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ASEAN foreign ministers were meeting in Jakarta on Thursday to discuss their options in Myanmar, where the military is using increasingly violent methods to suppress the armed resistance against its February 2021 takeover.
Twenty months on, the junta has not been able to establish full control over the country. Many of Myanmar’s ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) have joined armed civilian groups called People’s Defence Force (PDF), which are allied to the self-declared National Unity Government (NUG) in exile.
The meet is being held ahead of the ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Cambodia from November 10 to 13, amid unprecedented differences among members of the grouping on how to deal with the regional crisis that has affected all of them in one way or another.
Fires inside Myanmar
Much of the resistance by the civilian PDFs is in the Chin State and Sagaing Region, which share borders with Mizoram and Manipur. A fragile truce between some EAOs and the military dating back to 2018 has broken down. Many EAOs support the civilian rebellion, and the junta is fighting separate armed groups as well as the PDFs across the country.
On October 23, according to reports from Myanmar, over 60 people were killed in an airstrike by the Myanmar military in Kachin State, in an area famous for its jade mines some 400 km from Kohima as the crow flies.
The strike targeted an open air concert to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organisation, whose military wing, the Kachin Independence Army, has been fighting a protracted battle against Myanmar’s rulers. The military has said all casualties were combatants.
While the Myanmar army has routinely used air power against the EAOs, in the months since the coup, it has not hesitated to strike at civilians as well. Attack helicopters have been deployed against PDFs in the Sagaing and Magway Regions.
In Rakhine State, the military is fighting the Arakkan Army (AA), with the violence sometimes spilling over to Bangladesh. The AA, which is fighting for the independence of Rakhine, has kept its distance from the PDFs and the NUG. While the AA is anti-Rohingya, the NUG, comprising parliamentarians who were elected in 2020, has appeared to take a more progressive view on the Rohingya people, officially declaring that they are entitled to citizenship in Myanmar.
On the political front, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy who was jailed after the coup, has been convicted in multiple cases and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The fallout in India
India has walked a fine line between expressing concern at the “interruption” of democracy and brutal steps such as the gunning down of protesters and execution of four democracy activists in August, and engaging with the junta to protect its “vital interests”.
At some point however, India may have to consider if those vital interests are indeed being served. New Delhi’s main justification for engaging with the Myanmar military is that it ensures the security of India’s Northeast — it has persuaded the generals to deny safe havens to insurgent groups. But there are reports that some Northeastern groups, notably the Manipur PLA, have been roped in to put down the civilian uprising in Sagaing Region.
For India, the main concern is the influx of refugees into Mizoram. India’s 1,643-km border with Myanmar stretches from the India-Myanmar-China trijunction in Arunachal Pradesh to the India-Myanmar-Bangladesh trijunction in Mizoram. Border regulations have been formulated keeping in view ethnic and family ties across the international boundary. Under a Free Movement Regime (FMR), citizens of the two countries living within 16 km on their sides of the border, can cross over with a permit and stay up to two weeks at a time.
The official number of registered refugees in Mizoram from Chin State is now 30,000, but many thousands have not been registered. The government of Chief Minister Zoramthanga — whose Mizo National Front is a constituent of the NDA — has openly differed with the Centre on the issue of refugees. India is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention or its 1962 Protocol, and does not have a domestic policy on refugees.
When people began pouring in from Chin State, the Home Ministry asked states in the region to act against “the illegal influx”. Zoramthanga declared solidarity with the people of Myanmar, and has continued to welcome the refugees. Their increasing numbers have, however, put strain on the state’s resources, and several NGOs, the church, and youth organisations have joined the effort. The Centre has so far not prevented the Mizoram government from helping the refugees.
The coup and resultant unrest have upended Indian projects in Myanmar such as the trilateral highway to Thailand, and the Kaladan waterway project. These projects were already well behind their deadlines, and their completion looks farther away now.
Russia, China, the West
Australia, Canada, the US, the UK and the EU have imposed sanctions against the junta, but with international attention divided between the war in Ukraine, the US-China standoff, and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, no further ideas have emanated from the West on how to recover Myanmar from the military.
Despite ASEAN’s obvious failure, a “regional” solution is still believed to be the best bet. At Thursday’s meeting, the grouping’s foreign ministers called for “concrete, practical and time-bound actions” to strengthen the implementation of a five-point consensus reached in April last year to bring Myanmar back to the democratic path, the AP reported.
The consensus called for cessation of violence; dialogue among concerned parties; mediation by an ASEAN special envoy; provision of humanitarian aid; and a visit by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.
The junta agreed, but ultimately ignored all points except for seeking humanitarian aid and allowing Cambodian Foreign Minister and ASEAN special envoy Prak Sokhonn to visit. But he did not meet Suu Kyi.
Meanwhile, Myanmar continues to depend on China and Russia for military hardware and oil supplies. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, head of the State Administrative Council, the name the regime has given itself, visited Russia in July and then in September for the Moscow-led Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where he met President Vladimir Putin. Myanmar is awaiting the delivery of four Sukhoi-30 combat aircraft (two were delivered earlier this year) from Russia.
The regime has also set up a Russian Oil Purchasing Committee to oversee the buying, importing, and transport of fuel “at reasonable prices based on Myanmar’s needs”. During Min Aung’s visit, Myanmar and the Russian state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom signed a roadmap for “further atomic energy cooperation”.
China has also stepped into the economic vacuum left by the west. During his visit to Myanmar in July, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing was ready to work with Myanmar to “cement the four pillars of mutual political trust, mutually beneficial cooperation, people-to-people bonds and mutual learning in culture and people-to-people exchanges, and continuously elevate the building of a China-Myanmar community with a shared future to new heights”.
The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor is going ahead despite local pushback at places. China is now a major cross-border supplier of electricity to Myanmar. Earlier this month, a Chinese-Myanmar joint venture 135 MW power plant was inaugurated in Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State, where a Chinese port project is underway. A new train service connecting western China to the Myanmar border is expected to speed up Beijing’s path to the Indian Ocean. China has also supplied JF-Thunder fighter aircraft to Myanmar and, according to The Irrawaddy, the junta has placed orders for Chinese FTC-2000G jets.
