Myanmar’s junta is under pressure now

Myanmar’s junta is under pressure in a way it hasn’t been in decades. Challenging its military might are armed civilian groups known as the People’s Defense Force — a grassroots insurgency made up of citizens including farmers, doctors, teachers, home-makers and engineers — all determined to overthrow the generals who took control of the country in a coup just over a year ago. Mass street protests and a deadly crackdown followed, and on past history, that might have been the end of it.
But it wasn’t. There is now debate over whether Myanmar is now in the grip of a civil war. Deadly battles are no longer limited to border hotspots. Instead they’re fought throughout the nation, with cities like the financial capital Yangon and Mandalay witnessing assassination campaigns against junta members and bombing attacks. They hit a Chinese-backed electricity facility in the northwest last month.
One thing is clear — the junta is no longer fully in control, with hit and run attacks on military convoys, army bases and other high-security targets a regular occurrence. Thousands of defections from both the army and police, while not enough to bring them to their knees, are destabilising and a significant hit to morale. By mid-September, there were reports that resistance forces had killed more than 1,700 junta soldiers. The military responded with its usual brutal force, killing more than 1,540 people and arresting upwards of 9,000, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-profit that has been tracking the unrest, reported.
While the military casualties have so far been limited, the breadth and staying power of the insurgent campaign has been surprising.
All this presents a challenge for regional groups like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has for the last 12 months isolated Myanmar in a way it’s rarely treated a member state before. Asean foreign ministers were due to meet Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, humanitarian aid for Myanmar. The grouping has so far barred junta representatives from attending key gatherings due to its failure to implement its five-point consensus plan that includes the immediate cessation of violence and the start of peace talks. This tough stance — a marked change from the last time the junta was in power — has to continue.
Myanmar’s military ruler, Min Aung Hlaing, has repeatedly refused to bow to Asean demands to send a non-political representative to these meetings. That empty seat should speak volumes, and provide further impetus to global leaders, including those in Asean, to diversify their diplomatic outreach on Myanmar and work more closely with the alternative National Unity Government and those groups supporting a return to democratic rule.
The NUG is made up of representatives of those elected in a landslide in the national poll in 2020, which the junta says was tainted, but that international observers said was free and fair. It declared war against the regime in July and urged citizens to revolt against military rule. Meanwhile, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy (which until last year’s coup had been in government since 2015) is facing six years in prison, with more court verdicts to come.
The civilian resistance campaign is complicated by long-running ethnic tensions. Armed militia like the Arakan Army, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army have been fighting against the military for decades. Other groups divide into those that signed on to the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Accord with the then-government and groups in the north, particularly along the Chinese border, including the United Wa State Army and the Kachin Independence Army, that didn’t.
Earlier this month, four armed ethnic groups released a statement pledging to fight against the military regime. This dashed the hopes of Min Aung Hlaing, who has sought to offer a ceasefire to the militia to try and stop them aligning with the People’s Defense Force, says Angshuman Choudhury, senior researcher and coordinator of the South East Asia Research Program at the New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.
“Myanmar has been in a state of civil war for a long time, but until now it has been limited to certain territories and ethnic regions. Now, even the Bamar heartland is in conflict,” Choudhry said.

—Bloomberg