Brutality backfires on Myanmar’s secretive junta

With each passing day, the number of unarmed civilian protesters killed by Myanmar’s security forces grows. It is now edging towards a thousand. Fears increase of an even more brutal crackdown. Talk of an armed uprising and possible civil war is becoming more common.

Despite the nationwide rejection of the coup, the danger is that the longer the elected government is locked up, the tighter the junta’s grip on power becomes. Many foreign embassies boycotted the Armed Forces Day parade in March, but the junta will have taken comfort from the presence of representatives from countries such as India and China.

Russia also attended and sent a deputy defence minister, who spoke of Moscow’s desire for closer relations as he watched MiG-29s fly overhead. Russia likewise props up the regimes of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus.

With such support, Myanmar’s outcome may prove little different to that in Hong Kong, Belarus or Venezuela, where pro-democracy protests backed by the west have failed to oust or soften the policies of repressive regimes. Yet Myanmar is distinctive in ways that mean this is not inevitable.

The first is that the other uprisings were against established regimes, however unpleasant. In Myanmar the people are trying to reinstate a democratically elected, indeed just re-elected, government, that has been kicked out by military brute force.

Then there are Myanmar’s generals. They are ruthless in suppressing dissent among rank-and-file soldiers, who are uneasy about being asked to kill their compatriots. But they are politically naive, secretive and inward-looking. Isolated from reality in Naypyidaw, their remote capital, they seem to have miscalculated reactions at home and abroad to their coup.

The scale and sophistication of resistance has wrongfooted the generals. Previous protests were largely in the main population centres, but unrest has spread throughout Myanmar. General strikes and go-slows have handicapped essential services and supplies. The country risks grinding to a halt.

The junta is gradually shutting down the internet, making it hard to communicate. Still, the protesters have made effective use of social media platforms, and real-time footage of atrocities is being beamed to the world. The generals also seem to have gambled that western disillusionment with Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s deposed leader, would lead to a muted reaction. That view has proved mistaken.

Some of Myanmar’s partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are speaking out. Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, has called the repression “disastrous”. Indonesia and Malaysia have pressed Brunei, the Asean chair, to convene a meeting specifically to discuss Myanmar.

China, whose reaction is crucial, does not appear ready to accept the coup as a fait accompli. Like Moscow, Beijing blocked UN Security Council condemnation of the coup. But China did agree to a UN statement expressing concern about the state of emergency and the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and other ministers. China appears to have opened a line of communication with the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, a body representing the elected civilian government.

China will not be concerned by any reputational harm from backing the generals, but will care about possible damage to its interests. As the west turned its back on Aung San Suu Kyi, China stepped into the breach. Beijing has a large economic stake in Myanmar and was rattled by the recent torching of several Chinese-owned factories. An unstable Myanmar also threatens the success of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road project in which Myanmar could play a key role as a crossroads.

The final difference is Aung San Suu Kyi herself. Hong Kong’s protests were famously leaderless. Opposition leaders in Venezuela and Belarus have many qualities, but none can match Aung San Suu Kyi’s star power with their electorates. In Myanmar she remains untouchable. Her second landslide election win in November was evidence of that.

Her endurance of years of house arrest and her status as the daughter of General Aung San, the father of Burmese independence, means she will always be the Myanmar people’s choice. By locking her up and trying to drag the country back to its authoritarian past, the generals have unleashed a resistance that even their brutal methods may not be able to extinguish.

The writer, a former UK ambassador to Myanmar, is honorary professor at the Senator George J Mitchell Institute at Queen’s University, Belfast