Myanmar:
A nation at war with itself
By Stanley
A Weiss
http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/opinion/4268-myanmar-a-nation-at-war-with-itself.html
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Said to be encased in 60 tonnes of gold, the Shwedagon is
older than the city itself. Its earliest legend goes back 2500 years, when two
brothers from lower Myanmar
are said to have met the Buddha shortly after his enlightenment. As proof of
their friendship, the Buddha plucked hairs from his head, and after returning
to Myanmar
the brothers enshrined them within the pagoda. There they remain, alongside the
Buddha’s famous precepts, the first of which reads: “Avoid killing, or harming
any living thing.”
The hillsides that emanate across Myanmar from this shrine have seen
some of the most heinous atrocities of the past century – carried out by people
who purport to follow the teachings carved inside.
That a country that is 85 percent Buddhist – the religion of
peace – is known for non-stop war is a cruel historical irony. That the Burman
majority that makes up 60pc of Myanmar’s
population – and staffs its army – has been engaged for six decades in a
violent campaign against the other ethnic minorities here is a modern tragedy.
That the campaign continues in some villages to this day – even while Myanmar is
praised by foreign leaders, most recently President Barack Obama in his State
of the Union Address – is an ongoing outrage that the world must bring to an
end.
“This is a pre-democracy society and the predominate
thinking is [that] everyone is against each other,” a Western ambassador says.
“People meet with each other but then foul mouth each other. There’s a lack of
identity. Alliances shift and there is fighting in every region.”
All told, ethnic populations cover half of Myanmar’s total land area and make up nearly
half of its total population – while housing all of Myanmar’s international trade
routes, most of its borders and nearly all of its natural resources. That’s
where the trouble begins.
“What ails Burma
is not just about politics and human rights per se, but control of the land and
the fruits of the land,” says a retired American military adviser to the ethnic
groups. “It is about controlling ethnic ancestral lands rich in natural
resources, and not being able to jointly explore and share prosperity.” A high
profile Myanmar
businessman adds: “In the end, it’s about economic rights. Ethnics never feel
like they have [any] and the government needs to give them some.”
While ethnic conflict here goes back to the Middle Ages, the
modern chapter begins with the collapse of British rule after World War II.
After the war ended, Britain
gave power to the Burmans while disempowering ethnic minorities. In the
aftermath, most ethnic groups declared war and fighting has continued ever
since.
Even while Barack Obama became the first sitting United
States President to visit Myanmar last November, the Myanmar army was engaged
in vicious fighting with Kachin rebels in the far north. As journalist Bertil
Lintner writes, while Kachin troops inflict significant losses on the Tatmadaw,
the escalated military campaign “has also sent a stark signal to other ethnic
armies which have entered ceasefire agreements with the government … who say
they feel threatened”.
While “it might be reasonable”, as one United Nations
official tells me, “ to say that you could have a democracy with eight civil
wars going at the same time,” President U Thein Sein “knows that he must make
peace with the ethnics”, a Western ambassador says. With the international
spotlight increasingly on Myanmar
in the run-up to its ascension to chair of ASEAN in 2014, ongoing civil war is
a distraction Myanmar
doesn’t need.
But there are two roadblocks to peace.
First, the constitution rammed through in 2008 is anathema
to ethnic minorities, since it mandates central control over ethnic lands. It’s
also hard to alter, as any change require at least 75pc support and the army
controls 25pc of parliament. “If the constitution isn’t changed, the Karen
won’t join the 2015 [general] election – all [ethnic minorities] agree on
this,” a Kayin official says.
Most minority groups want a federal system like the US or, better yet, Switzerland, where regions, known
as cantons, have autonomy within a federal structure. Burmans fear the issue of
control could unite minorities – it “petrifies Burmans”, says the military
adviser, “who do all they can to prevent unity, because they realise that the
power of ethnic leaders lies in collective action.”
The second issue is the army. As an Asian ambassador puts
it: “The president tells the military to stop fighting, but the army keeps
fighting.” Under the constitution, the military still answers to the National
Defence and Security Council, not directly to the president. One local editor
says this means “the army still runs Myanmar”. But military officials
also realise that true democracy is the safest retirement policy.
What can the US
do to help? A lot.
America
should offer to broker peace between the Kachin, the army and the government –
tying future aid to successful negotiations.
It should work with the UN to educate minority groups and
government officials about the meaning of federalism – to go slow and begin to
build trust.
It should offer to train young government and ethnic army
officers through the military-to-military International Military Education and
Training Program, known as IMET, which, through exposure to US civil society, was credited by some for Indonesia’s
army returning to the barracks in its transition to democracy more than a
decade ago.
It should also encourage the private sector to focus all
sides on economic development as a common interest, helping Myanmar become
the economic powerhouse it has the potential to be if ethnic violence stops.
If the two sides do find a path to peace, it may be said of
Myanmar what the author Somerset Maugham wrote when seeing Shwedagon Pagoda for
the first time: “[I]t rose superb, glistening with its gold like a sudden hope
in the dark night.”
(Stanley Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives
for National Security, a non-partisan organisation of senior executives who
contribute their expertise in the best practices of business to strengthening
the nation’s security. This article represents his personal views only.)