The people of Myanmar are facing an escalating campaign of targeted violence at the hands of the State Administration Council (SAC) and Min Aung Hlaing. Recent atrocities are not isolated incidents—they are deliberate tactics of warfare used to terrorize civilians and sustain illegitimate military rule. The time for illusions and ineffective diplomacy is over. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Myanmar’s neighbors, particularly Thailand, China and India, must recognize their responsibility and act decisively to pressure the SAC regime before Myanmar descends further into crisis.
Systematic crimes against civilians
The recent massacres in Myanmar are clear evidence of the SAC regime’s deliberate strategy of terror against civilians.
On March 16, in Nawnghkio, Shan State, junta jets launched a brutal attack on a monastery sheltering internally displaced persons (IDPs). The airstrike killed 14 civilians: nine monks—eight of whom were young novices—along with two other men and three women. There were no clashes in the area at the time, making it clear that this was a targeted attack on civilians, not an operation against opposing military forces.
Two days earlier, on March 14, in Let Pan Hla Village, Mandalay Region, SAC forces bombed a crowded bazaar, killing 31 civilians, including six children, and wounding 30 others. This was not the first time the village had suffered such brutality—the same location was bombed just days earlier, on March 2, killing six more people.
These attacks are not isolated incidents; they are part of an intentional and systematic campaign of terror. The junta is deliberately targeting villages, markets, monasteries, and shelters for displaced persons in a bid to crush resistance and instill fear in the population. This pattern will continue unless ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbors take decisive action to halt the SAC’s escalating war against civilians.
ASEAN’s failed strategy and the junta’s true intentions
The approach taken by ASEAN and Myanmar’s other neighbors, centered on engagement with the military junta and the hope of facilitating negotiation, is based on false assumptions.
Min Aung Hlaing and the SAC are not interested in dialogue, consensus or compromise. Nor do they seek a ceasefire, de-escalation, peace or a political process—their sole objective is a military victory, which they believe can only be achieved through mass killings, airstrikes, and terrorizing civilian populations.
Any negotiations that assume the survival of the 2008 Constitution and continued military dominance over politics and the economy are futile. Many ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) have liberated their territories and will never again submit to a centralized military-controlled state. The only viable future for Myanmar is through a political agreement between legitimate Bamar and ethnic representatives to establish a federal democracy.
The junta’s false promises of elections, ceasefire negotiations, and de-escalation are merely a smokescreen to buy time. While the SAC claims to support peace talks, it is expanding forced recruitment, acquiring more weapons, and intensifying terror attacks like those described above.
ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbors must recognize that their continued inaction, combined with occasional diplomatic engagement and economic incentives directed solely at the SAC—while applying pressure only against revolutionary forces—is encouraging and empowering the junta. This only intensifies war and destruction, accelerating Myanmar’s descent into total state collapse.
Regional, geopolitical consequences of inaction
If ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighboring countries fail to act, the consequences will extend beyond Myanmar’s borders. It is not in anyone’s interest to allow Min Aung Hlaing to continue two more years of massacres in a futile effort to reconsolidate his power.
At some point, this will lead to the total breakdown of Myanmar’s state and social fabric under the pressure of military destruction, widespread human insecurity, economic collapse, hunger and mass displacement of the population.
ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbors cannot afford to let Myanmar descend into state collapse. That is exactly where the country will go if ASEAN and other international actors remain ineffective and slow, while far away countries such as Russia and Belarus arm and support the junta for their own geopolitical and economic interests.
Needless to say, if ASEAN remains ineffective, its ability to address regional crises will be permanently undermined.
Urgent action needed
ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbors have already wasted four years on a failed strategy based on the false assumption that Myanmar’s military is the only force capable of securing the stability of the Myanmar state. This assumption does not hold.
The people of Myanmar cannot wait. 2025 must be the year that ASEAN and other Myanmar neighbors abandon false assumptions and illusions, and stop allowing themselves to be deceived by Min Aung Hlaing’s false narratives and his tactics of buying time and legitimacy.
The only viable path forward is for ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbors to:
- Stop legitimizing the SAC through diplomatic engagement.
- End economic and military support that sustains the regime.
- Support a transition process that excludes Min Aung Hlaing and the SAC.
The only viable solution is for ASEAN, Myanmar’s neighbors, and the international community to support the National Unity Government (NUG) and the EROs in negotiating a transition process—without the SAC.
It will be possible to have meaningful negotiations with the military, but only if Min Aung Hlaing and the SAC are excluded. They cannot be part of the solution.
The longer ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbors refuse to acknowledge this reality, the more Myanmar’s crisis will escalate, and the harder it will be to restore stability in the region.
It is time to wake up.
Igor Blazevic is a senior adviser at the Prague Civil Society Centre. Between 2011 and 2016, he worked in Myanmar as the head lecturer of the Educational Initiatives Program.
