This is a bit of a longer post, but I wanted to try to give a brief overview of the context of Myanmar’s current conflict. It is by no means comprehensive, so if you have any points or thoughts to add, please do share in the comments. Alternatively, if you want to learn more, feel free to explore the resources I’ve listed at the end or comment with your own!

When I first arrived in Chiang Mai, one of my hosts, Nan San, graciously took me in as I looked for my own place. At that point, my body-clock was so confused by the 30 hours of travel and 11-hour time difference that I had no sense of when to go to sleep, so she and I talked every night for hours, mostly about Myanmar’s conflict and history.

One of the delicious Shan meals Nan San cooked for us

Although many of the details were lost to my addled brain, one point from our first discussion firmly stuck with me and has come up in almost every other meeting, conversation, podcast, and article I’ve engaged with since: while Myanmar has experienced decades of conflict and military rule, the current conflict is different and offers hope for lasting change.

As Nan San explained to me while we sat in pajamas at her dining room table with the air-con buzzing in the background, there have been two distinct movements in Myanmar: one for democracy, primarily driven by the ethnic majority, and one for equality, primarily driven by ethnic minorities. “This is a turning point because the majority ethnic group is seeing the oppression of the minorities and experiencing oppression at the hands of the Bamar military themselves.”

Map of Myanmar
Retrieved from Minoletti, La Ring, & Bjarnegård (2020)

Myanmar’s population is estimated at about 57 million people, and it officially includes 135 ethnic groups. The Burmese majority, also known as Bamar, make up about 68% of the population and mainly live in the central regions, whereas the ethnic minorities are primarily based in the surrounding states: Rakhine, Chin, Kachin, Shan, Kayah, Kayin, and Mon. The Pa-O – the group I am primarily working with – are based in southern Shan State, which borders Thailand and boasts a variety of other minority groups.

Conflict has persisted in these diverse states since the country’s independence. In some cases, the fighting is a continuation of a battle for self-determination pre-dating independence, and in other cases, it is a response to oppression. To dominate the ethnic minorities, maintain control over the border areas, and access natural resources, among other reasons, Myanmar’s regimes have carried out human rights abuses in these states for decades. These abuses include extrajudicial killings, forced labor, torture, and land confiscation. Such abuses have taken place since the country’s independence, not only under the military juntas but also under the democratically-elected government in the late 2010s.

Historical Overview

Myanmar regained independence from Britain in 1948 and started out – at least nominally – as a tenuous parliamentary democracy. In 1962, however, the military, led by General Ne Win, staged a coup, after which military juntas officially held power until 2011. Those decades saw both a growth in ethnic resistance groups (known as Ethnic Armed Organizations, or EAOs) in response to their oppression and exploitation as well as multiple democracy campaigns, two of which led to regime changes.

In 1988, a wave of protests known as the “8888 Uprising” swept across Myanmar. Triggered by a student movement and responding to erratic economic conditions, corruption, and food shortages, the movement peaked on August 8, earning its name. It was, however, met with a brutal crackdown, in which at least 3000 people were killed and thousands more were displaced.

General Ne Win did, however, end up stepping down, and a new military junta took over, changing the country’s name from “Burma” to “Myanmar,” moving the capital, and arranging an election in 1990. Although the opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won with 81% of votes, and their leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, earned a Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent efforts at building democracy, the military junta ignored the results and continued to rule until the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

In 2007, facing widespread anti-government protests and increasing international pressure, the junta began to loosen controls and instituted a new constitution in 2008. This constitution remains in place today and gives the military expansive powers even under civilian rule. So, even following the junta’s official dissolution in 2011, the military maintained substantial control.

After a series of gradual reforms during a transitional period from 2011 to 2015, Myanmar held its first nationwide, multiparty elections in 2015 for a unitary government. The NLD won in a landslide again, and Suu Kyi became the de facto leader of the civilian government. The military retained significant control, however, and continued to oppress ethnic minorities, to the extent that it was accused of committing genocide against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017. The civilian government denied these allegations and essentially turned a blind eye to the human rights abuses and fighting occurring in the border states.

Consequently, from many ethnic minority perspectives, even though Myanmar had a form of democracy, the democratic government model failed to represent and serve them. This failure was a result of both the military’s continued dominance and a lack of representation of minorities in the unitary government system; the NLD, composed of members of the ethnic majority, did not have to concern itself with minority constituents to ensure success in future elections because of the majority-rules system. Furthermore, many Bamar did not know of or believe the extent of the human rights abuses occurring in the border states. The coup, however, has helped to change this mentality.

Building Understanding Since the Coup

Nan San and Khun Oo at Angkaew Resevoir in Chiang Mai

After another landslide NLD victory in the 2020 election, the military staged a coup in February, 2021. The people responded with massive protests and strikes, and when the military reacted with force, many Bamar people fled to the border states. My hosts, Nan San and Khun Oo, told me a story about one of these people arriving to a town in Shan State. He had just seen multiple people killed and escaped the fighting when he arrived at this town where people were celebrating a holiday. He was shocked and asked how they could be celebrating when these horrors were taking place. The people in the village replied, “this is how it always is; we have to keep living somehow.”

Interactions like these have built a new degree of understanding and solidarity across ethnic divides, leading to collaboration among many EAOs and newly formed People’s Defense Forces (PDFs, armed groups formed by the Bamar majority). Additionally, the ousted NLD elected lawmakers have worked with several minority groups to establish a government-in-exile, known as the National Unity Government (NUG), which has declared war on the junta and is collaborating with many minority organizations.

Solidarity and understanding has been built both regarding the immediate threat of the military junta and, to some extent, the ultimate goal of a representative federal democracy. But, as Nan San explained to me in her living room last week, even when federal democracy is the agreed-upon goal, the questions of which variety of federalism, the degree of centralization, and how to get there are fiercely debated across the board.

Sources & Resources:

• Insight Myanmar podcast: Call it a Revolution (for more episodes: https://insightmyanmar.org/podcasts)
• Minority Rights Groups: Myanmar Profile
• Council on Foreign Relations article: Myanmar’s Troubled History: Coups, Military Rule, and Ethnic Conflict
• Asia Foundation: Myanmar Timeline
• 2004 NRC Report 
• Article in Critical Asian Studies: Myanmar’s military coup and the elevation of the minority agenda?
• USIP article: Nine Things to Know About Myanmar’s Conflict Three Years On