matters
Based on more than 70 years of bitter experience, followed by the failure to implement the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), EAOs see little chance of achieving a federal union by working with the military, an institution dedicated to “Burmanization”. Working with the SAC is no longer among their options.
Until 2015, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party – the National League for Democracy (NLD) – seemed a better option for the EAOs or non-Bamar ethnic groups to make a federal deal, but that view had changed by 2020. The NLD’s five years in power seeded a new sentiment of “all Bamar leaders are the same” when it comes to self-determination and federal issues.
The formations of the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) and the National Unity Government (NUG) by anti-SAC stakeholders in early 2021 generated a window of hope for reconciliation. Though the ill will did not fully vanish, a belief that the coup produced moderate Bamar groups or ethnic sympathizers has apparently emerged. The NUG carries on despite facing several challenges.
However, the NUCC, which was intended to be a political consensus-making platform between opposition groups, has encountered a serious setback. Multiple stakeholders have deserted the council due to internal disagreements, supposedly widening the existing schism.
From lack of common goal to disintegration?
The Myanmar resistance movement is often portrayed as a combination of democracy and self-determination movements, which are respectively seen as the ethnic Bamar-led movement and the non-Bamar ethnic-led movement.
The 2021 post-coup Spring Revolution intertwined the two movements. Nevertheless, there has not been a unified political goal for this combination—though overthrowing the SAC is a common interest, and “federal democracy” is an agreed-upon basic concept. This is one of the reasons for the concerns over potential disintegration, which some have predicted is very likely.
Adding to these concerns, at the sub-state level, ideological differences exist in terms of what degree of self-determination is sought, and in the desirability of the democratic model. The NUG-aligned K3C are supposedly in favor of democracy-based “bottom-up” federalism. The United Wa State Army (UWSA) has ruled the Wa region under a one-party system, and with very limited influence from Naypyitaw, since the early 1990s.
Other EAOs from northern Shan state including the MNDAA, TNLA and SSPP also appear to be in favor of a Wa-like system. In 2019, the AA’s chief said that the group preferred a confederation to a federal system. Sources also said that the AA has outlined a one-party system for the future Rakhine.
Thus, concerns over disintegration are not minor. If Myanmar is not totally balkanized, there are clear signs that territories with a Wa-like status will emerge. In the absence of a well-established central institution with great buy-in, balkanization is also not unlikely. There is still time to prevent that from happening. But who or what can do the job might be timely questions.
The kingpins
The NUCC’s formation was spearheaded by the NLD through the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), which was formed in February 2021 by elected members of parliament (MPs) from its own party. NLD members participate in the NUCC both as the CRPH and the party cluster. The NLD formally withdrew its membership in late 2022 but maintain its participation through the CRPH.
Some claim the council’s structure itself, which allows large-scale memberships including various layers of civil society groups, political parties, the CRPH, elected MPs, and EAOs/EROs is a hindrance to building consensus, while others claim divergent political interests are the main obstacles.
Multiple council insiders told this analyst that the NLD insists on embracing its 2020 election mandate for taking a political lead during and after the revolutionary periods. The sources also allege that some NLD members are hesitant to discuss genuine federalism and self-determination, which have turned out to be major factors stymying the council.
The NLD also appears to struggle in harmonizing state/region-level politics. Its endorsement of the regional parliaments formed by its own MPs in Sagaing, Magwe and Tanintharyi last October has faced widespread disapproval from local groups. In Chin and Karenni states, only some individuals from the party who get along with EAOs and local stakeholders participate in the formal process of state-level governance.
The NUG was formed through consensus in the NUCC. Most of the NLD members who hold the government’s major portfolios are outside of the party’s interim senior leadership. Reports about tensions between the party and the government have frequently emerged. As the NUG is made up of diverse political groups, non-NLD members seem to play a counterbalancing role against the party’s influence on the government.
Regardless of the party’s present reputation, it is still a key component in the current political arena, due it its landslide election victory and the existence of proxy entities such as the CRPH, NUCC and NUG.
On the other hand, the fact that the 2020 election result has a limited five-year term may reduce the party’s role beyond 2025. In that case, the unity government, legitimized by the federal democracy charter, with immense blessing from the public, technically holds a position of high potential to replace the NLD as the key figure in the arena.
The spoiler and the savior
The SAC’s deterioration seems be an opportunity for the NLD to reinstate its reputation of being the better option for a federal deal. The absence of its actual senior leadership including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi may be a barrier to making a move. But time is too limited to waste in the midst of the rapidly changing political dynamics. In this situation, it could be either a spoiler or a savior of a federal union as a desired outcome.
If gaining power in the post-SAC era is its primary focus while keeping genuine federalism talks aside, that could lead to an acceleration of the existing negative sentiment towards the party and worsen internal fractures. This could consequently lead EAOs or ethnic groups to seek greater scope of self-determination.
But the NLD could be the savior if it fully collaborates with EAOs and finds agreement on the fundamental principles of federalism and self-determination. This could result in a negotiated political settlement for a future federal democratic union, and even enhance military cooperation to beat the SAC.
However, if it proves too hard for the NLD to relinquish its primary interest, the NUG can still avoid an ugly divorce between Myanmar’s ethnic groups. In that case, NLD members in the unity government might face a difficult choice between the party and the union’s integrity.
Political agreement vital
Whether one likes it or not, self-administrations without external interference in the ethnic liberated areas are prevalent. Most of these administrations are run by well-established EAOs. None of these areas have been “given”—they have been “taken” through the sacrifices of resources, lives and blood, which makes it impossible to simply return power to external rulers.
The SAC’s decline and the EAOs’ growth are concurrent trends. It is likely that the liberated areas will keep growing. Thus, political agreement that assures self-determination is the only option to prevent fragmentation. The scope of self-determination might vary for each group but disintegration might only be the last option. As EAO leaders often say, nobody would even need to think about “secession” if the union was good enough to live in.
June N.S. is an independent researcher writing regular analysis on conflict and political issues in Myanmar, particularly in the country’s northwest.