Indian Defence Review

Newly elected President Htin Kyaw and Aung San Suu Kyi

In the words of Thant Myint-U, “China and India have always been separated not only by the Himalayas, but also by the impenetrable jungle and remote areas that once stretched across Burma. Now this frontier is vanishing – forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by super highways – leaving China and India closer together than at any time in history.” He further adds, “With the emerging new strategic importance of Burma, the two raising giant powers are vying for supremacy.”

Broad Spectrum

Will the November 08, 2015 elections propel this isolated region into a peaceful, prosperous and a well-developed destination, or, will Myanmar emerge as an arena to jostle for supremacy between India and China?

In the words of Thant Myint-U, “China and India have always been separated not only by the Himalayas, but also by the impenetrable jungle and remote areas that once stretched across Burma. Now this frontier is vanishing – forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by super highways – leaving China and India closer together than at any time in history.” He further adds, “With the emerging new strategic importance of Burma, the two raising giant powers are vying for supremacy.”

A Hope

While India and China may compete in some areas, Myanmar’s geographical location is such that there is plenty of room for a healthy, cooperative relationship. The evolving democracy and aspirations of the Burmese people coupled with a supporting vision of its neighbour, Myanmar has great potential to shape up a bright future for the complete region.

In this context, it is important to understand the country’s dramatic move towards democracy, its implications for India and the region. Before we extrapolate the future trajectory, understanding of Myanmar’s history and its geography is of high relevance.

Myanmar

Myanmar is divided into four regions:

• Mountainous area in the North and West ranging from about 1,830 to 6,100m including the Arakan coastal strip
• The Shan Highlands in the East, a deeply dissected plateau and extends southward into the Tenasserim Yoma; a narrow strip of land projecting some 800km along the Malay Peninsula in the Southeast.
• Central Myanmar, a principal area of cultivation is bounded by the Salween River in the East and the Irrawaddy River and its tributary, the Chindwin, in the West.
• Fertile delta and lower valley regions of the Irrawaddy and Sittang rivers in the South cover an area of about 25,900 sq. km. This area forms one of the world’s richest rice granaries.

Myanmar consists of 14 provinces or seven states representing the areas of seven main ethnic races and seven divisions. All seven states are more or less mountainous. The administrative divisions are mainly in plains, with the exception of Sagaing, Bago and Thaninthayi divisions. The Irrawaddy River, the principal river of Myanmar, runs through the centre of the country. Myanmar’s most important commercial waterway, it is about 2,170km long. Its valley forms the historical, cultural, and economic heartland of Myanmar. Mekong, Salween, Chindwin and Kaladhan are the other important rivers. Rivers Irrawaddy, Mekong and Salween originate in China. Myanmar shares her land borders with Bangladesh 193 km, China 2,185 km, India 1,463 km, Laos 235 km, and Thailand 1,800 km.

There are eight major national ethnic races as per the Myanmar government which include the Bamar (68%), Shan (9%), Kayin (7%), Rakhine (4%), Mon (2%), Chinese (3%), Indians (2%), Mon (2%) and others (5%). Despite years of isolation, Myanmar has a surprisingly developed transportation network. It has 66 airports, eight airlines and more than 5,500km of rail and 1,50,000km of road network.

Historical Perspective

Burmese expansionism in the late eighteenth century caused strife with China. And conquest of Assam in 1824 pitted Burma against an enemy that would come to occupy it – Britain. After the third Anglo-Burmese war in 1885, Britain completed the total annexation of Burma. The British viewed Burma not so much as land that they definitely needed to control, but as a market they needed to capture and as a backdoor to lucrative trade with China. The British made Burma a province of India in 1886 and instigated far-reaching changes to the country’s make up. Indians were brought in to fill civil-service jobs and the business interests of Indians and Chinese in Burma were encouraged. This bred resentment.

Agriculture was geared towards export and Burma became the world’s largest exporter of rice. Resistance to British rule continued in the northern territories up until 1890, when the British finally destroyed entire villages in order to halt guerrilla activity – a tactic still practiced by its military. Here, as elsewhere, divide-and-rule was characteristic of British governance, with certain ethnic groups being favoured over others, creating clashes of loyalties.

Protests by university students in 1920 were the first signs of renewed resistance against British rule. Strikes and anti-tax protests followed, with Buddhist monks playing a prominent role and even leading armed rebellion. Rangoon University was a hotbed of radicalism and a young law student, Aung San, gained increasing prominence in the movement for national autonomy. He and fellow student Nu (a later Prime Minister of Burma) joined the ‘Thakin’ movement – the name, which translates as ‘master’. The Burmese citizens wanted to be masters of their own destiny.

The start of the Second World War saw the administration of Burma separated from India. With the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 came the growing realization that one set of colonialists had been exchanged for another. The Japanese were successfully expelled from Burma in May 1945. However, many parts of the country lay in ruins, devastated by war.

A military administration resumed in Burma under the British. Aung San eventually managed to negotiate Burma’s independence from Britain in January 1947. Aung San also concluded an agreement with the country’s ethnic nationalities for a unified Burma. Aung San and his ministers got down to the business of drafting the country’s constitution – but not for long. On July 19, 1947, at the instigation of an opposition politician, Aung San and several members of his cabinet were gunned down. Aung San’s colleague, the charismatic U Nu, now took over the reins and Burma finally became independent on January 04, 1948. Anti-British sentiment was so strong that Burma decided not to join the British Commonwealth, unlike other colonies that had also gained independence.

U Nu’s government faced many challenges from the outset – disgruntled communist factions and ethnic groups, who felt excluded from the deeply Buddhist Nu’s vision of the country, began insurgencies, as did Kuomintang Chinese nationalist forces in Northern Burma.

In 1958, the army took over for the first time under General Ne Win. This ‘caretaker government’ purged ‘communist sympathisers’ and forced the minority states to bow to the central government. Elections in 1960 brought U Nu back as Prime Minister but the days of democracy were numbered. Having had his taste of power, Ne Win staged a coup in 1962, and the country’s decline under military dictatorship began.

Driven by economic desperation and seeing a chance for change, demonstrations broke out in the country in the ‘democracy summer’ of 1988. But on August 08, 1988, troops began firing into the crowds, eventually killing over 3,000 people. Thousands of politically engaged people were forced to flee the country, but they continued their resistance, forging alliances with the ethnic nationalities’ resistance movements.

In Rangoon, Aung San’s daughter Aung San Suu Kyi, returned to the country to nurse her dying mother, she soon joined the democracy movement. The military imposed martial law; the country was to be led by a 19-member State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Aung San Suu Kyi, who had captured the people’s hearts with her non-violent stance and political integrity, was placed under house arrest. Surprisingly, SLORC honoured its promise to hold multi-party elections in May 1990 and, even more surprisingly, they were free and fair. But when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won overwhelmingly the military refused to hand over power.

In 2003, an open-ended seven-step ‘roadmap to democracy’ was announced and the sham National Convention reconvened in 2005. In September 2007, there were widespread street protests in Rangoon and across the country, after a huge increase in fuel prices. In 2011, the country returned to a quasi-democratic form of government after nearly a half century of direct military rule. The military presence (Tatmadaw) continued to be a major political force represented by its presence in the parliament (Hluttaw) and regional legislatures, where its unelected members have one-quarter of all seats and, through a constitution contrived in their favour, the ability to thwart the emergence of new, fairer constitutions.

However, since the unexpected release in 2010 of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from years of house confinement, and her election to parliament in 2012 as leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the political status quo in Myanmar political dynamics completely changed thereafter.

Myanmar’s Insurgencies

Ethnic minorities make up about a third of Burma’s population of roughly 50 million. Ethnic minorities live throughout Burma, but are concentrated mainly in the seven states and divisions named after the Shan, Kayah, Karen, Mon, Chin, Kachin, and Rakhine ethnic groups. The British policy, developed first in India, was to interfere as little as possible in the internal affairs of the minority groups and to separate their administration from that of Burma Proper.

The Myanmar government has had a contentious relationship with Burma’s ethnic groups, many of which fought for greater autonomy or secession for their regions after the country’s independence in 1948. At the time of independence, only Rangoon itself was under the control of national government authorities. Subsequent military campaigns brought more and more of the nation under central government control.

Given the difficulty of finding an acceptable solution to the problem of political and ethnic diversity, it was not surprising that the new leadership was unable to reconcile the differences and that the resilience of the newly forged union was tested almost immediately. Within several months of independence, communist bands were in armed rebellion, seeking to overthrow the central government. Several months thereafter, elements of the Karen minority-the largest of the discontented ethnic groups launched their own revolt, as did members of other ethnic minorities, all seeking a territory for their own group and greater decision making authority in matters affecting its future. Wholesale Karen desertions played havoc with Burma’s armed forces, and dissidents soon occupied much of Lower Burma and spread elsewhere.

By 1951, however, in part because the insurgents were never able to unify their efforts and in part because of U Nu’s determined response, the reconstructed armed forces had brought the insurgency substantially under control, although insurgents continued to dominate much of the countryside. For over six decades, the army has battled diverse ethnic insurgencies. These ethnic minority insurgent groups have sought to gain greater autonomy, or in some cases, independence from the dominant ethnic majority. The Government justifies its security measures as necessary to maintain order and national unity. However, most major insurgent groups have reached individual accommodations which provide varying levels of stability and autonomy from central government control.

Unlike the revolutionaries, ethnic insurgents were interested only in ruling their own people and territory and sought either greater autonomy from the central government or outright independence. Warlord associations were organised feudally around one or more leaders in order to conduct illicit market activities and control trade routes. These were essentially armed economic enterprises and included, among others, the Chinese groups and the Shan United Army.

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In 1989, the government began a policy of seeking cease-fire agreements with most ethnic insurgent groups along the borders, and the regime entered into a series of ceasefire agreements with insurgent groups, though a few armed groups remained in active opposition. Following the breakdown of its cease-fire with the separatist Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) in 1995, the army began an offensive in 1996 against the KNPP that continued through to the year’s end. As part of its campaign to deny the guerrillas local support, the military forces forcibly relocated hundreds of villages and tens of thousands of Karenni civilians. In central and southern Shan state, the military forces continued to engage the Shan State Army (SSA), and began a campaign of relocation against the villagers in the region. Many thousands were forcibly removed from their villages. There are credible reports of retaliatory killings, rapes and other atrocities committed by the army against civilians.