THE MILITARY'S DEMOCRATIZATION DEBACLE: Tatmadaw not keen to return to the barracks
It is
good that gathering like “Forum on Myanmar
Democratic Transition” held from August 11 to 13, which was attended by
government's several ministers and lawmakers, leaders of civil society groups,
media practitioners, business leaders, veteran civil servants and a
representative from the Tatmadaw or Military, together with a number of
international participants, would be repeated again in the near future in other
big cities, apart from holding it in Naypyitaw.
One interesting point is that the Military is represented
only by a single participant, Colonel Aung Myint Oo, Head of
local and international relation department, National Defense College (NDC).
Even more interesting is his position on the democratic norms of
military-civilian government relationship.
Colonel Aung Myint Oo told the “Forum on
Myanmar Democratic Transition,” discussing under the heading of “Transition
from Tatmadaw Administration to Civilian Administration”, on August 12, that
the military has to be under the civilian government notion is a foreign,
Western concept and not appropriate for the country like Burma or Myanmar,
according to the BBC report.
Earlier, on the first
day, Colonel Aung Myint Oo said that removing the Tatmadaw from politics
is impractical as it is necessary to strengthen the government in addressing
security issues.
He
stressed that the Tatmadaw will have to be a part of the government
organization should be utilized.
“As long as there are issues that cannot
be solved by the government alone, the Tatmadaw will be used by the
government,” Colonel Aung Myint Oo said, according to the Myanmar Times.
Reinforcing the irremovable stance of
Tatmadaw from politics, Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing told the outgoing
Ambassador of the European Union to Myanmar Roland Kobia, on August 17, that Myanmar’s transition to democracy would
need to take more time, as the country has weaknesses in pulling through the
democratization process and multiparty system, due to the inadequate past
historical experiences.
Min Aung Hlaing's position has always been
firstly, the achievement of peace, which he equated with the absence of Ethnic
Armed Organizations (EAOs) either through total annihilation or negotiated
surrender, must be in place before the Military promoted notion of disciplined
democracy could be satisfactorily installed. In other words, so long as there
is ethnic armed resistance and the political system hasn't developed according
to its liking, the Tatmadaw would be around to look over the whole situation
according to the military-drafted, 2008 constitution.
On August 14, a Tatmadaw representative
Lieutenant Colonel Khin Maung Swe told the Parliament that it is the Military’s
duty to enforce the “rule of law” in areas where the Kachin Independence Army
(KIA) is active and to bring local people into the fold of security provided by
the Military. Besides, he accused the KIA of illegal natural resources
extraction to arm itself that contributed to the continued insurgency and
refusal to sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) despite repeated
negotiation meetings were actions tantamount to being anti-democracy.
With the Tatmadaw's entrenched believe
that it is its sole responsibility to lead the democratization process and has
to be in the political arena for as long as it chooses to be around, let us
look a bit further if it is really committed to the genuine democratization
process and establishment of a federal union.
Military not really keen for democratization
An argument that the Military only
reluctantly give in to the partial-reform process under its disciplined
democracy is due to some factors as outlined by Sithu Aung Myint, a well known
political commentator, is worth emphasizing.
He recently wrote in the Voice of America
(VOA) on August 14, under the title of “Is democratic transition on the right
track?” that all knew even after the Election Commission (EC) had announced
that the election would be held in November 2015, there had been the situation
of testing the water by floating news like the election would be held as
scheduled and at the same time, postponement of it to a later date was under
consideration and so on. In addition, based on the military dictatorship past
undertakings there were worries if election would really be held; if it is held
would it be a free and fair election; and even if the election is won would the
power transfer really take place.
But to
the astonishment of the Burmese people and the international community,
the National League for Democracy (NLD) had won a landslide victory, summoned
the parliament, formed new government and peaceful power transfer from the
previous government to the elected NLD had occurred. There are at least four factors
that has led to this successful outcome.
The first point is the Peng Jaisheng
headed Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army's (MNDAA) attack on Kokang
area in 2015 (February). Although the Tatmadaw could regain back most of the
territories, it had suffered a heavy blow in terms of death and causality
figures. This military condition has changed the opinion of the Tatmadaw
leadership. For the military dictatorship that had endured the international
sanctions, China was the main country that it had to rely on. If the military
dictatorship was to again nullified the election result like in 1990 and
conduct a military coup, it would again be abandoned and boycotted by the
international community and would again had to find refuge in China's ambit. At
that moment, due to the hard blow caused by the attack on Kokang it might had
reasoned that it couldn't rely on China any more. Because of this it could be
speculated that the Tatmadaw seemed to have followed the acknowledgment of the
2015 (November) election result rather than the way it did (nullifying the
NLD's landslide election victory) in the aftermath of 1990 election.
The second point is the cause of a big
division between the Union State and Development Party (USDP) factions of the
Speaker of the Parliament Shwe Mann and President Thein Sein, which are
entirely made up of retired army generals. This has contributed to the lack of
party's cohesion, stability and impacted on its poor election outcome.
The third factor is the election was
relatively free from irregularities and manipulation, as international
observers were allowed in by the Thein Sein government and the division within
the USDP made it hard for whom the EC led by Tin Aye, who is one of the USDP
top members, should work for, in terms of conducting irregularities to win the
election.
The final point is that Aung San Suu
Kyi-led NLD had applied the correct election strategy, coupled with its hard
works to win the landslide victory.
However, Sithu Aung Myint cautioned that
even though the transition from the military bloc to the NLD has been carried
out, the military dictatorship has not open up the democratization process
willingly but only reluctantly, and that it would be too early to presume that
the return to dictatorship wouldn't happen again.
Analysis
As could be
seen, Colonel Aung Myint Oo made it clear that the Western notion of civilian
leadership leading the military not acceptable and he also left no doubt in his
statement that the NLD, civilian government needs the Military more than it
needs the civilian government.
The
Commander-in-Chief expressed his belief that democratization process would take
more time as the country is inexperienced, indicating that the Military will be
in politics for as long as it sees it is needed.
Lieutenant
Colonel Khin Maung Swe also confirmed the Military position of justification in
waging war on the KIA under the pretext of protecting national sovereignty and
rule of law, accusing it as law-breakers and anti-democracy for refusing to
sign the NCA and enter the government-led peace process. By heightening the war
with offensives against the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), the Military is
indicating that it doesn't want national reconciliation on equal terms but only
surrender.
Thus, the present
Tatmadaw's half-hearted democratization commitment is based on the prevailing
situation that has not gone along well accordingly to its political engineering
scheme that is anchored in its self-drawn, 2008 constitution. To put if
differently, it is finding hard to lose control of stage-managed outcomes,
where it has full control on how configuration of the political arena should be
managed.
According to
the constitution, it should be relatively easy to form the government for the
military bloc – USDP and the Tatmadaw – if only USDP could win 26% of the vote
in the national election. As all know, the Tatmadaw is allotted with 25%
parliamentary seats, including the rights to administer the home, defense and
border affairs ministries. Apart from that the USDP had also registered
political parties under its tutelage, plus forging coalition partners with
other political parties, in case they are needed to form a coalition government
under the military bloc.
But the NLD
landslide win in the election wipe out all the safety precaution measures of
the military bloc and its political engineering scheme. Still, the advantage of
the Tatmadaw 25% seats allotment and the privilege to administer the three
important ministries made the military bloc a forced-coalition partner of the
NLD, whether the latter like it or not. Thus in reality, it has to be taken as
the NLD-Military coalition government, without coalition agreement signed like
those in the developed democratic countries.
Because of
this, the political situation now could be seen as a period, from the position
of the Military, that it is implementing
a “fail-safe” mechanism by the built-in virtue of the 2008 constitution.
By the nature
of the said constitution, it is a disciplined democracy from the Military's
point of view. In other words, it is a unitary system of governance with the
Tatmadaw taking the leading role, which inevitably means a semblance of
multiparty system where it could call the shots for as long as it decides to
sit at the helm of political decision-making apparatus. But as explained, this
political engineering scheme went wrong when the USDP was only able to capture
some 10% of the vote and its aimed coalition with its proxy parties and
intended coalition partners also came to naught, as all of them were unable to
win any seat in the election.
Apart from
not being enthusiastic or willing to reform according the democratic norms as
accepted by the NLD and the ethnic nationalities, which must be coupled with an
establishment of a federal system of government, the Military's brand of
disciplined democracy is closely tied to its self-drawn, military supremacy
constitution. One could even say that it is a hybrid civilian-military system
that is in no way conducive to the democratization process of the country and
in fact an anti-democracy stance that the Military is striving to continue for
as long as it is needed, to secure its political edge.
Thus it is
not a wonder that the Commander-in-Chief and all its top brass always say that
they would defend the constitution with everything necessary. And that is why
it is spelling out its intention to stay and lead the political arena for as
long as it considers to be necessary; blocks the all-inclusiveness
participation mode, desired by the EAOs and NLD, in conducting the peace
process; rejects all movements to amend the constitution and any attempt to put
the Military under the civilian rule; and most importantly, keeping the war
flames, that stem from ethnic armed conflict, on to project its importance and
continue its manipulation of the ongoing peace negotiation process to its
advantage.
Given such
circumstances, for now, it could be concluded that the Military isn't returning
to the barracks anytime soon, much less giving in to the democratic notion
“civilian control of the military”.
Tags: Opinion
