Let me bring clarity in the new wave of ASEAN and international hypocrisy and fog around Myanmar.
Indonesia and Malaysia are floating new concepts of “talks about talks” (pre-talks) and the old concept of “all-inclusive dialogue” and at the same time packaging that as a continuation of the Five-Point Consensus agreement.
Thailand has volunteered to organize an “informal” dialogue in December, and ASEAN is happy to let the hot potato of Myanmar burn in Thai hands for a while.
It remains be seen whether the Thai diplomatic initiative will lean more in China’s direction of trying to pressure and persuade ethnic resistance organizations to give up on their alliance with the National Unity Government (NUG) and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and accept a soft surrender to the ongoing military dominance over Myanmar’s state, politics and economy in exchange for autonomy guaranteed by China, trade and business deals with Chinese companies, and incorporation in China’s expansionistic geopolitical and economic plans. But perhaps the Thai initiative will be more where Indonesia and Malaysia would like to keep it.
At the same time, junta boss Min Aung Hlaing is gearing up for more war, not less.
More talk among neighbors, with ASEAN and the international community about facilitating a ceasefire and all-inclusive dialogue means more terror and aggression by the junta against the population of the country.
That is why the current initiatives will fail in the same way the Five-Point Plan failed—because Min Aung Hlaing will not care what they do and will just continue his war against the people.
China has already made significant changes in its own approach toward the Myanmar crisis. Beijing has started actively to meddle in order to influence the outcome of the war in Myanmar and is now making serious efforts to help the junta survive and stay in control of two-thirds of Myanmar.
This has emboldened Min Aung Hlaing to intensify his war of aggression against the whole nation.
So while ASEAN and the UN special envoy spend time trying to facilitate talks about talks as a preparation for all-inclusive d dialogue, Min Aung Hlaing will use the time he is being given to try and reconsolidate his own resources.
The fundamental problem with any negotiated settlement of the Myanmar crisis and exit from the crisis through elections organized by the junta is that Min Aung Hlaing still aims only for total victory. For the junta, any talks, any temporary ceasefire, any humanitarian aid, census, or elections, are just as a continuation of a war by other means.
At this moment, the junta and military are weak. They are running out of money, and they do not have enough troops to fight on multiple fronts across a big country. They have also realized that they their military hardware is obsolete and they need to upgrade their capacity for drone war and digital surveillance capacity.
That is what Min Aung Hlaing needs time for. The military needs to replenish its depleted troops through six more months of forced recruitment. Min Aung Hlaing needs international acceptance, which he has already found a way of achieving through China-led regional bodies and through Russian and Chinese-led international bodies such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.
The military needs time to get more drones from Russia and Iran, and more time to learn how to use them. It needs China to help it pressure at least some ethnic armies to stop participating in offensive operations so that the military can concentrate its own war of terror against the Bamar resistance in the lowlands. The junta needs a veneer of normalcy in Naypyitaw, Yangon and Mandalay City so that it can strike hard and cruel in Sagaing, Magway and Mandalay Region.
In order to connect all the dots and strengthen Chinese-style all-pervasive digital surveillance, the junta also needs more time for household registration, renewing ID cards of citizens under junta control and passports of Myanmar citizens who are abroad, for the census and for checking voters’ lists.
Min Aung Hlaing will not take pre-talks, informal talks or talks about future elections as an opportunity for exit from war and crisis. He will use them to buy time in order to recover from his losses and to replenish his capacity to strike back again in more ferocious way.
There is, however, a way things can be done differently.
ASEAN and the UNSE should not create a false illusion of possible solutions with all-inclusive dialogue initiatives. Instead, they should provide a safe space and opportunity for dialogue under the banner “everybody but the State Administration Council”.
Thailand, Singapore, the U.S, U.K., and Japan can do their part to reduce the flow of money to the junta. They, plus India and Australia, also need to explore what they can do to reduce the flow of fuel for the junta’s fighter jets to Myanmar.
India must stop providing weapons and dual-use equipment to the Myanmar military, and stop signaling readiness to support and accept the junta’s sham elections.
And India, Thailand and Bangladesh must let humanitarian aid flow across their borders into liberated territories.
All those practical measures need to be applied for no more than six months before Min Aung Hlaing will be removed by his own disgruntled military. He will either be dispatched somewhere abroad, or killed, or put in jail like Omar Al Bashir in Sudan.
And once Min Aung Hlaing has been removed, the current junta is gone. Only at that moment will negotiations between the military and resistance forces become possible.
But as long as Min Aung Hlaing and the current SAC are part of political equation, there will be no end of military’s war of terror against the population, and therefore no way the people of Myanmar can stop their self-defensive struggle.
