2/3/23 23:29How the world—including the West—helps to sustain the Myanmar military’s violence | Myanmar NOW
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How the world—including the West
—helps to sustain the Myanmar
military’s violence
Help for Myanmar’s democratic cause is welcome,
but means little when the military is receiving even
greater assistance
Sai Latt Published on Feb 24, 2023
I am often asked by foreign friends what the international community can
do to help Myanmar. I know that most ask with the best of intentions, but I
still find the question a little troubling. To my mind, it reveals that most are
unaware of the fact that the problem is not so much a lack of “help” from
their countries, but the actual involvement of those countries in reinforcing
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the institutional and economic power of Myanmar’s military.
Both the West and Myanmar’s Asian neighbours have promised to support
the democratic aspirations of its people and punish the military for its
violence (although the latter camp has always gone to greater lengths to
avoid upsetting the generals). In practical terms, however, neither of these
two groups of nations has been very effective in living up to their
promises. And the United Nations, for its part, has been even less helpful.
It has already begun normalising its relationship with the junta that seized
power two years ago by engaging with the generals through its Myanmar
country teams and regional offices, all in the name of providing
humanitarian support and civilian protection.
There are some seasoned observers who recognise that Myanmar’s
perpetual political crisis is structural in nature, and not something that can
be solved with promises of aid and other forms of support. However, even
they miss the point when they frame the problem as one of failed nation-
building. What they typically leave out of their assessment of the country’s
condition is something that pervades its deeply corrupt political
structures, and at the same time extends far beyond its borders—namely,
capitalism.
To b or row a t er m fr om p ol it ic al s ci en ti st s Pa u l Ch am be rs an d Na pi sa
Waitoolkiat, Myanmar’s generals can best be understood as “khaki
capitalist” elites who have monopolized the country’s economy and
accumulated both enormous private wealth and institutional power.
However, as capitalism is an international system, they would not have
been able to do this without the collusion of the outside world.
As a source of cheap labour, land, and natural resources essential to the
global supply chain, Myanmar is immensely attractive to international
investors. But to access these resources, foreign corporations need the
cooperation of Myanmar’s highly centralised—and military-controlled—
state.!
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To j ust if y t hi s co nt ro l, a nd t o ex te nd i t in to re so ur ce -r ic h te rr it or ie s, t he
military routinely deploys the language of nation-building, declaring itself
to be the defender of the nation’s borders and sovereignty. If locals resist,
they are designated as insurgents who must be crushed. But the military
doesn’t just target political forces or armed groups; it also aims to
suppress existing forms of local governance, established economic
arrangements, and long-standing socio-cultural rights.
This process is not limited to outright armed conflict. As part of its
counterinsurgency operations, the military will also try to “win the hearts
and minds” of affected civilians by building roads, bridges and other
infrastructure, ostensibly to improve their lives. But such “development”
also serves another purpose: to facilitate the transfer of local wealth out of
the region and into the hands of high-ranking military officials, their
families and cronies, and their international partners.
The military’s approach to nation-building also serves global capitalism in
other ways. By displacing a significant segment of the local population, it
frees up land for investment. And those forced off that land often end up
in foreign countries as low-paid migrant labour. Thailand alone has millions
of Myanmar citizens in its workforce. Even those who are well-educated
but not necessarily well-connected must also seek employment abroad,
working in Singapore as engineers or IT technicians.
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A protester holds a placard showing pictures of four democracy activists executed by Myanmar
regime during a protest on the day of the anniversary of the '8888 Uprising' in front of the
Myanmar embassy in Berlin, Germany on August 8, 2022 (EPA)
Pseudo-democratic delusions
The beneficiaries of this system are those who own, invest, manage and
protect the capital that it generates—that is, the transnational class of
politicians, bureaucrats, security agents, investors, financiers, managers
and so on who collectively run the system at the national, regional, and
global level.
Looking at the international community’s role in Myanmar from the
perspective of this transnational class, there is no real divide between East
and West. Indeed, to use a Burmese idiom, they are like cork and bottle—
two parts of the same whole. While the Western democracies are
supposedly more inclined to support Myanmar’s democratic forces than
its neighbours, who are seen as leaning more towards the generals, both
sides are in practice working hand in hand with the khaki capitalists inside
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the country.!
This does not mean that Western governments and corporations have any
moral sympathy for Myanmar’s military, which they often, and rightly,
condemn as utterly ruthless and brutal. But at the same time, they do see
the advantage of dealing with an institution that can act violently in the
service of the global capitalist class. The fact that Myanmar has always
received the bare minimum from the West to help it achieve genuine
democracy is perhaps a reflection of this reality.
This was especially evident during the decade-long period of pseudo-
democratic rule under the administrations of President Thein Sein and
State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Activists urged foreign governments
and international investors not to do business with the military, noting that
it had shown no signs of ending its repressive ways. But such calls went
unheeded, or were even dismissed as misguided and irrational.
And so billions flowed into the country, much of it straight into the coffers
of military-owned conglomerates. The families and associates of top
generals also made out like bandits, further entrenching their status as
Myanmar’s ruling elite. But investors had no qualms about this, as they
knowingly propped up the heirs of ill-gotten fortunes and ensured their
continued domination of the country’s economy.
At the same time, arms suppliers—not just from China, Russia and India,
but also from Ukraine, Germany, France, Israel, the Netherlands, and
South Korea, among others—wasted no time signing contracts with a
military that had for decades shown no compunction about using its might
against unarmed civilians.
Japan and the EU also took part in this pretence of treating Myanmar’s
military as if it were something other than a killing machine wholly under
the control of the country’s khaki capitalists by providing it with “capacity-
building” training. This same military also received invitations to regional
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security cooperation forums and joint military exercises, even as it ramped
up its genocidal campaigns against the Rohingya and other minorities.
Meanwhile, civil society organizations working on human rights,
accountability and transitional justice issues were increasingly sidelined,
as donors reduced or suspended their support for groups engaged in
such “controversial” activities. What some appeared to fear was that such
support could jeopardize their relations with the military, which was
naively (or perhaps cynically)! ! portrayed as an institution susceptible to
reform.
Time for a post-coup pivot?
The coup and its aftermath have, of course, made it difficult to maintain
these self-serving illusions. But now that two years have passed, UN
teams and Western diplomats have begun to rebuild relations with the
military—not, they say, to lend legitimacy to the coup regime, but to
coordinate humanitarian aid.
The international community has clearly made a calculation that the
military-backed party will win elections expected to be staged later this
year. In fact, the military plans to be the perennial winner from now on.
This means that it only makes sense to normalise relations sooner rather
than later. It also explains why cross-border aid and more tangible support
for democratic actors in Myanmar have not been forthcoming.
Seen in this light, sanctions imposed on the regime by the United States
and its allies, such as those included in the so-called BURMA Act (actually
just a series of amendments to the latest iteration of the National Defense
Authorization Act), aim not so much to punish the military as to set
parameters within which it can operate in the service of transnational
capital.
The point is that Myanmar remains under a dictatorship not just because
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of the failure of domestic forces to remove it from power, but because of
international forces that continue to reinforce its grip. The role of the
international community has been to keep Myanmar’s military elites
confident, their economic power strong, and their machine of mass
brutality fierce.
For this reason, it is not so much a question of what other countries can
do to assist Myanmar’s democratic forces as what they can do to stop
helping the military stay in power.
Historically, most groups resisting the military’s hegemony, including both
the Bamar political opposition and ethnic organisations, have looked more
to the West than to Myanmar’s neighbours for support. In some ways, this
has been a strategic mistake. It has allowed other governments in the
region to regard the regime’s opponents as Western proxies, even as they
do very little themselves to assist efforts to establish a less immiserating
political order in Myanmar.
It goes without saying that no country will help Myanmar purely out of
sympathy and benevolence. All act in accordance with their elite interests
and regional and global ambitions. It therefore follows that the countries
with the strongest economic and security interests in Myanmar will have
the greatest influence on its political evolution. And so it is critical for
Myanmar’s opposition forces to build relations with these countries,
including China, India and Thailand.
This means formulating diplomatic strategies that reflect other countries’
domestic and foreign policy concerns in the global context, as well as the
inner workings of their elite circles and bureaucracies, and not expecting
wholesale support for democracy. What it doesn’t mean is leaving the
Western orbit altogether. Indeed, since East and West are inextricably
bound up in the same capitalist system, this is arguably not even
possible.!
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However, if Myanmar’s federal and democratic forces are to succeed in
breaking the military’s hold on power, they will have to rely less on the
rhetoric of shared political values and more on our ability to recognise the
ways that even those we consider to be our friends are acting against our
best interests.
Dr. Sai Latt studied International Development, Human Geography
and Asian Studies at York University in Canada. He received his Ph.D
from Simon Fraser University. His research includes armed conflicts,
development and violence.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect Myanmar Now’s editorial stance.