Asean can do very little about the civil war in Myanmar

ASEAN is getting criticised for its inability to influence events in strife-torn Myanmar. The declaration at the end of its recent summit has triggered a wave of anguish over the bloc’s, admittedly ineffective, attempt to hose down the civil war in Myanmar.

Its longstanding Five-Point Consensus calls for, inter alia, an immediate cessation of violence, an inclusive dialogue and humanitarian aid access to those in need. Not good enough: it’s “a fig leaf for paralysis”, as one critic put it.

To begin with, Asean works by consensus. The bloc has managed to isolate General Min Aung Hlaing’s junta that ousted an elected government in 2021 even as Myanmar remains a member. The junta remains unrecognised as the country’s legitimate rulers. Nor has Asean fallen for the regime’s attempt to legitimise its hold on power with a sham election, to be conducted in several phases, beginning next month.

How much more can be done? Myanmar is yet another post-colonial nation with borders drawn up for the convenience of its erstwhile British rulers. The majority ethnic Burmans (or Bamar) settled along the fertile Irrawaddy River basin and enjoyed political pre-eminence under British rule. The Kachin, Shan, Chin, Karen, Mon and Rakhine minorities and their lands were treated as frontier protectorates of the empire.

When independence came after the Second World War, these enclaves were yoked together into a unitary state – the Union of Burma – without regard to their different levels of economic and social development.

Minority groups immediately became restive. Neither the early post-independence elected governments nor subsequent military rulers, both dominated by Bamars, managed to fully integrate these frontier peoples into their putative union.

In 2016, as Myanmar’s first civilian leader after decades of army rule, Aung San Suu Kyi made some soothing statements about the ethnic minorities’ need for greater autonomy. Her National League for Democracy government would seek “a real federal democratic union”, she said. “Peace and a federal democratic union are closely intertwined and that’s why we need to change the Constitution. The most important thing is national reconciliation.”

The army had earlier amended the charter to centralise all power as a response to separatist insurgencies that had taken hold in border regions. Indeed, their main claim to political legitimacy was that the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military likes to style itself, was the only entity with the means to keep the union intact. Military leaders played up Bamar fears that ethnic divisions would fracture the nation with ensuing loss of territory.

In the event, Suu Kyi’s rhetoric about the importance of national reconciliation rang hollow when almost a million Rohingya people from Rakhine state were expelled into neighbouring Bangladesh. That problem festers still. In the current conflict, several ethnic rebel groups have made common cause to gang up against the coup leaders. Currently, the junta’s writ runs in no more than about 60 per cent of its territory.

But the generals can fight on because they enjoy the tacit support of both India and China. Delhi fears a flood of refugees, and Beijing is focused on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor which connects Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal through the port of Kyaukphyu in Rakhine state. For the Chinese, this route offers a direct outlet to the Indian Ocean that bypasses the potential chokepoint of the Malacca Strait.

Critics who assume that Asean can do much more in this situation are being both ahistorical and unrealistic.