Joshua Kurlantzick
World Political Review
June 18, 2015
Over the past month, Myanmar’s multiple domestic crises have spilled over its borders and into South and Southeast Asia, setting back the country’s reforms just before Myanmar’s highly anticipated national elections this fall. Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence and discrimination in western Myanmar have attracted the most global news coverage. Their plight in rickety boats with little food or water has sparked international calls for Myanmar’s government to take stronger measures to end discrimination against the Rohingya and address the crisis at its source.
Rohingya migrants sit in their room at a temporary shelter, Bayeun, Aceh Province, Indonesia, June 1, 2015 (AP photo by Binsar Bakkara).
But the flight of the Rohingya is just one issue undermining Myanmar’s stability. Fighting has flared again between the Myanmar army and ethnic Kokang rebels, known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, based near the Chinese border. Since February, at least 200 people have been killed and more than 50,000 driven out of their homes by fighting between the Kokang and the Myanmar army. Meanwhile, in early June, conflict erupted along the Myanmar-India border between ethnic Naga rebels and Myanmar and India’s militaries. On June 4, Naga rebels ambushed an Indian army patrol, killing at least 18 Indian soldiers.
Yet the government of Myanmar’s president, Thein Sein, hailed just a few years ago for overseeing a transition expected to move from military dictatorship toward democracy, has been virtually mute on the Rohingya, the Kokang and the Myanmar-India border incident. With regard to the Rohingya fleeing the country, Myanmar’s leaders continue to try to cast doubt on the idea that there is a crisis at all. They’re not alone. Even the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and widely expected to win a majority in the lower house of parliament this fall, have until recently said little about these three crises. That underscores the intractability of these issues across Myanmar’s political spectrum and the complexity of the challenges ahead.
Take the Kokang conflict. Although it stems from multiple causes, including personal animosity between the Kokang rebel leader and the army chief of staff, a failure to reach a lasting nationwide peace agreement has perpetuated violence. Ethnic insurgencies have plagued Myanmar since its independence more than six decades ago. Upon taking office as president in 2011, Thein Sein launched ambitious peace talks with the many insurgent armies, reaching a draft peace accord with 16 armed ethnic groups earlier this year. But not all the ethnic insurgents have signed on, and the army’s continued use of scorched earth tactics against various rebels—involving shelling and, reportedly, massive air strikes against ethnic Kachin rebels in northern Myanmar—have made it harder for a definitive agreement to be forged.
Meanwhile, on the country’s western border, the persistence of the Naga rebels may be testimony to the government’s failure to make meaningful progress against narcotics production, which allegedly funds much of the fighting. The Naga rebels are believed to earn enough to support themselves in part through drug trafficking. Another one of the largest ethnic insurgencies in Myanmar, the United Wa State Army, essentially operates its own state in northeastern Myanmar and has been named by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency as a narcotics trafficking organization. Overall, under Thein Sein’s government, Myanmar’s production of opium has reached record levels, and neither the government nor the opposition NLD has come up with any real plan to stop it.
In the vacuum left by Myanmar’s government, India, China and leading Southeast Asian nations, all of which like to proclaim that they do not interfere in neighbors’ affairs, have taken action. On the Rohingya issue, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia have agreed to take in around 7,000 migrants. The Thai government is apparently considering taking in migrants, too.
China, in turn, pressured the Kokang rebels, who are essentially ethnic Chinese, to unilaterally agree to a cease-fire last week, at least for now. Beijing also announced it would hold military drills along the border near where shells fell inside China, a clear sign to the Myanmar military that Beijing expects Naypyidaw to curb its part of the intense fighting, as well.
Most assertively, in early June, Indian special forces units reportedly struck Naga rebels’ base camps at least six miles inside Myanmar, killing 20 people. Hitting the rebels so far inside Myanmar marked an escalation of India’s counterinsurgency campaign.
Still, any solution to Myanmar’s ethnic and religious conflicts, even ones that spill across borders, will ultimately have to come from Naypyidaw itself—not from its neighbors. While the Myanmar government in late May and early June notched some high-profile arrests of suspected human traffickers, few came in western Myanmar’s Arakan State, home to most of the Rohingya. Nor has the bloodshed along the Chinese and Indian borders led to meaningful change in government policy. Following the ambush on Indian soldiers, Myanmar’s army launched attacks on Naga rebel camps, but many Myanmar analysts believe this campaign was just for show—to demonstrate to New Delhi that Naypyidaw is not allowing the Naga free rein.
Yet there have been glimmers of hope for change. Even though NLD leaders, including Suu Kyi, have refused to speak out publicly about the Rohingya, some younger NLD members have broken their silence. In May, one NLD spokesperson, Nyan Win, told reporters that the rights of the Rohingya should be protected, and that Naypyidaw should consider granting them full citizenship. Nyan Win’s remarks were by far the boldest by the opposition: Many NLD members still parrot the government’s line that the Rohingya are illegal migrants to Myanmar, even though many Rohingya have lived in the country for generations. The NLD went farther in early June, when it issued a comprehensive statement on the Rohingya crisis calling for a “resolution of the communal conflict in Arakan State [that] should be founded on the principles of human rights, democracy and rule of law.”
That conciliatory attitude could carry over to the ethnic rebellions, on both the Chinese and Indian borders. Suu Kyi has proven willing to break with the anti-China attitudes of many in her party. Were the NLD to triumph in the fall, it might be able to mend the military’s frayed relations with China. The NLD, more trusted by most of the remaining insurgent armies than the current government, also might be in a position to finalize a permanent peace deal with insurgents, pleasing both China and India.
In early June, Suu Kyi made her first visit to China, where she met with President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders. The fact that Suu Kyi, a global democracy icon, made the trip suggested that she is well on her way to transitioning from opposition leader to the head of a party that soon could be ruling Myanmar’s legislature. If that happens, Myanmar’s government may finally be able to solve its many crises at home.
Joshua Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.
