Research situation on the impact of myanmar civil war on asean

At the same time, there was the emergence of the military opposition, which were officials of the Remaining Civilian Party, which formed, named the National Unity Goverment of Myanmar NU

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY ORIENTAL STUDIES

ESSAY

TOPIC:

RESEARCH SITUATION ON THE IMPACT OF

MYANMAR CIVIL WAR ON ASEAN

LECTURER: HO THI THANH

STUDENT: NGUYEN THU TRANG

CODE: 21030578

SUBJECT: HK211-SEA1150-21-INTRODUCTION TO SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES INDUSTRY: SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES

KEY: QH-2021-X

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I FOREWORD……….2

II CONTENTS

1 Causes and consequences for the people of Myanmar's civil

war……….………3

1.1 Cause of the Civil War………3

1.2 Consequences of the civil war for the people of Myanmar …….4

2 Impact and solutions of ASEAN before the Myanmar civil war …….5

2.1 Impact of Myanmar’s civil war on ASEAN……5

2.2 ASEAN’s solutions to the problem of Myanmar……… 6

III EPILOGUE ……… 8

IV REFERENCES MATERIAL ………9

2

Myanmar is a country located in ASEAN and has an unstable political

background Recently, on February 1, 2021, the Tatmadaw military government arrested state adviser Aung San Suu Kyi and civil party officials and staged a coup This coup was met with very strong resistance, millions of Myanmar people stood up to protest and received in return the brutal and violent repression of the military government At the same time, there was the emergence of the military opposition, which were officials of the Remaining Civilian Party, which formed, named the National Unity Goverment of Myanmar (NUG), and officially declared war on the military junta Tatmadaw was led by General Min Aung Hlaing, thereby forming a civil war in Myanmar between the NUG Party and the Tatmadaw

military government, between the entire Myanmar people to the military

government I chose this topic because I realize that the impact of Myanmar's current civil war on ASEAN politics is very important, because Myanmar is one of the member states of ASEAN and ASEAN has a huge role to play in solving regional peace and security issues ASEAN will mediate Myanmar's civil war with appropriate measures The scope of this study's research ranges from civil war issues and ASEAN countries and ASEAN's solutions to political problems through research papers on the situation of Myanmar At the same time, through the essay,

I can see the views of the researchers on this issue and at the same time I would like to express my views on the impact of the internal affairs of Myanmar War on ASEAN politics Hopefully, after reading this essay, I hope that you will have a special interest in the problem that I have posed in the essay

II CONTENTS

1 Causes and consequences for the people of Myanmar's civil war

1.1 Causes of the Civil War

In the research paper of Russell Goldman on the issue of "Myanmar's

Coup, Explained"[1] has studied very clearly about the coup of Myanmar and very

detailed statistics and data On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military junta led by General Min Aung Hlaing ordered the arrest of state adviser Aung San Suu Kyi,

President Win Myint and a series of high-ranking government officials Myanmar civil rights and made a coup The junta claims that in the election of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy Party NLD in November 2020 election fraud while the Civil Party won 83% of the seats available in the agency And the military is also involved in Myanmar's political system with 25% of seats in

parliament But the military has alleged problems such as duplicate names on

candidate ballot lists across multiple counties and it is not satisfied with the way

electoral commissions have handled complaints The junta considers it necessary to defend its version of "disciplined democracy" Hence they made a coup and will elect

a new government This coup brought Myanmar back to full military rule after a brief period of semi-civilian rule that began in 2011 and was announced on television

owned by the army and the army quickly took control of the country's infrastructure only most of the television broadcasts and canceled domestic and international flights and declared a national emergency within a year having arrested government leaders

At the same time, the coup was announced on the military-owned Myanwaddy TV station All current power is in the hands of General Min Aung Hlaing Within hours, the military junta ordered the internet to be cut off, shutting down all stock markets for days But I think, for the documents of Russell Goldman, the reasons for the army

to stage a coup are not enough In my opinion, if only the cause of the alleged fraud in the election is not enough for the Myanmar military to conduct a coup, apart from that reason, I think there is still one more reason that has a deeper nature, it probably

stems from the deep conflict between the civilian NLD government and the

Tatmadaw military government While Aung San Suu Kyi wants to reform the

country, the military junta hopes that it will be able to continue to share powers,

equally, and run the country Tensions between the two sides are increasingly acute,

4

learned about the issues of: “ဖေဖေ ော်ဝါရီ စစော်အ ဏ သိမော််းဖ ေ့ရကော်မ ်းမှတော်တမော််း ''

(Record of the dates of the February coup)[4], clearly opposed to of the people of

Myanmar extremely intensely towards the military junta The protests began in

Yangon on February 7, 2021 with the participation of tens of thousands of people responding to the CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement) movement and gradually spread to Naypyitaw, Mandalay and more than 120 cities other street More than 100,000 people went to protest in Taungyi In the Irrawaddy Division, up to 1 million people from more than 20 different towns took to the streets to protest unarmed

According to the research paper of မငော််းထီ်း (Min Htee) on the issue: “မမ ော်မ နိိုငော်ငံ

အ ဏ သိမော််းမှု ေ့အ ဂတော်နိိုငော်ငံအဖမြေအဖ ”, (“Coup in Myanmar and the future of the country”)[4], in his comments about Myanmar, I also Agreeing with those statements,

I think that Myanmar is a failed country, with a lot of armed groups, ethnic groups all over the country and from there there will be ethnic conflicts The conflicts, ethnic discrimination in politics with such an unstable political regime, the civil war

situation will probably be very difficult to end unless a federation ensures equal

rights full equality and self-determination And at the same time, at the same time, the few remaining MPs in the Civil Party, who thought that a new revolution was needed, created an opposition organization to the military government of Tatmadaw, the National Unity Government of Myanmar (NUG government) This opposition has officially declared war on Myanmar's military government and both sides call each other "terrorists" I found in DVB Burmese's research that it was clear that the entire population supported and a large number of Myanmar people and they all felt

indignant at the repression of the military government and they joined the NUG to practice basic operations in war, make smoke bombs on the internet to prepare for conflicts with the military government in the face of violent and bloody repressions of the Tatmadaw military government on on the part of the protesters Before those violent repressions, the people of Myanmar continued to stand up to protest, and since then it has created an unending civil war that has lasted from February 1, 2021 to the present time

1.2 Consequences of the civil war for the people of Myanmar

The research on "Conducting research in the midst of a military coup in

Myanmar" by Morgane Dussud[5] has mentioned very specifically the casualties to

the people of Myanmar, the unarmed protests of the people that have brutally

suppressed by the military government On February 20, 2021, the army opened fire

on the protesters and two protesters were shot dead by the army, including a 16-year-old boy, more than 45 people were injured and more than 45 people were injured 20

people were arrested That number gradually increased and turned into the bloodiest persecution on March 3, 2021, there were 38 deaths, including 4 children, until March

15, 2021, there were More than 120 protesters were killed and many were arrested That number gradually increased and turned into bloody repressions As of May 11,

2021, which marks 100 days of the coup, 783 people have been confirmed killed by the army, 4936 were arrested and 3,859 people remain in custody 20 individuals were sentenced to death In it, from children to the elderly, there are enough And a lot of them are still students, students, young protesters Their lives were ended with a

gunshot to the head I think the above figures have increased much higher so far and the research literature of Morgane Dussud is still incomplete When I read on the Facebook social networking forums, the people of Myanmar were not only killed with one shot, but I saw that the Myanmar military government also used different

methods to kill the protesters such as: Using a car to kill people while they were

protesting on the day, dousing people with oil to burn people alive on the day,

Myanmar soldiers also sexually abused women, shot and killed a pregnant woman right away in front of their husbands Not only that, they were also arrested by the military, all doctors and nurses, not allowing oxygen factories to distribute oxygen tanks to people when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out very strongly after protests happen In addition, the military government also released dangerous prisoners

awaiting execution to return to society In my opinion, all of these show that the

human rights of the people of Myanmar have been seriously threatened, the society is chaotic, but the military does not care about that but still tries to suppress violently The force exerted on the protesters and the demonstrations in Myanmar is completely spontaneous, with no connection to each other I found that, in Morgane's research paper, he only updated the data on the people who died at the hands of the army, but

he still did not conclude the threat to human rights, the danger to Myanmar society while he studied Myanmar's civil war

2 Impact and solutions of ASEAN before the Myanmar civil war

2.1 Impact of Myanmar’s civil war on ASEAN

According to research by Charles Dunst, a visiting scholar at the

East-West Center in Washington, "The Myanmar Coup as an ASEAN Inflection Point"[6]

has shown that the coup in Myanmar had a great influence on the Asean Myanmar is

6

countries" like the principle that ASEAN set forth in the Charter of ASEAN That is the biggest "challenge" of ASEAN at the moment Charles commented that:

“ASEAN's response, however, has been anything but brave Its member states are far from united: Thailand has promised not to interfere, saying that the coup is none of its business; Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines have essentially said the same; Brunei has called for a return to Myanmar's previous semidemocratic system; while Malaysia and Indonesia have expressed “disgust at the continuing deadly violence against unarmed civilians,” per the former’s prime minister, and called for the

restoration of democracy.” That's right, and through Charles' comment, I can see that many ASEAN countries have had their own views on this coup, some countries think that it and Myanmar's internal affairs, they will not intervened, and also some

countries condemned the actions of the military junta, which had caused division and disunity among the member states under the influence of this coup In my opinion, if ASEAN does not come up with a reasonable solution to be able to resolve and unify the views among the member countries, I think that from then on, ASEAN will be increasingly divided and divided by hostile forces serious panic The coup d'etat in Myanmar had a great influence on the member countries and the prestige of ASEAN

in solving regional peace and security issues However, to be honest, no ASEAN member state has intervened extensively to oppose the Tatmadaw military

government of General Min Aung Hlaing or sided with the civilian NUG government

in support of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi But ASEAN allowed Myanmar's coup, which led to the country's political instability, to take place without being able to intervene due to the principle of "non-interference in each other's internal affairs" that ASEAN has set forth, this is the reverse of this principle, once a member country has a coup d'etat, ASEAN will not be able to intervene because it is the internal affairs of that country With ASEAN members will only be able to stand outside to see and not be able to resolve anything And Myanmar's political instability will most likely lead to division and dissent, weakening within ASEAN and leading to instability on the

protection of peace and security in the region

2.2 ASEAN’s solutions to the problem of Myanmar

I think ASEAN will take tougher actions and come up with more

reasonable solutions to Myanmar's civil war But when learning about Sita Hidriyah's

research on the issue: "Political crisis in Myanmar and ASEAN intervention"[8], Vanessa Chong and Tanyalak on the issue: "Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: The

ASEAN Way Must Change"[8], compiled a lot It is clear about ASEAN's intervention

in Myanmar's civil war that although it intervened, it was extremely limited and there were no effective solutions to Myanmar's problems even when Myanmar's military repeatedly committed crimes brutality, for the agreement follows the principles set

forth in the ASEAN Charter, and according to research on the matter: Joshua

Kurlantzick's “ASEAN's Myanmar Crisis”[7] has shown the inability to ASEAN's

resolution of the Myanmar problem and signaled the decline of ASEAN, there is almost no indication that Myanmar's civil war situation can improve in a positive direction pole And in the research article of Sita Hidriyah, there are some solutions for ASEAN in solving the problems of Myanmar's civil war in a peaceful way by:

"ASEAN should encourage Myanmar to reinstate civilian government and undergo military because this is the best way for Myanmar to create peace.” That solution is based on the experience of the Indonesian military I strongly agree with that

approach, which is probably the best solution for ASEAN because it just satisfies two conditions: first, it solves Myanmar's problems without violating the principle of

"nothing" interfere in each other's internal affairs" in the ASEAN Charter, and

secondly, avoid confusion and disagreement on common views that cause division and disunity within ASEAN member countries But with the current situation of

Myanmar, I think it is really difficult to do that because the position of the military is against reconciliation They do not care how international sanctions are imposed, they are increasingly ruthless, determined to build a military dictatorship with power

completely in the hands of the military government In addition, Sita Hadriyah also said that the way to solve the Myanmar problem for ASEAN is: "ASEAN must be more lenient to intervene and pressure through their assertiveness, such as posing threats to dispense Myanmar from ASEAN" I completely disagree with this view In

my view, using the method of threatening Myanmar to be separated from ASEAN is a wrong position If such a measure is taken in case the military leaders refuse to end the coup, then I believe it is very likely that the military leaders who are in power in Myanmar will one day be in power If Myanmar will actually withdraw from

ASEAN, when Myanmar's internal conflicts increase, its relations with ASEAN

member countries will be extremely strained At that time, ASEAN will lose a piece

of the puzzle and become increasingly weak and in crisis I think it is necessary to find more appropriate measures for ASEAN to solve the problem of Myanmar's civil war and I am sure that this is also a huge challenge that ASEAN needs to overcome

● Comment:

I think that the issue: “The impact of the Myanmar civil war on ASEAN politics” is

8

III EPILOGUE

Myanmar's civil war has had a huge impact on ASEAN politics, it can make ASEAN politics split because of disagreements among members, besides we can also see the opposite side of the world contrary to the principles set forth in the Charter by ASEAN and ASEAN's handling of Myanmar's political issues through research papers on the impact of Myanmar's civil war on ASEAN and Myanmar's solutions, and I can see the author's views and solutions to that problem The

author's views on the issues may or may not be correct depending on each person's thoughts In my view, the solutions of ASEAN and those of the authors mentioned

in the research papers are still not really effective and I think that ASEAN needs to have more reasonable solutions to this problem Myanmar's problem How to solve

it, how to solve it, it needs to depend on many factors And I think that ASEAN needs to come up with unified solutions among countries to avoid division and contradiction among member countries before Myanmar's political situation in order to be able to come up with solutions to solve problems make appropriate decisions to protect regional peace and security, avoid political crises and internal conflicts among member countries in the future

IV REFERENCES MATERIAL

• English documents

1 Catherine Shanahan Renshaw (2013), “Journal of Current Southeast Asian

Affairs: The Case of Myanmar and ASEAN”, 32, 1, 29–54

2 Charles Dunst, “New York Times: The Myanmar Coup as an ASEAN

Inflection Point”, August 26, 2021 [6]

3 Hendra Manurung of Universitas Padjadjaran, “Myanmar Unresolved

Political Development: A Threat to ASEAN Unity and Democracy”, June 2021

4 Morgane Dussud, “Conducting research in the midst of a military coup in

Myanmar”, June 2nd, 2021 [5]

5 Joshua Kurlantzick, “ASEAN’s Myanmar Crisis”, April 12, 2021

6 Sita Hidriyah, “Political crisis in Myanmar and ASEAN intervention”,

(Vol.XIII, No 6/II/Puslit/March/2021) [7]

7 Russell Goldmen, “Myanmar’s Coup, Explained”, Published Feb 1, 2021

Updated Nov 29, 2021 [3]

8 Vanessa Chong and Tayalak Thongyoojaroen, “Beyond the Coup in

Myanmar: The ASEAN Way Must Change”, May 14, 2021 [7]

• Myanmar documents

1 ဧရ ဝတီ ,“ သဖ ထ ်းက ဖ တ ေ့ အ ဆီယံ ကိိုယော်စ ်းလှယော်အေ ွဲ့ ဖ မြညော်ဖတ ော် ဖရ ကော်လ ”, June,4th,2021 (Burma Irrawaddy, “Dissenting ASEAN delegation arrives in Nay Pyi

Taw”)

2 ဒီဗ ီ ီ, “ဖ္ဖေေ ္ ဝါရီ စစအ ဏ သိမ ္်း ဖ္ ႔ရက ော် ်းမ တတမ ္်း” March 1st, 2021 (DVB

Burmese,“ Record of the days of the February coup”) [4]

3 Myanmar Now, “ မမ ော်မ ေ့အဖရ်းအတ ကော် အ ဆီယံက ဖ က ငေ့ော် တငော််းတငော််းမ မ

မေစော်ဖ သလ ” (“Why is ASEAN so tough on Burma?”),Published on Oct 20, 2021