Walter Chambers is a member of International Socialist Alternative.
Nearly two years after the military coup in Myanmar, the regime continues its brutal war against its own population, while the international “community,” that is the imperialist powers, ignore the suffering of the Myanmar population.
For the first time since 1948 when Burma was accepted into UN membership, the United Nations Security Council in December passed a resolution, with China, Russia and India abstaining, which called for “an end to violence” but failed to even call for a ban on arms sales to the military regime. It called for the implementation of ASEAN’s toothless “five point action plan,” which accepts the continued role of the military in governing Myanmar. Once again, International bodies such as the UN, representing as they do the interests of the different imperialist powers, have demonstrated their complete inability to provide any solution to the horrors faced by workers, the urban and rural masses on a daily basis.
For a short period, Myanmar returned to the headlines after the horrific execution of four persons, who had been convicted by a highly secret military court in July. It is believed there are at least one hundred more, mainly anti-regime activists, waiting on death row. Deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to a further seven years in prison, extending her term to 33 years.
Multi-dimensional crises
The picture painted by Noeleen Heyzer, the UN Special Envoy to Myanmar, talks of the country suffering “multi-dimensional crises” with “collapsing state institutions, disrupting social and economic infrastructure — including health, education, banking, food security and employment.” She warned that the number living in poverty has doubled over the past five years, to include half the population. School enrolment has dropped by 80%. While the picture Heyzer paints is indeed horrific, she offers no solution.
Indeed, she goes on to suggest that “A generation that benefitted from the democratic transition is now disillusioned, facing chronic hardship and, tragically, many feel they have no choice left but to take up arms.” The reality is that what has happened in Myanmar is not just a consequence of the military coup, but a result of the failed approach of the pro-capitalist NLD government during the so called “democratic transition,” under pressure of international bodies such as the UN. The reason is simple: the root cause of the crises in Myanmar is capitalism.
NLD’s pro-capitalist policies to blame
Even before Covid and the coup, poverty levels in Myanmar were already 25%. The National League for Democracy (NLD) pursued neo-liberal IMF-inspired economic reforms, which were supposed, they argued, to attract foreign investment, and overcome so-called “crony capitalism” and corruption. Myanmar became a source of cheap manufacturing for multinational companies based on the exploitation of a cheap workforce, including widespread child labour. At the same time, cronyism and corruption, which are integral features of capitalism strengthened. This situation was exacerbated by the deepening crisis of global capitalism and Myanmar’s limited ability to compete in the global race to the bottom.
Unable to establish a stable democratic society, the Myanmar ruling elite maintained the army as a key part of the government and its structures. The interrelationship of capitalist economic interests and the army was behind the notorious attacks on the Rohingya population in 2017. NLD reforms included the opening of the country to foreign investors and the removal of protection for small landowners. The ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya was intended to clear villages on the Rakhine coast in an area that the Chinese regime is using to build the Kyaukpyu port and nearby industrial park. Recently, the Chinese built gas-fired power plant was opened as a key part of this project.
Both the pre-coup and post-coup governments, as well as the international institutions all serve capitalism in their own ways, and therefore can only perpetuate the brutal exploitation of workers and the poor rural and urban population, and continued repression by the army and other repressive organs of the state.
Army fails to control country
The frustration felt by those opposed to the regime is expressed succinctly by Naing Khit, a pro-NLD political commentator writing for The Irrawaddy, who comments that although world leaders describe the junta leaders as “thugs” and express “concern at the generals’ gross human rights violations” “none have worked to make the thuggish generals stop their atrocities against the people.”
Following the coup in February 2021, the Tatmadaw, the army, clearly believed it would quickly establish control over the country. But it has been unable to do so. With growing resistance across the country, Min Aung Hlaing, head of the military junta, is growing increasingly desperate. To maintain his position in power he has been firing senior military officers and ministers, and purging his business cronies.
Reports indicate that the military is losing large areas in what one commentator calls a “multifront civil war”. Monitors say it has lost control of maybe 50% of the country. It is estimated there are over 600 armed resistance groups engaged in fighting the military regime. Rakhine state is controlled by the Arakan army, a new government is controlling large parts of Chin state, while opposition control is extending in Kachin and Shan states. The military is having difficulty finding loyal supporters to maintain control of Karen, Karenni states and the Magway and Sagaing divisions.
Most of these militias and armed groups are based on local elites with a fundamentally capitalist outlook. Their leaders stand for local self-rule, or in some cases independence, but see this as lever to enrich their own circles and gain greater control over precious natural resources within a capitalist economy. Their leaders’ interests are therefore not the same as workers and poor people. As we pointed out in a previous article, Myanmar || Lessons from the Struggle as It Enters New Phase:
“Whilst some defence forces are close to the people, others have a poor record. Influenced by Maoist policies and methods they have a top down, militarised structure. Others have relied on the drugs trade to finance their activities. This raises an unpleasant perspective of a repeat in Myanmar of the Syrian scenario, which is increasingly likely if the working class does not take the lead.
This is particularly the case as China is stepping up its attempts to influence groups particularly in the Kachin and Shan States, while the Burma Act currently being processed through US Congress includes financial support for those groups that are closer to US interests.
Army’s economic interests
Apart from the rugged resistance, the military is running into supply difficulties. Since the coup, through a series of arms traders, the military has been supplied with equipment from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Israel, France and Germany. China, traditionally the biggest supplier of weapons, which has always hedged its bets in Myanmar by balancing between different sides is now, to defend specific economic interests, supplying weapons to some of the regional/ethnic armies. Army supply lines which were earlier considered secure are now being attacked by the ethnic armies.
This may not however be the worst problem for Tatmadaw. It is more than an army, it is also a corrupt business based on the exploitation of the soldiers. The Generals run a conglomerate “Myanmar Economic Holdings” and all soldiers are expected to “invest” in it — a soldier who earns as little as $80 a month is still expected to invest over $800 or face various disciplinary measures and discrimination. To add insult, Aung Pyae Sone, son of Min Aung Hlaing head of the coup, runs a crooked life insurance scheme that soldiers are expected to use. This really confirms that the army and capitalism are inseparably intertwined, one cannot exist without the other in Myanmar.
This exploitation, together with the high fatalities caused by fighting insurgents is forcing thousands to defect to the opposition, or just leave, or act as “watermelons” — secret informants — military green on the outside but red inside. “Red,” of course does not imply that they are left-wing, but supporters of the NLD. These all run terrible risks to do so, whilst at all levels recruitment has seen a major decline since the coup.
Economic collapse
The Myanmar economy is suffering terribly since the coup. Having experienced modest growth in the two years before the coup, in 2021 GDP fell by 18%. The situation is so bad this year the World Bank says “Forecast[s] for Myanmar beyond 2021 are excluded because of a high degree of uncertainty”! It goes on to report: “Since last year’s military takeover, Myanmar’s economy has been in a downward spiral, with major international investors fleeing the country, banks barely functioning and inflation rising amid daily clashes between regime troops and anti-junta forces across the country. The junta has aggravated the situation by imposing foreign currency and trade regulations, wreaking havoc on import and export markets, and sparking fuel shortages even in the big commercial centers.” Indeed, during the compiling of this article, one of our correspondents had communication difficulties as he was only getting power for between 6–12 hours a day.
According to the ILO, since the coup there has been a reduction in over 1.1 million jobs, while labour conditions have deteriorated. There has been an increase in casual labour, irregular working hours, and the number of workers receiving low pay. Needless to say, women are more affected by these attacks, particularly as conditions are worst in the garment sector. As poverty has increased dramatically, more and more children have been forced into work, often facing hazardous conditions. It is estimated that every one in ten of Myanmar’s children between the ages of 5 and 17 — over a million — are engaged in child labour.
Imperialist interests
NLD loyalist Niang Khit complains that the “World keeps watching. The regime keeps slaughtering” before going on to say: “When it comes to support from the international community led by the US, the people of Myanmar also know from experience – especially after their nationwide uprising in 1988 — that support for their struggle for democracy is unlikely to go beyond moral support.” After the execution of the pro-democracy activists in July, voices were again raised in the US demanding that Biden steps up sanctions against the regime. Apart from the fact that the imperialist powers only ever implement sanctions in their own interests, that they are presented by authoritarian regimes as attacks on the country, and that such sanctions usually only harm workers and the poor, who have no way of by-passing sanctions in the way the rule elite and business can, this comment by Niang Khit demonstrates the bankruptcy of the NLD approach.
Even though some measures were implemented after the coup, the US has avoided sanctions on the energy sector. Originally it claimed it was doing so to avoid disrupting energy supplies to Myanmar’s neighbors, such as Thailand as it was prioritizing the gaining of support for its competition with China, and for fear of pushing the Junta into China’s camp. Since the war in Ukraine, the need to protect all energy supplies, will have added further weight to the arguments of those in the White House who do not want sanctions.
On the other side of the developing cold war, China too has been attempting to build its relationship with Myanmar. In July Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited as part of his tour of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation including Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. Wang Yi appears to have pressurized the regime to implement the Five Point Consensus plan of ASEAN which called for the immediate cessation of violence and political dialogue. “China sincerely hopes that Myanmar will be politically and socially stable” he said. According to Global Times [the Chinese regime’s mouthpiece] however, Wang Yi didn’t even pay a courtesy call to the Junta’s leader Min Aung Hliang and he did not “hint at China ‘recognizing’ the current administration.”
The recent meeting between Deng Xijun, China’s new special envoy to Myanmar and representatives of seven ethnic armed organisations seems to have been to stress this position. As The Irrawaddy reported: “China’s policy is that it wants stability at the border and does not want to see fighting, that it is wrong to start fighting, that China does not support reciprocal fighting, that fighting is not the right solution to problems, and that China is concerned that fighting will make it more difficult to achieve internal peace.” While holding the Tatmadaw at arm’s length, with which Beijing has historically had many conflicts, the reality is that China, which had a good relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi’s pre-coup government, has no option but work with Min Aung Hliang, to prevent his government moving closer to the US-led cold war camp.
It is clear that China is interested in “stability” not just for domestic reasons. It sees Myanmar as providing key transport routes for its exploitation of the Greater Mekong region (Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand) and further, to the Indian ocean, so it is investing in ports and infrastructure projects, as well as seven dams on the Salween River. Although these hydroelectric projects are meeting opposition from locals, to establish its position in those regions that interest it, China is linking up with, and providing support to ethnic armed groups in Shan state and the United Wa State Army to encourage them to establish territorial control.
If Wang Yi held Min Aung Hliang at arms-length, the same cannot be said for the Kremlin. Since the coup, Min Aung Hliang has visited Moscow twice, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited him in July promising that “We are in solidarity with the efforts [by the junta] aimed at stabilizing the situation in the country.” During the recent meetings, the two sides have discussed cooperation in the economic and nuclear energy fields, and of course the sale of weapons. Russia is the largest provider of weapons since the coup. To add to this, since the launch of the war in Ukraine, Myanmar has been stepping up its oil purchases from Russia.
Imperialist sanctions
When Niang Khit points out the “international community” — that is the pro-western bloc and big business — is offering little more than moral support, he is actually demonstrating that the strategy of the NLD, many NGOs and the international trade unions based on appeals to, and agreements with international bodies such as the UN and ASEAN, as well as the multinationals is bankrupt. Now that attention to the horrors being wrought by the Myanmar regime are no longer covered widely in the global media, business interests driven by capitalist greed are ensuring that those limited sanctions imposed last year are already being withdrawn.
The military regime is tied intrinsically to the economy itself. It controls the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), which receives the $1billion annual foreign revenue from the sale of Myanmar’s oil and gas. While Chevron and TotalEnergies have publicly stated their withdrawal from Myanmar, they have transferred their interests to other multinationals – Thailand’s PTT and South Korea’s POSCO. So, the revenue paid to MOGE will be unaffected.
In another large economic sector — the garments industry — despite the widely publicized withdrawal from Myanmar of companies such as Adidas, H&M, C&A, Tesco, Bestseller and Indetex, many of them are crawling back attracted to the cheap labour, and often working through Chinese-owned companies. This in itself demonstrates the complete hypocrisy of these companies who initially claimed they were leaving due to the “human rights situation.” As they move back, they claim they “are a force for good and can protect workers by doing “enhanced due diligence.”
But according to the union “IndustriAll” up to 220,000 textile workers have lost their jobs. Formerly unionized workers have been fired and replaced by casual workers, and there are many cases of the security forces arresting trade union activists from their homes. Most textile workers now earn less than $1.80 a day.
As we explained in our previous article, these examples “demonstrate a flawed tactic used by the international trade unions. They rely on agreement with the boards of multinationals rather than genuine international workers’ solidarity.”
International sanctions levied by the imperialist powers never work in favour of the working class, and ISA is opposed to them. Instead we believe that the international trade unions should wage a campaign independent of the capitalist class, aimed at stopping the supply of arms and repressive equipment, or revenues from oil and gas from reaching the military, while at the same time supporting the struggle of workers in Myanmar to protect their jobs and working conditions, and in taking control and ownership of the factories and workplaces out of the hands of the multinationals and the military, so that the workers and poor of Myanmar can at last be democratically run in their interests.
NUG’s strategy
It is becoming increasingly clear that while the military is not able to take complete control of the country, the National Unity Government (NUG) which purports to head the opposition is incapable of leading a successful struggle to defeat the coup. Many look towards the NUG for leadership of the revolutionary movement but it consists of mainly ousted lawmakers and politicians from the National League of Democracy (NLD) of Aung San Suu Kyi. The NLD is a party of the “liberal” and generally pro-Western imperialist wing of the capitalists. In power from 2015–2021 it continued many of the repressive policies of the former military government in suppressing workers’ struggles and cracking down on the media.
The NUG, following the coup adopted a strategy rejecting the NLD’s previous approach of Gandhian “non-violent struggle” and replacing it with a so-called “peoples’ defensive war.” To do this it has tried to establish a “peoples’ defence force” by uniting the different ethnic armed groups in opposition to the Tatmadaw. While the need for armed defence against the monstrous military repression is obvious and completely justified, the NLD’s change of policy, based on the outsourcing of the task of opposing the Tatmadaw to the different ethnic armed groups, many of which are themselves pro-capitalist and defending corrupt elites, offers no real solution.
Its strategy is undermined further by the historical legacy of the pro-capitalist NLD’s time in government, when it not only implemented pro-business, and pro-multinational policies, it also cooperated with the army. Its track record in the past five years has been chauvinist and reactionary, especially when dealing with ethnic minorities. Despite all the NUG’s talk of unity of the ethnic groups, it is mostly composed of members of NLD, widely seen as the political party of the ethnic Bamar majority. The NUG, for example, although it has an ethnic Shan Deputy Minister, has no elected representative of the Shan people, the largest minority accounting for 9% of the population.
Most problematic is its relationship with the Rakhine state and the Arakan Army (AA), another reactionary chauvinist and pro-capitalist force. There are still deep scars left over from NLD rule, when it supported the army in its war against the AA and the cancellation of elections in part of Rakhine state. Following this, AA changed its demands for autonomy into a struggle for independence. In the early months following the coup, AA maintained a ceasefire with the Tatmadaw, but that has now broken down.
The NLD’s collusion with the military, which ultimately backfired and ended up in the coup, and its pro-capitalist policies are not easily forgotten. This has led to mistrust by many activists as well as ethnic minorities. As a consequence of the NLD’s inability to provide a real alternative, the NUG is bureaucratic and slow, lacking transparency and there is growing criticism of its leadership. As it cannot bring together the diverse Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), predictably therefore it has proved incapable of providing a strong centralised military leadership to the People’s Defense Force (PDF).
The NUG says it is in favour of a “federal democratic union.” The NLD even claims it has reversed its former defence of the attacks on the Rohingya people. But with so many ethnic and national minorities within Myanmar, the confidence of the different groups could only be assured by genuine guarantees of self-determination and autonomy, but also by providing the economic basis to bring these groups out of poverty and free them from exploitation by the imperialist powers, multinationals and home-grown capitalists. The NLD/NUG is unable to do this as this would require a complete rejection of capitalism.
On the contrary, the NLD/NUG strategy is harmful to the struggle against military rule as it changes the focus from the working class and urban centres, to the more remote regions. It means that there is no democratic control over the military struggle, nor any alternative offered to the capitalist system that is the root cause of the problems facing the working class and poor. As we said in a previous article: “Workers and youth must have the right to self-defence. It should be organized not by relying on the NUG or heads of the ethnic forces who are motivated more by their own interests, but controlled democratically by workers, youth and the poor in their own interests.
“However, the defeat of the Tatmadaw needs a working class-led political campaign that guarantees the right of self-determination to all national minorities, the redistribution of land to all poor farmers and their families, proper wages and trade union rights to workers. This would forge a clear unity between the workers, poor farmers and ethnic minorities in this struggle.”
NUCC and ‘unity’
Some activists also look towards the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), in which the NUG is joined by other parties, including several ethnic based parties, as well as representatives of the general strike committees, labour committees, student unions, and activist groups, supposedly based on collective leadership and to provide a platform to express different interests, as well as to regulate and provide political leadership to NUG. Although it is the broadest political platform seen in modern times in Myanmar, because of this it will not be able to present an independent working-class alternative, and there is the real danger it will be simply a forum for dialogue within the elite. With the downturn of the urban mass struggle and the cessation of the strikes, inevitably the working-class element within the NUCC is diminished and crowded out by the bourgeois / NLD elements.
This is the key question. Unity in struggle against the military regime is fine, but the key to victory, is not to continue the disastrous pro-capitalist policies of the pre-coup government and today’s NLD/NUG and its capitulation to the military. It means that the organized working class needs to step up to take the lead of the struggle, and provide a political alternative to capitalism, the military regime, the pro-capitalist NLD leaders, as well as to resist imperialist intervention in the country.
It was the “Civil Disobedience Movement” spearheaded by medical and textile workers that launched the Spring revolution against the military coup in February 2021. The result of the international sanctions has been to undermine the strength of the workers movement as factories have shut, and the military have stepped up, in cooperation with the employers, attacks on workers’ rights. Unfortunately, the international trade union federation IndustriAll in calling on the EU and other bodies to step up “Comprehensive economic sanctions” in line with the demands of the NUG, will further reduce the strength of the workers’ movement and undermine its ability to present an independent political alternative to the NLD.
As the Industrial Workers Union is no longer able to operate freely in Myanmar, IndustriAll has withdrawn from the global agreement with the Garment Brands to pursue living wages for textile workers in Myanmar. It is reneging on its responsibility to organize real international workers’ solidarity. Instead of relying on agreements with the “Brands”, who are only interested in protecting their profits, which are based on the exploitation of Myanmar’s cheap labour, the international unions should be campaigning amongst their members globally to organize real solidarity for those workers organizing in Myanmar against the military, in defence of jobs and wages, and for the workplaces in Myanmar to be taken into public ownership under the control of the working class.
Because of the absence of an independent workers’ alternative, the initiative is left in the hands of the pro-capitalist, liberal forces who see the solution to Myanmar’s problems as the introduction of “western values,” without any challenge to the capitalist system, or even the power of the military. The mainstream opposition, mainly from the middle class and academia, devotes most of its energy to lobbying western powers for support, and to step up sanctions. This completely undermines resistance to the military, as it ignores the potential power of the working class, and its natural allies amongst the rural poor. Unfortunately, a layer of activists has fallen into this trap too as they work in various NGOs and other lobbying groups and are unable, therefore, to argue for class struggle methods and a socialist alternative to fight the regime.
Maoism returns
Towards the end of 2021, the Communist Party of Burma, whose main leaders have been in exile in China since 1989, announced they were reestablishing their presence in Myanmar and setting up their military wing “Peoples’ Liberation Army” to begin armed resistance against the military.
Maoist ideology in the past has been strong in the country, but the CPB has discredited itself by its actions during previous uprisings. During the 8888 uprising, rather than give a clear socialist lead to the movement, its activists, many of whom were key organisers and involved in strike committees, promoted a policy of unity of all democratic forces, which allowed the NLD leaders to delay and dissipate the struggle.
It today shows no sign of having learnt any lessons. In announcing their return, they once again refer to Mao’s approach “We firmly believe that the military has confirmed, again and again, the lesson that ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” and give no indication they are preparing an independent working-class struggle. The references to armed struggle are of course popular in the current situation, but the bigger question is which political program and class forces should control the “gun.”
It would be wrong, however, to think that Maoist ideas no longer get support. The student’s unions, and groups have played a certain role in opposition to the military, and much of the leadership has illusions in Maoism, and are linked at least informally to the CPB.
Need for a revolutionary socialist alternative
This does not mean there is not the potential to establish a genuine socialist opposition. While the Maoist ideas have traction at the top of the students’ union, at other levels, the membership is more open to genuine revolutionary ideas. Many non-CPB activists, students and young revolutionaries have been very active in the resistance, including in the various militia, since the start of the Spring revolution. The weakness however is that many participants think that the revolution is not advocating a political ideology, but just requires action against the military junta in favour of democracy. Yet as long as the military exists, and as long as capitalism exists in Myanmar, there can be no real democracy, and more than that a solution to the problems of Myanmar can not be found in isolation, but only as part of the wider, worldwide socialist revolution.
There is a layer of activists who are developing out of the phase of “activism”, who are looking for socialist solutions. As one of our correspondents says: “The future state must guarantee self-determination for the ethnic minorities who have long suffered under successive Burmese regimes, as well as granting them the full right to cede from the union if they wish to do so. The future democratic state should at least incorporate grassroots and workers’ democracy.
“Workers have been at the forefront of the revolutionary movement since the early days of the ‘Spring Revolution,’ many factory workers taking to the streets even before the general strike to take a stand against the junta. The revolution will be incomplete without the workers’ cause…
Crony capitalism has been a plague in Burma especially after 1990s when the SPDC came to power. It has been the major contributor of oppression of workers and peasants as well as environmental destruction. It has also deprived the ethnic minorities of their ancestral land and resources. These crony capitalists and the old ruling class as well as the current junta are interdependent upon each other. They cannot be allowed to continue with their acts of exploitation in post-revolution. If crony capitalism is not abolished in this future democratic state, it cannot be a called a victory for the working class.”
The potential for this has been shown in the past few months, starting in June with the well supported strike of “FoodPanda” workers — food couriers who protested at wage cuts and worsening conditions. On 7 July, to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the massacre of Yangon University students by the previous dictator Ne Win student led demos were held in several regions including Kachin and Mon, as well as in the two largest cities Yangon and Mandalay. Later in July, over 2,000 textile workers in Mingalardon Township near Yangon went on strike to protest the abuse of their rights including being forced to work overtime, unrealistic production norms and pay cuts.
It is understandable that the phrase “crony capitalism” is used often in Myanmar. It is used by “liberal forces” who have an illusion that there is a better form of capitalism, an honest form of capitalism. But the reality is that the whole capitalist system is built based on “cronyism” and corruption, the whole capitalist system needs to be overthrown.
What is desperately needed now in Myanmar is a genuine revolutionary socialist organization that can help to build workers’ organisations, including a mass working class party armed with a socialist program to fight for the rights of self-determination for the ethnic groups, genuine democracy, an end to military rule, a democratically planned economy, and in this way create the forces capable of ending the capitalist system, and replace it with a genuine democratic, internationalist socialist society.
