Myanmar ‘still in search of democracy’

Hark back to November 1990. To draw the world’s attention to the military regime at home, two Burmese students, Soe Myint and Htin Kyaw, forced a Thai Airways flight to Kolkata.

But the military junta would be dissolved long after that, in 2011. Myint returned to Myanmar after a prolonged stay in Kolkata, where he founded Mizzima Media Company, and is now its Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director.

Busy in giving a voice to the aspirations of the nation from Yangon, 48-year-old Myint believes Myanmar has miles before it achieves democracy.

According to him, with 25 per cent of the People’s Assembly represented by the military, whose nominees also hold the three important portfolios of defence, border security and home, and dominate the National Security Council six to five, the “constitution is a question mark”.

“We are not a democracy as yet. We are at a nascent stage of transition,” he told BusinessLine on the sidelines of a recent conference on India-Myanmar relations, organised by Parami Energy Group and Mizzima, in Yangon.

Myint’s biggest concern is about the lack of clarity on the federal system that Myanmar will adopt considering the diverse nature of its polity.

“We are a nation with diverse nationalism, culture and history,” he says, insisting that the word “nationalism” is a conscious choice.

“The problem is Myanmar is yet to find a common agenda that would accommodate this diverse polity, as is evident in the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state or the unrest in Kachin, which is yet to join the peace process. No one has an answer as to what kind of federal system we have or should have,” Myint says.

The lack of clarity is evident in Myanmar’s dealings with the Rohingyas or Muslim Arakanese in Rakhine district on the country’s south-western coast. Yangon denied citizenship to this ethnic group under the 1982 citizenship law. The semi-democratic set-up, post 2011, is following the principles drafted by the military.

The discrimination cannot directly be termed as religious, as Myanmar’s army dictators never interfered with the religious rights of the people.

The problem lies in Myanmar’s ability to accommodate the Bamar population that dominates the south-central region and some 135 ethnic groups besides a sizeable section from different origins, including India.

Myint would not get into the details. But he has no hesitation in saying that there are still risks in Myanmar’s journey towards democracy. The question marks hanging over the Constitution and the federalism structure pose significant risks.

“We have not been able to find a national picture as yet,” says Myint. The country needs to shed the social, political and economic hangover of the decades-long military rule (1962 to 2011) before democracy-building can happen in Myanmar.

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