MYANMAR FOCUS: Will the EU support Thailand's new humanitarian corridor to Myanmar and the military's "return to the barracks"?
Plus, David Cameron mentions Myanmar in Bangkok; a round-up of what's been happening in Myanmar this week; and a Q&A with Georg Bauer on EU sanctions
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Good morning! Welcome to the latest “Myanmar Focus” edition of Watching Europe In Southeast Asia, written by journalist and columnist David Hutt.
As well as weekly news briefs about Europe-Southeast Asia engagement, this newsletter also brings you exclusive analysis and in-depth Q&As with leading diplomats and businesspeople from both regions.
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Tomorrow, I’ll publish a long analysis of the EU’s engagement with Myanmar’s ethnic armed organisations (EAOs), a subject that remains murky and unclear. But, for now, here’s a round-up of what’s been happening over the past seven days…
— EU SUPPORT FOR THAILAND’S CONTROVERSIAL AID SCHEME?: On March 25, Thailand sent its first shipment of humanitarian aid to Myanmar. But, as AP reported, “critics charge that the aid will benefit only people in areas under the Myanmar military’s control, providing it with a propaganda boost while leaving the vast majority of displaced people in contested areas without access to assistance.” According to Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-nukara, the EU has said it supports the process. (I cannot find a public statement from the EU to that effect). Moreover, the Thai Enquirer reported last month that, according to Parnpree, the European Union “is expected to donate 20 million euros to assist the humanitarian efforts along the corridor”.It’s not clear if that was a reference to funding for the corridor itself or to the EU’s announcement around the same time that it will allocate an additional €19.2 million for “humanitarian consequences of the ongoing conflict in Myanmar, as well as the needs of the almost 1 million Rohingya refugees who continue to live in Bangladesh”. However, a reliable source tells me that no funding has been made available yet, and any future funding would depend on the humanitarian corridor delivering to all those in need based on international humanitarian principles, which is very unlikely. And a European Commission spokesperson told me: “In 2024, the EU has so far allocated €19.2 million in humanitarian aid funding to address the immediate needs of the most vulnerable people in Myanmar, including displaced and conflict-affected communities. This does not fund neither the AHA centre [the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, which is reportedly assisting in the Thai-led humanitarian corridor scheme] nor the Thai Red Cross.” But watch this space. Igor Driesmans, the EU’s special envoy on Myanmar, was in Bangkok on March 26 and met with Thailand’s vice foreign minister, Sihasak Phuangketkeow. Driesmans tweeted that they discussed “the situation in Myanmar, including humanitarian aid. The EU supports ASEAN efforts and Thailand has a key role to play as a neighbouring country.”
— BACK TO THE BARRACKS?: At the opening of the 𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑉𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠, 𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑠 exhibition on Myanmar in Brussels this week, Heidi Hautala, a European Parliament vice-president, gave the opening speech. A quick chat to camera on the sidelines was put on Twitter/X by the European Parliament in the ASEAN group. “We want to be on the side of a peaceful, democratic, inclusive Myanmar. The military has to go back to the barracks, and democracy must prevail," it paraphrased her as saying. This wasn’t precisely what she said, but the “barracks” reference was. Maybe I have missed it, but I haven’t heard an EU politician/lawmaker say this explicitly before. Many inside the revolutionary camp in Myanmar haven’t decided yet how they want to deal with the military after the fighting stops (and if they win). More radical voices want the national military, as it currently exists, to be dissolved and not replaced; some of these folks want local militia to be the defence forces in a post-conflict, federal state. A few months ago, Thiha Wint Aung and Htet Min Lwin argued that one shouldn’t be “talking about simply replacing the current Burmese siq-taq with the [PDFs]… or a future federal army.” Instead, they wrote, “We are calling for the total abolition of the so-called national army and all kinds of armed groups within this territory called today ‘Myanmar’.” Less radical voices argue that a new federal army should be formed from the ranks of the EAOs and PDFs, which would also require the dissolution of the current military. In any case, not that many voices in Myanmar reckon that the military can simply “return to the barracks” once the fighting ends. No one would trust it not to launch a coup again. The blood-stained generals would surely have to stand trial if the anti-junta forces win. The EAOs and PDFs would be unlikely to support the return to the status quo ante. Would a military back in the barracks also keep its place in parliament? Maybe Hautala wasn’t ventriloquising EU policy, but an end goal where the military simply marches back into its barracks isn’t one shared by many Burmese fighters right now. For the most part, the EU has been cagey about saying what it thinks a post-conflict Myanmar should resemble.
— A WORD ON MYANMAR: When the UK's foreign secretary, David Cameron, visited Thailand on March 20, he reportedly discussed the situation in Myanmar with his Thai hosts. It’s not clear how much was actually said. One imagines not very much, given that he came to sign a strategic partnership with Thailand, to talk trade with Thailand, and to talk mainly about Thailand. Reportedly, Cameron described the conflict as a “multifaceted civil war” (fair enough), and the Foreign Office had a sentence on Myanmar in its briefing: “Thailand is an important UK security partner, particularly on advancing peace and reconciliation in Myanmar and protecting international law and regional cooperation.” That latter comment, you might notice, was actually more about Thailand than Myanmar, which is one of the problems when a foreign ministry shows up in a country (and only really wants to talk about that country) and is expected to reference another. Thai officials most likely didn’t want to speak about Myanmar either; they wanted to chat about new UK business deals and trade. Earlier this month, Cameron had faced protests back in London from activists who demanded faster implementation of targeted sanctions against the junta. His Bangkok trip probably didn’t appease them.
— CHINA SELLING EVS TO MYANMAR ‘ON THE CHEAP’: It may be of interest to European car manufacturers—which have already led with accusations that China is distorting international markets by selling electric vehicles at below production cost to kill off competitors—that cheap EVs are apparently flooding into Myanmar. Voice of America quoted an anonymous expert inside Myanmar as saying that this is because of “China's oversupply of EVs and the military government's prohibition against importing high-end luxury EVs” and that “People are turning to EVs due to new fuel-run motor vehicle import bans.” That’s good news for the EU’s sanctions regime—it’s starting to bite. But bad news, potentially, for European EV manufacturers, although Myanmar was probably not an important market for them.
— UK OFFERS SCHOLARSHIP TO MYANMAR’S WOMEN BUT BUREAUCRATIC NIGHTMARE AWAITS: In a bit of good news, the UK government has said that it will provide scholarships for women in Myanmar and across ASEAN to study a Masters in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics in certain leading UK universities. Deadlines to three universities close next month. More info here. More scholarships for Burmese students would be welcome across Europe. However, it’s far from easy even getting the necessary documents for non-scholarship students to study in European universities. Some colleagues in Central Europe spent months trying to get one EU government to allow a handful of Burmese students entrance to study because they had been studying at one of the rebel-led universities. Naturally, this was something of a bureaucratic nightmare. Kafkaesque, to use the cliche. Would the EU member state government accept accreditation from the NUG if the EU doesn’t recognise the NUG as the legitimate government? But, then, neither does the EU recognise the SAC as the legitimate government. What about the local embassy? Well, many of these are SAC-run. In the end, it took some time, and plenty of explaining to the officials of said EU government, but the students got their visas and their permission to study in Europe. One imagines things might be simpler if the UK is handing out scholarships, but Whitehall will probably have the same difficulties with processing documents of rebel-led universities and which government (the SAC or NUG) accredits the students’ visas.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MYANMAR?
On March 20, the NUG’s Central Committee for Interim Implementation of Local Administration announced its Interim Implementation of Local Administration and Social Services plan. “As the junta collapses, the NUG can provide stability because of public support and interim local administration systems,” it states. “The NUG has invested extensively in creating systems of local social service systems, as evidenced by the scale and capacities to provide humanitarian assistance, health, and education.”
The NUG also released its Military Code of Conduct for People's Defence Forces.
“Military-ruled Myanmar plans to have an election if there is peace and stability in the country but may not be able to hold it nationwide, its top general said, as the junta battles to contain a rebellion on multiple fronts.” (Reuters, Myanmar's next election may not be nationwide, junta chief says, March 25.)
“The rancorous relationship between Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's imprisoned elected leader, and Aung San Oo, her estranged older brother, reached a new impasse on Wednesday when no bidders showed up for the court-ordered auction of their famous family home in Yangon.” (Nikkei Asia, Myanmar's failed auction of Suu Kyi's home creates conundrum, March 22)
Calvin San, Conscription will worsen Myanmar’s dire humanitarian crisis, East Asia Forum
“Myanmar junta is weakening, world needs to cut off weapons” (Radio Free Asia interview with Tom Andrews, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.
SOME WORDS FROM…
The EU has now imposed eight rounds of sanctions on the junta and its aligned businesses. I’m hearing rumours that another round could be introduced soon. Given that they’re now usually announced on a symbolic date, it could be when the junta’s forced conscription scheme formally starts next month. For those interested, here is a database on EU sanctions on Myanmar that was updated on March 25. Activist groups are calling for more. Yadanar Maung, a spokesperson for Justice For Myanmar, a prominent campaign group, told me this week:
The Myanmar military is continuing to escalate its war of terror against the people of Myanmar. The EU and other European governments must respond with robust, coordinated sanctions that target the military junta and its sources of funds, arms and jet fuel to stop the escalation of atrocities. The lives of the youth and future of Myanmar is at risk. Myanmar’s neighbors are notorious for pushing back refugees seeking safety, failing to provide life-saving protection that they desperately seek. This will only further impact regional peace and stability and it is imperative that neighboring countries provide legal protection to those fleeing Myanmar and end complicity in the junta's international crimes.
For this week’s Q&A, I spoke to Georg Bauer, a PhD candidate on the history of human rights and democracy at the University of Vienna and who previously worked for the EU Delegation in Myanmar, about the EU’s sanctions policy more generally, including whether the EU should end Myanmar’s place in the EBA scheme and what happens with sanctions once the conflict ends.
First off, what are your general impressions of the EU’s sanctions policy on Myanmar since the coup?
I think the overall problem is a lack of a coherent approach and strategy to Myanmar. It feels like the EU as a whole still does not really know what it wants for the country – other than the usual “return to the path to democracy” phrases that are not much more than that – and therefore also does not have a clear idea on how to achieve that. There is simply too little interest in and knowledge of the country in most EU member states–and EU institutions–for that, it feels.
What do you make the argument that the EU’s sanctions policy has been weakened by having to go through so many rounds? Why not impose all of these sanctions at the beginning, in the first tranche of sanctions? Why wait a year to sanction Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), for instance?
My best guess would be that they did not want to use all leverage at once, hoping that there was a way back from the coup. It should have been clear, however, after the first month already, that that wasn’t going to happen. Nevertheless, I guess they hoped that they could use some sanctions still as a potential threat to pressure the military instead of directly using them. Plus, when it comes to MOGE, from what I have heard from close sources, it was France who blocked that, as Total (and protecting it) was a prime focus for them, it seems.
Can the EU impose more sanctions? Who should be next on the list?
I think one possibility is certainly going after the high-ranking generals’ and cronies’ families if any of them live or have assets in the EU. Making life harder for them seems justified in this situation and might help exert pressure on the regime from their supporters within. If there is a way that certain sanctions could impact the delivery of jet fuel, that would be another very important option.
A report in February found that, despite sanctions, timber from a sanctioned Myanmar state-run firm was still being imported into Europe, mainly Italy. What more can the EU and European governments do to actually enforce the sanctions?
We see that even with the sanctions on Russia, there seem to be ways to circumvent them way too easily – now, connections between Myanmar and Europe are, of course, much smaller, but there still should be proper enforcement of sanctions, otherwise they remain as effective as statements of concern. This would require a proper effort of time and resources in all member states – who are responsible for the enforcement of sanctions – which, again, I fear, is limited due to the limited interest in Myanmar in most of them.
Some commentators, including myself, have questioned whether the EU should have removed Myanmar from the Everything But Arms scheme. Some European trade union groups have demanded that the EU remove these privileges. I believe you’re against such a move. Why should the EU maintain these privileges for Myanmar? But isn’t there an argument that had the EU stripped Myanmar of its trade privileges in the first months after the coup, it would have weakened the economy much more, thereby weakening the junta’s (albeit low) claims to economic legitimacy, and potentially have shortened this conflict?
First, I don’t think they would have much impact on the military, while having a huge and potentially destructive impact on the workers and their families currently employed in factories delivering to Europe. This would be a big imbalance, potentially even hurting the revolution – I would guess that some workers support revolutionary efforts with money, even if it is not much; if they lose their jobs, not only would we have to find a way to support them (which is already a big difficulty for the many Civil Disobediance Movement civil servants still on strike), but also the resistance would lose this support base.
Second, as long as these factories deliver to Europe/European brands, these brands have at least some influence on how they operate. Granted, the situation has worsened a lot in many factories since the coup, but there is some leverage left for the brands to pressure the factories, and some EU projects supporting workers and their conditions are still running as well.
Third, even if producers for the EU market leave, the factories might be taken over to then produce for the Chinese/Asian market – which usually means even worse conditions and zero influence from the EU and European brands’ side.
Fourth, on the argument that it would have weakened the junta: maybe it would have, maybe not. As far as we know, the textile sector is not gaining them that much revenue, though it certainly does by paying taxes etc. But again, if EU brands are forced to leave, this doesn’t necessarily mean that factories close down and revenue to the SAC will be lost, at least not long-term, as the factories might be taken over by producers for the Asian markets. And again, the potential costs of the benefit of hurting the junta economically, in my view, outweigh the potential benefits. Plus, the military has shown, throughout its various forms of totalitarian rule, be it under the BSPP or as SLORC/SPDC, and again after the coup, that they simply don’t care if the economy goes down the drain. They will not suffer personally – at least not substantially – and they don’t give the slightest bit if millions of Burmese are destitute. They are burning down villages by the hundreds, why would they care if people were in the slums of Hlaingtharya?
Fifth, I again want to point to the lack of strategy, though not necessarily or primarily from the EU, but also from the resistance. Yes, totally bringing down the economy could be the strategy, but neither have I seen that this was the way of the revolution, nor have they claimed it. On the contrary, the NUG has been consistent in saying they want EBA to stay in place (and so have, by the way, all Burmese activists I have spoken to – the only ones who demand that are the few unions whose leaders are mostly abroad, who, for some reason, the international unions perceive to be the “real” voice of the workers; not even the Burma Campaign UK is in favour of EBA withdrawal). So as long as a total breakdown of the economy is not the strategy of the resistance, it should not be the strategy of the EU either (irrespective of the fact that the EU does not have that economic power in Myanmar anyway).
Sixth, I also believe we should think about the future. If and when the revolution succeeds, there will be an enormous need to rebuild the economy. In this case, it is much easier to build on something that you have, than to start totally anew. Once brands leave, they will source from elsewhere, and it’s questionable whether they will move back after the revolution, as it would cost them time and, most of all, money. So staying will also help the rebuilding of the country after the fall of the regime.
Two hypotheticals. Imagine the anti-junta forces prevail and are able to form a post-junta, civilian government, does the EU immediately end all of the sanctions? And imagine that the junta is able to win this civil war and consolidate power. What does the EU do then? Should it maintain existing sanctions even if, in such a situation, there appears no meaningful way to oust the military government?
I don’t know enough about the specific economic aspects, and there are a lot of sub-scenarios (who controls which parts of the country and how? Is there already a political/constitutional solution?), on which the details depend. One thing I think we can confidently say is that the arms embargo should stay in place until the constitutional issues are finally rectified. The country is already awash in arms and once the military is gone, the differences should be negotiated on the table, not the battlefield. Allowing any of the actors access to (modern) arms would skew and inhibit this process, I believe.
As for the other sanctions, this should be decided on a case-by-case basis, with due consideration of the political situation. The leverage of retracting sanctions could be used to help push some potentially stubborn and obstructive parts of the negotiating table, if necessary (though I also have doubts whether we’d understand the negotiations well enough to make use of this opportunity properly, but that’s going too far now). It will, overall, require a well thought-out approach to the new situation in the country.
If the regime persists, though I remain optimistic that they will not, this is, of course, still possible. Again, though, it’s hard to say now what we should do then. It will depend on the specific scenario – how does control of the country actually look like? I do not see a realistic scenario in which the military manages to root out all of the armed resistance groups, so in the best case (from the military’s view), they will control the heartland as they did before the coup, while large swaths of the highlands would presumably still be in the hand of different (ethnic) resistance actors. Then it would depend on what the opposition movement would still look like – have they surrendered? Are they completely in exile? Hiding in ERO areas? Do they have a strategy? I think, in any case, we are talking about a scenario many years in the future, and potentially even more years before the EU can restart engagement with a re-settled military regime. Again, a proper strategy, built on proper analysis and in coordination with the democracy and federalism movement, will need to be in place.
Anything else?
Let me add one final, general comment on sanctions. While I, of course, agree that they are a useful and necessary tool, I also believe that in this case, they have served – together with pointing to ASEAN – as an excuse not to directly support the resistance. We constantly talk about sanctions, and almost never about what we can actively do to support the NUG and EROs, despite there being ample opportunities – in humanitarian aid, health care, education, infrastructure, capacity building etc, etc. With such measures, you do not have the same negative impact component as with sanctions. The automatic resort to sanctions – and I think that activists share the blame in that as it is also most of their go-to demand, to be honest – blinds us to see which opportunities there are to actively support the federal democracy movement and revolution.