Myanmar as a nation is poverty-stricken, polarized, and plagued with military rule, completely ravaged by an ongoing civil war. Freedom House gives the country a total freedom score of 9 out of 100, which is one of the lowest scores in the world. There are a great number of reasons for this, the majority of which can be categorized as some form of democratic backsliding. Although there are a small portion of reasons to view the military coup and ensuing civil war as a simple loss of democracy rather than actual backsliding, however the evidence for the latter is much more convincing and can be seen clearly after close examination. More than this, although it is clear that a harsh military rule and a lack of personal freedoms were the main factors of democratic backsliding that led to Myanmar’s current civil war, the main driving force was the multiple shabby attempts at peace that have no real weight and are easily broken.
In February of 2021, Myanmar’s military, more commonly locally called the Tatmadaw, seized the government, putting a state of emergency in place. This stemmed from the general elections held in November of 2020, in which the clear winner was Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy. The Tatmadaw were heavy, and quite public, supporters of the opposing party, and with the recent election results, they claimed voter fraud. When there was no evidence to support this, the Tatmadaw staged a military coup against Suu Kyi and her party. Today, a civil war is rampaging the nation with non-state ethnic organizations and citizen-led militias fighting against the Tatmadaw. This has been ongoing for years now, and a very prominent question is why exactly this war started, has gone on for so long, and has not ended.
Many point to the democratic backsliding that had occurred heavily in the nation in the months prior to the coup as well as in the years following; however the true culprit is the recurring peace talks and treaties that are consistently backtracked or broken. Although democratic backsliding can be seen with the repression of personal liberties and completely barred access to the government or any governmental process, there are a number of accounts that peace was attempted to be made a number of times before the coup even occurred. According to the United States Institute of Peace, there has been more than one ceasefire agreement that was signed by multiple groups, but ultimately was rejected or scrapped. This includes the nationwide ceasefire agreement in 2015, which was signed by a number of different ethnic groups in the nation, but a great majority of the ethnic fighters in the nation have refused to stop fighting.
The lack of peace in a sensitive and fragile nation such as this can have a number of detrimental effects on a nation’s democracy, and even cause further backsliding. Examples include an increase in the number of combatants due to civilians feeling as though there is no other way toward peace and a loss of trust between different ethnic groups due to their signing of treaties with contradictory continued fighting. All of this is much more substantial and evident within the rocky history of Myanmar, and when looked for can be found clearly, such as the great number of ethnic groups that continue to fight along with the civilian militias possibly being because of how many peace efforts were thrown out, causing the people and their groups to fall into a despair that the only way to gain peace is to fight now. Along with the ethnic issues, there is a lack of both punishment and answerability as described by Ellen Lust in “Unwelcome Change: Understanding, Evaluating, and Extending Theories of Democratic Backsliding”. Answerability is not found due to the ethnic issues in the country, and there is a direct lack of punishment due to the lack of answerability. The loss of answerability causes the people to run amok under the noses of the arguing groups, which then causes the different groups to blame any issues on each other. This then eliminates any chance for punishment for the people.
Despite the consistent peace talks and agreements that are drafted, the country of Myanmar still continues to be ravaged by an ongoing and bloody civil war. The people of the nation continue to fight the dictatorship of the government’s rule in order to stop them from being able to consolidate power throughout the nation. There have been a number of incredibly violent attempts by the government to quell the citizens of the nation, including killing over 100 people in one day on March 27th, which is Armed Forces Day in the nation according to Harvard Political Review. Once again, although there are a number of ways in which fragments of democratic backsliding are viewed as the main culprit for the current civil war ravaging the nation, we can also consider the weak attempts at peace that have held up worse than a paper dam. Tens of thousands have been killed so far in the nation, and it is truly time that the country as a whole must come together and create a declaration of peace in order to rid the country of its fighting.
References:
Maizland, Lindsay. “Myanmar’s Troubled History: Coups, Military Rule, and Ethnic Conflict.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/myanmar-history-coup-military-rule-ethnic-conflict-rohingya.
Timalsina, Tarun. “Democratic Backsliding: The Coup in Myanmar.” Harvardpolitics.Com, Harvard Political Review, https://harvardpolitics.com/democratic-backsliding/.
“Myanmar: Freedom in the World 2023 Country Report.” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/country/myanmar/freedom-world/2023.
Lintner, Bertil. “Why Burma’s Peace Efforts Have Failed to End Its Internal Wars.” United States Institute of Peace, 2 Oct. 2020, www.usip.org/publications/2020/10/why-burmas-peace-efforts-have-failed-end-its-internal-wars.
Lust, Ellen. “Understanding, Evaluating, and Extending Theories of Democratic Backsliding.” USAID, USAID, 11 June 2015, pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PBAAD635.pdf.
Hello, Luke!
This is an interesting take on the root cause of Myanmar’s civil war. Instead of solely pointing to the usual manifestations of democratic backsliding, you acknowledged that the weak attempts at peace-building are actually what significantly contributes to the prolongation of the civil war. Indeed, the ongoing civil war is not as simple as the Myanma people versus the Tatmadaw. The Myanma people are further divided into various ethnic groups. This makes it even more difficult to have a consolidated stance on the peace treaties, especially since, as you mentioned, different ethnic groups have different levels of commitment in fighting against their supposed common enemy. The failed ceasefire agreements definitely sowed distrust between the ethnic groups, driving them further apart. I think the article would have been more convincing if you incorporated a few specific examples of flawed peace efforts that remarkably led to further polarization among the ethnic groups and how these contributed to democratic erosion. Nonetheless, I think this is a fresh perspective on unraveling the civil war in Myanmar. I enjoyed reading this piece.