Episode #99: Contrasting Ukraine and Myanmar
On February 1st, 2021, General Min Aung Hlaing orchestrated a military coup in Myanmar. On February 24th, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized missiles and airstrikes as the first blow in his invasion of Ukraine.
On today’s show, we check in with two international relations experts to contrast these two crises, examining everything from their respective resistance movements, to the international responses, to the future of democracy in each region
Hunter Marston provides an analysis of the situation in Myanmar. Hunter is currently a PhD candidate in International Relations at Australian National University. He has worked previously at the Center for East Asia Policy Studies, The India Project at the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Southeast Asia program, and the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar. His work has appeared in Contemporary Southeast Asia, the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Washington Post.
Emily Channell-Justice has been doing research as a sociocultural anthropologist in Ukraine since 2012, and shares the view from Eastern Europe. Emily is currently the Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute in Harvard University. She received her PhD from City University of New York, and she was a Havighurst Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies at Miami University, Ohio.
The discussion first looks at the role of the United Nations. As long as Russia has veto power on the Security Council, there is not much hope towards a resolution on Ukraine. On the Myanmar side, Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun made international news by standing with the National Unity Government following the coup. Since then, the UN Credentials Committee has been, in Hunter’s estimation, “[kicking] the can down the road by saying… ‘we don't recognize governments, we recognize states,’” and so Myanmar’s representation there remains ambiguous.
Our two guests next addressed the issue of “crimes against humanity.” As neither Ukraine nor Russia are signatories to the International Criminal Court, Emily notes that it is up to the ICC to pursue its own charges. While Ukraine has been collecting evidence on Russian aggression, Emily feels it is unlikely that Putin would personally end up facing trial, and so the best that can be hoped for is to eventually bring justice to those further down the chain of command. In Myanmar, Hunter explains that the junta responded to a genocide charge against the Rohingya by trying to “bizarrely link the Gambia’s case to the OIC, or the Organization for Islamic Countries, in some sort of global conspiracy theory.” As Myanmar is not in fact a signatory to the ICC, the NUG has indicated it would cooperate, yet this continues to be a developing issue.
One thing that Russia, Ukraine, and Myanmar do have in common is that none of them signed on to the ICC’s Rome Statue, in force as of 2002, which defines genocide and other crimes against humanity. Hunter attributes Aung San Suu Kyi’s not signing this to “the NLD government [being] focused on rebooting the economy and a continuing limited privatization and anti-corruption measures after decades of military rule,” while Emily notes that “there are certain political moves that Ukrainian leaders simply didn't do, because of the potential harm it would do to their relationship with Russia in the longer term.”
Next up in the discussion is the role of international organizations. Ukraine is neither a member of the European Union nor NATO, although both were immediately supportive following the Russian invasion. For Emily, the crisis brings up a question for NATO, in particular, to resolve. She comments, “It's really forced NATO to have its own existential experience of what is this organization, and what is it supposed to do?” She observes that NATO “hasn't been put in this situation [before], in terms of a major global crisis with an active antagonist, who himself has used NATO expansion as an explanation for his own actions.”
As for the situation in Myanmar, Hunter references the European dependence on Russian gas, saying, “I don't think any country is dependent on Myanmar's exports or its resources. But that hasn't stopped the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] from in part protecting the Myanmar military.” Taking a historical view, Hunter points out that “Myanmar has sort of always been a headache for ASEAN,” and that early on, the organization was on the forefront of pushing the military to reform. However, this has ultimately been unsuccessful, due to a lack of an enforcement mechanism, and in fact, this very problem happened again this year. ASEAN drafted the Five Point Consensus, which called on all sides to show constraint and limit violence. “However, Min Aung Hlaing essentially invalidated that the day after he returned from the meeting. Almost a year ago, he said their suggestions are non-binding,” Hunter explains, adding that Min Aung Hlaing then described the NUG as a terrorist group, and that he has no interest in negotiating with them. Interestingly, Hunter describes the Myanmar crisis as being just as critical for the future of ASEAN as Emily described the relation between the Ukraine invasion and NATO. “It's really an existential issue for ASEAN, because, obviously, ASEAN has been unable to decide which government to recognize.”
India, Myanmar’s neighbor to the west, is not in ASEAN; however, Hunter notes that the Indian leadership has consistently supported the junta, largely due to their collaboration with the Burmese military to go after separatist groups in Nagaland. “India has sent representatives to Myanmar's military parades and India's naval chief has visited Myanmar as well. India has even given a submarine to Myanmar's Navy, although I’m not sure what that will be used for!” That said, Hunter adds that thanks largely to India’s federal democracy, despite Modi’s cordial foreign relations with the Tatmadaw, the state of Mizoram has been quite welcoming to Burmese refugees fleeing the fighting, particularly those from Chin state. And he observes that China, Myanmar’s other important neighbor, is far more powerful now than it was during past conflicts, and that “the US doesn't have a lot of influence, and given that it's so far away, there's not a lot of trade and investment” in Myanmar.
Another parallel between the two conflicts is the question of negotiations. Hunter feels the Burmese military does not intend to engage in any real, constructive dialog that brings with it the possibility of losing any of their power in future elections. For her part, Emily similarly sees little value in trusting the good will of Russia, particularly Putin. “Every promise that Russia has made so far has gotten broken, when it benefited Russia to break it.” She then continues with a rhetorical question: “Why on earth would [Ukraine] negotiate with any of the current actors, when none of those actors have shown themselves to be interested in preserving Ukraine's sovereignty no matter what they have promised?”
Emily and Hunter then address the topic of the international response to the respective conflicts. Emily points out how effective the shipments of drones have been to Ukrainian resistance forces, as well as the outpouring of support that has come in the way of funds, weapons, medical supplies, and more. This is, perhaps, the most jarring point of difference when contrasting the situations in the two countries. “The international community, for better or worse, has not taken sides to support either the Myanmar military or the PDFs or the ethnic armed groups across the country,” Hunter notes. While the military has enjoyed material support from China and Russia, they are fiercely despised by the majority of the people. “Myanmar's military has actually been suffering severe setbacks across the country on the ground, surprisingly, much like the sort of situation we've seen in Ukraine with the asymmetric advantage,” Hunter says. “It is not exactly playing out to predictions and the PDF have claimed to kill thousands of troops at this point.”
Another component to the international response is the level of popular support. Here, Myanmar has been at a distinct disadvantage, with the conflict largely left out of international media reporting for months at a time. One reason Hunter gives for this is that Western audiences have a much more tenuous understanding of Burmese history than European history. “There are over a dozen different armed resistance groups within the country. These conflicts, many of them date back to the independence of the country in the late 1940s. And the conflict is also far away from Western capitals and the likes of the US and NATO countries.” In Ukraine, Emily admits being surprised herself how supportive the international community has been from the start, in stark contrast to the 2014 Russian invasion when she notes “it was truly appalling to have it… downplayed by most of the world.” Now, she compliments the “really savvy media infrastructure” that has arisen in the wake of the conflict. She describes a kind of synergy between local reporters, international correspondents, citizen journalists, governments, and international organizations, which are able to document and verify events in real time. “These other institutions and media infrastructures know how to verify information. They've gone in and used satellite imagery and crowdsourcing of footage and information and confirmation. We also know that these stories are being verified by eyewitnesses. So we actually have this kind of multi-vector verification of things that are happening.”
Sadly, it is exactly this type of engagement which Hunter is not seeing in Myanmar, and his hunch as to why this is the case is even more distressing. “Western audiences just aren't as concerned or preoccupied with these sorts of faraway conflicts taking place in Southeast Asia. And you know, maybe they're exoticized a bit.” Indeed, as Emily bluntly states, “the perception of Ukrainians is that they're largely white and Christian.” This appears to bring about a greater degree of sympathy from a Western audience. Additionally, Hunter mentions that Burmese journalists have been under increasing threat since the coup was launched, further exacerbating the difficulty of objective reporting.
In closing, Emily comes back to how impressed she has been with the ability of journalists to get the story out. “I really commend the Ukrainian journalists who are covering the stories, and the international journalists who are covering the story correctly and compassionately. I think we're in a really unique situation in terms of the information sphere.” Hunter sees three important action points that could positively impact the democracy movement in Myanmar. The first is to “advocate for sanctions against Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise [MOGE], which makes up nearly half of the junta’s foreign exchange income, at this point over a billion per year, an important source of revenue for the military to continue doing what it does.” The second is to support the Burma Bill, and the third is to recognize the NUG.
The music on this episode was chosen to reflect the Ukrainian revolutionary spirit. The intro music is provided by Dity Velikoho Mista (Big City Kids) and is called “Peasant Grief.” It was recorded before the war, but the video was released after the invasion along with footage of the conflict. The outro music is called “Ukrainian Folk Song: Army Remix,” a mashup of Andriy Khlyvnyuk and The Kiffness. Khlyvnyuk is the lead singer of Boombox, who were touring the US when the Russian invasion began; Khlyvnyuk returned home to serve in the resistance. All proceeds from this song go towards humanitarian aid. The poem at the start of the episode was written by Kateryna Babkina, and translated by Emily.