On the first day of February, this year, a coup descended in Myanmar, ahead of a scheduled meeting of the bicameral parliament (the Assembly of Union) formed of the upper house-House of Nationalities (Amyotha Hluttaw) & the lower house- House of Representatives (Pyithu Hluttaw). The military dissolved the assembly in the Coup-detat, alleging that there had been fraud in the elections held in November last year, which was won easily by the National League for Democracy, the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi, the elected State Counsellor, & President Win Myint have been detained by the military, which has imposed a year of emergency. Many countries in the world, including the US, have raised concerns on this Coup as Aung San Suu Kyi, a Peace Nobel Laureate, had played a crucial role in transition of the Myanmar polity from a military junta to a partial democracy in the 2010s. The Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, has alleged that the November 2020 election was full of irregularities. It was also alleged that many people may have voted more than once, though the Union Election Commission had stated that there were no irregularities. While imposing the one year emergency, under Article 417 of the 2008 constitution, the military has stated that it would abide by the constitution, which it termed as the “mother of law”. During the coup, the power was handed over to the Army chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Background
In a series of reversible transitions between military junta rule & temporary democratic set-ups seen by Myanmar, the military had drafted a constitution in 2008. In that year, the military had put up a referendum in April, as per an announcement by the State Peace and Development Council. The referendum was questionable as it sought to reserve around 25% of the parliamentary seats for military officers. The referendum also stated that anyone who is married to someone who is not a Myanmar’s citizen would be barred from running for the office of President. Under the constitution drafted by the military junta, elections were held in 2010, which was boycotted by the NLD under Suu Kyi. The military junta was in fact forced to adopt the constitution with many flaws, as they had realized that Myanmarese economy needed to be opened to the world, because of absolute economic necessity. The Union Solidarity & Development Party was set up in 2010 by the military junta to give themselves a democratic touch, or rather a pretense, in front of the world. The 2008 constitution has been made effective as the follow-up of the Coup. (Some have observed that the 2008 constitution has, in fact, been overridden.)
Prior to the Coup of 2021, there have been three broad periods of the flip-flops between the democratic set-up and military rule in Myanmar, which was liberated from the UK in 1948. The first period was the parliamentary period from 1948 to 1962. The second was the period of the Socialist government from 1962 to 1988 after the 1962 coup by General Ne Win. The third was the period of State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) after the coup of 1988 by General & statesman Saw Maung, which continued till 2011. Senior General & Council Chairman Than Shwe signed a decree in 2011 which dissolved the SPDC, and replaced it with State Law and Order Restoration Council. The period from 2011 provided some breathing and growing space for the democratic format, in somewhat Westphalian style, nevertheless leaving space for the military to go for its expansionist agenda. The military, Tatmadaw had run the Operation Perseverance, in the Shan state, bordering with China, in 2011, with interests in the Jade trade, to financially boost itself.
Social fractures fuelling conflict
There have been differences among the different ethnicities of people in Myanmar which has kept the internal conflict alive over the decades. The north of Myanmar is the hotbed for the Kachins, like the southern region, which is the region of the Karen people. There are other groups like Buddhist-Rakhine, Muslim-Rohingyas & the Chins, which had put further fractures in the country keeping alive the internecine conflicts. There have been efforts towards peace like the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) signed in October 2015, between 15 armed groups like Karens. But groups like Kachins had avoided the agreement, given unsettling differences. The issue of the Rohingyas has spilled into the bordering countries of Bangladesh and India. The inter-ethnic division has kept the illegal arms market alive in Myanmar, which has been a ground of power leverage by China and has been a cause of concern for India, given that many of the groups have links with the armed militant groups in the North-East India.
There is also the hierarchy of associate citizens, naturalized citizens, and resident foreigners, institutionalized by a 1982 law in Myanmar. This hierarchy is complete with different-coloured identity cards for each status. The law was part of an infamous campaign of “Myanmafication”, which included the later name change from Burma to Myanmar, whose ostensible goal was to include ethnic groups beyond just the Burmans, although Burman language and culture defined this nationalism. Though the system is less rigid than the Songbun system in North Korea which categorizes citizens as the layers of tomato, it is an infamously discriminatory set-up of classification of citizens. It has even to some extent inspired one of its prominent neighbouring countries to design a similar citizenship system of its own (NRC-CAA).
Role of Foreign players
China has been using its relations with the various social & ethnic groups in Myanmar to push its agenda of having a grip over the economy of the country. It has also played the role of mediator between Myanmar and Bangladesh on the issue of Rohingyas. China has also shielded Myanmarese military from UN actions, apart from being a predominant arms supplier to Tatmadaw. From 2014 to 2018, China was the source of 61% of the weapons imported by Tatmadaw.
Another nation, whose reaction can be confounding towards the Coup in Myanmar, is Russia, where separate protests are going on triggered by the opposition politician, Alexei Navalny. In 2017, as per a report of ISPI, around 1.1 million people in the Chechen were registered to have been protesting against the genocide of Muslims in Myanmar. Sub-surface scattered protests keep occurring, but they all get subsided or unidentified by the influence of the control of state-media. Russia, in the backdrop of the Navalny protests is surely not immune from the influence of the Coup in Myanmar. Given the inherently strong relation between Russia and China, the former has backed China in blocking the UN resolution condemning the Coup.
Also Read: Russia-China Relations- Shanghai Cooperation Organization-implications for India in current times
The Coup of February 01(2021) has attracted the attention of the US administration under Joe Biden, with a statement given that states that action would be taken if the Myanmarese military go ahead with the toppling of the civilian leaders. This comes in the spirit of the Biden administration underlining its policy of standing for democracy and against human rights’ violations, even if it means standing against the major power- China.
A UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Myanmar, Tom Andrews has described the February 01 Coup as a real mystery.
What surprises the world, is that the military in Myanmar overthrew the government and hence, essentially the constitution, which was in fact drafted by them in 2008. Though, there have been allegations of human rights violations of Rohingyas against Aung San Suu Kyi, the Coup has definitely brought the slow transition to democracy, which has seen many decades of bloodbath in Myanmar, to an almost screeching halt.
