Ensconced in ceremonial red-and-gold brocade, Rattha Nandaka unsteadily marched toward General Min Aung Hlaing to be sprinkled with holy water as a traditional anthem played: “White elephants emerge during the reigns of great and mighty kings.” The General’s baby elephant, State media reported, bore seven of the eight marks of an especially-auspicious albino, including a “plantain branch-shaped back” and “pearl-coloured eyes.” “The precious white elephant beloved by the country will bring prosperity and happiness.”
Local social media sceptics seemed unimpressed. “It seems like they forgot to put suncream on,” someone posted, “Now it’s black.” Black or white, responded another user, the baby elephant was “now a prisoner”.
This summer, the military junta ruling Myanmar is expected to hold elections to legitimise the coup it staged two years ago. The rules, international studies professor Mary Callahan writes, are likely to be rewritten to ensure no single party can dominate parliament, as former State Counsellor and foreign minister Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) did in 2015 and 2020. Even that, though, might not be enough: Ferocious fighting is underway in much of the country, with assassinations of local government functionaries and regime supporters being reported regularly.
The white elephant is just part of an image-building exercise for General Min, casting him in the tradition of Burma’s great kings. To earn merit, the junta leader donated giant rubies, believed to possess mystical powers, and consecrated new pagodas. The General has also granted himself titles such as ‘The Most Glorious Order of Truth,’ which comes with a ruby-studded gold sash.
Elections, though, will be needed if the rising emperor is to have real legitimacy. To do that, he needs to buy support from the powerful ethnic armies which rule large swathes of Myanmar—and stamp out those who won’t fall in line.
Generals and warlords
Everything is for sale to the tycoons who roll up at the casinos in Myanmar’s Little Mong La in their BMWs: Teenage sex workers trafficked from Thailand, pangolin foetuses in wine, white rhino horn, and drugs. Lin Mingxian, a one-time Red Guard in Mao Zedong’s China, had arrived in the country’s Shan region to fight alongside communist insurgents. Lin later established his own armed group, emerged as a major figure in opium trafficking—and then signed a ceasefire brokered by intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt in 1989.
Lin received something resembling independence in return for ending attacks on the Myanmar military—and proceeded to launder his drug money by investing it in casinos. The warlord even declared his territories opium free, though experts believe he continued to earn revenues from cross-border trafficking through his territories
Through marriage alliances with other powerful warlords—key among them the legendary Kokang-Chinese druglord Peng Jiasheng—Lin steadily expanded his empire. The enterprise, scholar Bertil Lintner records, received support from China, which saw the little empires of the warlords as a tool to expand their influence.
Even though the China-warlord relationship has not always been smooth—Beijing was irked by the explosion of cybercrime operations out of the region after the casino business was hit during the pandemic—the relationship has strategic value for both sides.
This month, General Min is reportedly negotiating with Lin’s National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the Peng-founded United Wa State Party (UWSP), and the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP) to allow elections in the territories they control. Deng Xijun, China’s special representative for Myanmar, is also reportedly in talks with these insurgent groups. The ethnic militia that has grievances with the NLD, like the Mon Unity Party (MUP), the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), and the powerful Arakan National Party (ANP), might also choose to participate in elections.
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An Army Among Warlords
Even though the Myanmar armed forces legitimise themselves as the custodians of Burmese nationalism, their actual role has been as the country’s largest warlord—not a professional military. From the 1930s, as Burmese nationalist politicians recognised the need to back up their anti-colonial movement with armed struggle, they formed Tat or popular militia. Aung San, the founding patriarch of modern Burma, himself led a Tat called the Pyit Yebaw Aphwe, or People’s Volunteer Organization (PVO), in 1945.
Following independence, armed Tat, linked to various individuals and parties, continued to operate with loose control by the government. These militias were driven by ideological commitments—not loyalty to the norms and constitutions of a nation-state. Electoral violence was common. In the 1950s, candidates of the ruling Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) campaigned with so-called pocket armies—resulting in fighting so intense that elections had to be held unconstitutionally in three phases.
Following the coup d’etat of 1962, international relations professor Maung Aung Myoe observes, the military began to systematically indoctrinate its personnel in Left-wing political ideals. The collapse of the so-called ‘Burmese Way’ to Socialism in 1988 led to these beliefs being abandoned. The military, however, continued ideological indoctrination, focusing instead on the ‘three national causes’: the unity of the Union, the maintenance of national solidarity, and the preservation of national sovereignty.
The mass of ethnic insurgencies that challenged the military led to its adopting what became known as the ‘Four Cuts strategy’. Academic Lionel Beehner writes: “Cut off ethnic militias’ access to food, cut off funds, cut contacts and intelligence, and ‘cut off the insurgents’ head” by ending recruitment. These ends were often pursued with extraordinary savagery, including the use of air power against civilian populations.
Without the resources to effectively control the ground, the Myanmar military increasingly depended on alliances with local actors, like rival ethnic militias and narcotics traffickers. These alliances, academic John Buchanan notes, were inevitably fluid and contingent. Even militia closely allied with the government relied heavily on criminal activities to fund themselves. This meant ceasefires and alliances with the government did not push forward State-building and the rule of law.
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An endless war?
Like it has so often in the past, the military has responded to challenges to its rule with barbarism. Faced with mounting casualties, the International Crisis Group has reported, the military is using “long-range artillery, airstrikes and airborne assaults on populated areas, such as the towns of Mindat (in Chin State) and Demoso (in Kayah State). The rebel village of Khin-U, in Sagaing province, is reported to have suffered the loss of almost 2,500 homes. Large-scale massacres of civilians have taken place.
Though it stops short of authorising lethal assistance, the Burma Act, signed into law by US President Joe Biden in December 2022, shows patience with the Myanmar military running out in Western capitals. Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, too, are increasingly frustrated with the military’s conduct.
General Min, however, will be counting on support from China to sustain the regime. China sees Myanmar as a strategically critical back door for access to the Indian ocean. The gargantuan Mong Tong dam on the Salween River in Shan, as well as road and rail links from Kunming in southern China to the Kyaukphyu deep seaport in Rakhine, show China’s continued willingness to sink cash into the regime. The military, moreover, has access to funding through the criminal networks it presides over and extracts revenues from.
For now, India has sought to maintain its ties to Myanmar’s military—knowing it holds the key to peace in the Northeast. Following the failed pro-democracy protests of 1988, New Delhi paid a heavy price for severing links with the Generals. From 2010, however, efforts to rebuild the relationship paid off, and the Myanmar armed forces shut down Naga and Manipuri insurgent bases across the border. That, in turn, put pressure on insurgents to agree on ceasefires with the government.
The intensified insurgency in Myanmar, though, could leave the military in no position to keep delivering on its commitments to India. Should China gain greater influence, the Generals might also have little incentive to do so. New Delhi needs to start preparing for bad outcomes in the Northeast by racing to turn ceasefires with insurgent groups into durable political agreements.
The author is National Security Editor, ThePrint. He tweets @praveenswami. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
