Myanmar airstrikes reopen ethnic wounds
The past few weeks have seen some of the heaviest fighting in Myanmar's
decades-long civil war with government forces launching determined
attacks against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an ethnic force in
the far north of the country. And for the first time ever, the
government has used helicopter gunships and attack aircraft against the
country's ethnic rebels. Most of the fighting is taking place around the
KIA's headquarters at the border town of Laiza near China, and the
government seems determined to crush the Kachin resistance and gain
control over the area now administered by the rebels.
The
military campaign also sends signals to about a dozen other ethnic
armies which have entered into ceasefire agreements with the government.
In a statement issued on January 1, the United Nationalities Federal
Council (UNFC), an umbrella organisation of 12 such ethnic groups based
mainly on the Thai border in the south, said they felt threatened by the
offensive as well - and called for unity among Myanmar's
multitude of traditionally factious ethnic militias. "If we are not
able to act collectively now we will be destroyed individually," said a
participant at the meeting that adopted the statement.
According
to the official Burmese version of events - as described by Aung Min, a
minister in the president's office, in an interview with US National
Public Radio on January 7 - fighting broke out when the KIA refused to
remove some "barbed-wire fences" near Laiza to enable government forces
to "move in and deliver food". Fanciful statements such as Aung Min's
have only added fuel to the fire - as has the fact that the airstrikes
began in earnest on Christmas Eve. The vast majority of the Kachins are
Christians in a predominantly Buddhist country. "This we will never
forget or forgive," said a Kachin community worker.
Attacks in Karen State
Independent
observers point out that preparations for the offensive began several
months ago, when the government's side moved heavy weapons, including
artillery, into the area. Even more tellingly, in November, villagers in
Karen State in eastern Myanmar
were terrified when airplanes started dropping bombs and
machine-gunning their rice fields and other plantations. The Karen
National Union (KNU), the ethnic army in the area, has a ceasefire
agreement with the government, so the attacks, which did not hurt any
locals, came as a complete surprise. The government said the aircraft
were "taking part in a military training exercise" - which, in
hindsight, seems to have been a rehearsal for what now is happening in
Kachin State.
Judging
from photographs taken in Kachin State, the planes used appear to be
Hongdu JL-8, or Karakorum-8, light attack aircraft that Myanmar
acquired from China years ago. The helicopter gunships are Russian-made
Mi-35, the export version of the Mi-24 Hind that were used extensively
in the Afghan war in the 1980s. Myanmar
bought its first Mi-35s in September 2010, when even the KIA had a
ceasefire agreement with the government. The Kachins say they waited for
17 years - from 1994, when they actually made peace with the
government, until hostilities broke out when government forces entered
KIA-held territory in June 2011 - for political discussions about the
future status of the frontier areas, but in vain. Several rounds of new
talks in 2011 and 2012, which involved foreign interlocutors such as the
Switzerland-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, have produced no
results.
The crux of the matter is that there are two fundamentally opposing, and seemingly incompatible, views on how Myanmar's
decades-long ethnic quagmire should be resolved. The KIA and other
ethnic groups want autonomy within a federal union, while the government
defends the present, 2008 constitution which lays the foundations for a
centralised system. Critics argue that the ceasefire agreements the
government has reached with other ethnic armies have merely frozen the
underlying problems without providing lasting solutions to what is
basically a political issue. Thus, those ceasefires remain fragile, and
could end in the same way as the now-collapsed agreement with the
Kachins. There are at least 50,000 men and women in arms across the
country in various ethnic armies.
Some
ethnic groups were hopeful when pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was
released from house arrest in Myanmar's former capital, Yangon, in
November 2010. She then called for a second "Panglong Conference",
referring to an agreement that her father, Aung San, who led Myanmar's fight for freedom from colonial Britain, signed with representatives of several of Myanmar's many ethnic minorities in 1947. The agreement paved the way for a federal constitution that came into effect when Myanmar declared its independence in 1948.
Aung San was assassinated by a political rival in 1947, but his Panglong Agreement was honoured in Myanmar's
first constitution. However, some ethnic minorities, notably the Karen,
resorted to armed struggle anyway, and parts of the country were
plunged into civil war. In 1962, Myanmar's
experiment with parliamentary democracy and federalism ended abruptly
in a military coup. The new government, led by General Ne Win, adopted a
strictly centralised power structure - and the insurgencies flared
anew, especially in Shan and Kachin states, which until then had been
relatively peaceful.
Suu Kyi's silence
The United Nationalities Federal Council |
When
Suu Kyi first broached a "Second Panglong", she received the backing of
several ethnic leaders and organisations - but the authorities branded
her a "traitor" for resurrecting the idea of autonomy for minorities.
She has since gone quiet on this idea, and her silence has cost her the
support she once enjoyed in ethnic areas. Despite several appeals to the
Nobel Peace Prize laureate to act when there is a war in her own
country, she has steadfastly refused to do so.
On
January 6, she told French news agency AFP that she would not step in
to help end the worsening conflict between the army and the Kachins
without official approval. "It is up to the government. This case is
being handled by the government at the moment," she said - a statement
that caused dismay and even anger among many Kachins. At a recent
demonstration by Kachins in Australia, one protester carried a portrait
of Suu Kyi with tape over her mouth with the text: "Silence is
violence." It is widely suspected that she has reached an informal
accommodation with the government: she can remain a "Burmese" politician
- but not criticise the military, or become involved in the ethnic
issue, which is a question of national security and, therefore, the
responsibility of the military.
There
seems to be no doubt that the new, 2008 constitution remains the main
obstacle for solving the ethnic issue, and amending it is almost
impossible. Most significant clauses, including those concerning state
structure and ultimate military control over the decision-making
process, cannot be considered without the approval of more than 75
percent of all parliamentarians in both the Upper and Lower Houses - and
even then would need to be approved through a national referendum. In
practice, this makes any fundamental constitutional reform impossible,
especially as 25 percent of MPs consists of centrally appointed military
officers.
Scrapping
the 2008 constitution and drafting a new one based on some kind of
federal concept would be the only viable way to resolve Myanmar's
seemingly endless ethnic problems. But judging from the government's
response to such demands, and the ongoing, relentless offensive in
Kachin State, that is not likely to happen any time soon.
The
offensive may cripple the KIA militarily, but not defeat it. The only
outcome will be more intense ethnic hatred, making it even more
difficult to establish a lasting peace. And with Suu Kyi seemingly on
the side of the military, the gap between the majority Burmans and the
ethnics is wider and deeper than ever.
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