Nearly four years after the coup in Myanmar in February 2021, the world seems to have forgotten the tragic circumstances within the nation and the unresolved political crisis that has engulfed it. With bigger crises looming across the European theatre, Myanmar seems to have been pushed to the backburner and relegated to a matter of domestic politics.
Over the past few months, the deteriorating situation within the country has led to considerable concern among the regional watchers in assessing the limits of effective measures at addressing the conflict within the country. This article looks at three key areas—first, the internal developments that have been in a state of uncertainty; second, the regional responses of immediate neighbours; and third, the response of ASEAN and the international community.
Within Myanmar, there are critical divides that do not allow for any consolidated approach to resolving the political situation. The two major groups fighting the junta are the People’s Defence Forces and the Ethnic Armed Organisations . In the aftermath of the coup, the elected government in exile has made fervent efforts to address the Myanmar situation by rallying the international community through several outreach efforts, which have met with little success. For the EAOs, division within the groups is a critical factor as these ethnic groups have different agendas and goals, limiting any form of sustained coordination.
Last year, the 1027 campaign was formed, where groups began to coordinate with one another as a measure of resistance, but its success has been limited. Wherever the junta has met with stiffer resistance, the Myanmar air force and navy have assisted with additional support against the protesting groups.
One of the increasing concerns is with regard to two factors likely to impact the continuing violence and exacerbate the crisis. In a report in Reuters last week, the issue of a famine-like situation was raised, where the severity of food shortages and its reporting by aid workers within the country is seeing a critical divide. The junta’s pressure not to publicise the information on the famine and its repression of aid workers is adding another complex dimension to an already embattled population on the verge of collapse.
The report also indicates that the military’s excesses have been so severe, it has prevented the distribution of food and medical aid to several areas. In such a crisis, even the offending party (the military in this case) is going through the same human exigencies, leading to a polarised situation where its survival becomes primary to that of the country’s population.
As far as the immediate neighbourhood is concerned, three states are clearly showing divergences in their individual approach—Bangladesh, China and India. With the recent political crisis in Bangladesh itself, concerns relating to Myanmar bear little impact. In the core areas of the Arakan province where issues pertaining to the Rohingyas are centred, both Bangladesh and Myanmar are at odds with the influx of refugees and violence against the community. The Arakan army fighting the junta is clearly focused on resistance within the state; this has deep-rooted ethnic undertones that impact the bilateral ties between Myanmar and Bangladesh itself.
China, on the other hand, has been duplicitous in its support for the Myanmar military forces. While publicly it took a stand that the matter was of ‘internal restructuring’ in the early days of the crisis, it has increasingly been supporting the military. Reports also indicate China has now put its own soldiers on the ground in Myanmar to protect its infrastructure assets related to the Belt and Road Initiative, but these are also lending tacit support to the junta.
India’s position has remained lukewarm. While it has rendered some degree of humanitarian assistance, its own vulnerabilities in the northeast with the tensions in Manipur and the potential influx of refugees from across the border have created a complex situation.
Finally, the ineffectiveness of the ASEAN approach seems to be the only international attention that has been focused on Myanmar. One of the core concerns is how the ASEAN’s five-point consensus has been seen as the option for resolving the crisis by the international community, propping the ASEAN as the last resort to the Myanmar conflict.
In October 2024, when the ASEAN summit concluded with a discomfiting note on the lack of progress on the Myanmar issue, it was a reiteration of the limits of ASEAN effectiveness, leaving little to reflect on in terms of progress or solutions. Almost since it was conceived, the five-point consensus has made little progress. Each ASEAN document reads much like a repetition of the previous years.
What makes the five-point consensus even more redundant is the support to its inefficacy by the rest of the international community that refuses to address the situation within Myanmar and remains committed to let ASEAN lead. It is almost metaphoric of ‘an ostrich burying its head in the sand’ to avoid dealing with a difficult situation.
Shankari Sundararaman
Professor, School of International Studies, JNU
(Views are personal)