Myanmar: Military supremo taking over as president could re-escalate the civil war

The stage is set for the resumption of armed hostilities in neighbouring Myanmar, with military supremo Senior General Min Aung Hlaing taking over as president and his hardline loyalists put in place to helm the army.

Last week, Gen Hlaing stepped down as army chief and put in place a successor, Gen Yeh Win Oo, who was until now the chief of military intelligence. Then Hlaing was elevated to vice president, one of the three in the country, clearing the road to the presidency. The three vice presidents were in contention for the presidential election this week, but the result was a foregone conclusion. Gen Hlaing secured 429 out of the 586 parliamentary votes.

Military In Full Control

Min Aung Hlaing’s taking over as president may apparently mark a transition to a civilian government, but there is no doubt the military will remain in full control. The pro-military Union Solidarity & Development Party (USDP) won a landslide victory in the tightly controlled parliament election held in three phases from December 28 to January 25. Parliament convened last month for the first time since the February 2021 coup.

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Apart from the massive crackdown on all sorts of opposition, the military junta had limited the election to only six parties and arbitrarily disqualified forty political organisations from fielding candidates. Among the parties barred from the contest was the Aung Sang Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD), which had swept the 2020 polls with a bigger margin than in 2015 and was all set to rule Myanmar for the second successive term.

There was much expectation that Nobel Peace Laureate Suu Kyi, daughter of Myanmar’s independence war hero Marshal Aung San, would bring about amendments to the 2008 Constitution that guarantees three crucial ministries and one-fourth of the parliamentary seats to the military. The situation is somewhat akin to neighbouring Bangladesh, where the biggest party, the Awami League, had been barred from contesting the recent parliament polls in February this year.

Some say the NLD's imminent return to power prompted the Feb 2021 military coup on the day the NLD government was to take office. The NLD had rejected overtures from General Hlaing to consider him for the presidency.

Soe Win Purged

Now the military supremo is not merely president, but he seems to have packed the top military positions with his trusted loyalists. The most significant was the purge of the second most powerful man in the Myanmar military, Vice Senior-General Soe Win. Not only was he overlooked for the position of chief, but he was also removed as vice chief.

General Ye Win Oo, the chief of the all-powerful military intelligence, took charge as chief, and Lieutenant General Kyaw Swar Lin was named the vice-chief in place of Soe Win, who may now be appointed to the newly formed Union Consultative Council. This council, meant to coordinate security, foreign relations, the peace process and legislative issues, will depend on the President for delineation of its powers and roles.

Min Aung Hlaing has been visibly uncomfortable with Soe Win’s growing popularity within the military rank and file. After the Burmese army suffered a series of battlefield setbacks against ethnic rebel armies in the last two years, there has been a growing demand among military families and ultranationalist monks that Hlaing step down and hand over command to Soe Win.

Hlaing’s taking over as president and his hardline loyalists taking over the command of the military is bad news for conflict-ravaged Myanmar. One would have expected that a new government would have reached out to the ethnic rebel armies and the exiled National Unity Government for a dialogue to end the festering civil war.

After the NLD government took office in 2015, it declared a nationwide ceasefire and initiated a comprehensive dialogue with the ethnic rebel groups. But neither President Hlaing nor the army top brass appears to be willing to start a dialogue of any kind. They seem content with the limited deals with two ethnic rebel groups that were pushed through before the elections by heavy-handed Chinese intervention.

New Rebel Alliance

Realising that the newly elected government is in no mood for a dialogue, the ethnic rebel groups are gearing up for a fresh round of hostilities. This week, six resistance groups announced the formation of the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union to “advance our ongoing revolution and achieve victory at the earliest possible time” to establish a transitional government.

Its members are the National Unity Government; its legislature, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw; the Kachin Independence Army; the Karen National Union; the Karenni National Progressive Party; and the Chin National Front. The only major rebel group still fighting the Burmese military but not in the Steering Council was the Arakan Army, which now controls much of the coastal Rakhine province.

The Arakan Army was part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, two of whose constituents, the Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Tang National Liberation Army (TNLA), have already struck ceasefire deals with the Burmese military under heavy Chinese pressure.

"We are committed to protecting and promoting the diverse identities of all ethnic nationalities residing within member states and units of the Union and to firmly building a new Federal Democratic Union composed of states that fully guarantee equality among nationalities and the right to self-determination,” the announcement by the Steering Council said.

It stated that the armed struggle will continue until the military is defeated, the 2008 Constitution is abolished and a new constitution is put in place, one that “embodies federalism and democratic values" and ensures total civilian control over the military. The Steering Council is surely handicapped because many powerful armed groups – including the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and United Wa State Army – are not its members.

Implications for India

Resumption of full-scale hostilities in the Myanmar civil war does not augur well for India. With fighting likely to escalate, it would become impossible to complete and operationalise the ambitious India-funded connectivity projects through Myanmar.

The Kaladan Multimodal Transport project linking the Indian mainland to the Northeast will be difficult to implement because though the Sittwe port remains in Burmese military control, the rest of the Rakhine province is taken over by the Arakan Army. And beyond Paletwa, where the river stretch of the project ends and the road component leading to Zorinpuii in Mizoram begins, Chin rebel groups are in control.

Similarly, the Golden Trilateral Highway connecting Manipur to Thailand through Myanmar runs through areas under either military or rebel control, with many stretches being scenes of bitter recent fighting. Apart from substantial funds that India has already sunk into these projects, like the Chabahar port project in Iran, the much-vaunted 'Act East' policy would remain a cliché unless these projects can be operationalised.

With Myanmar a live battleground, rebel groups in India's Northeast may also gain a fresh lease of life.

(Subir Bhaumik is a former BBC and Reuters correspondent and author on South Asian conflicts. He has worked in Myanmar as Consulting Editor of the country's leading media group, 'Mizzima'. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)