Hun Sen Visits Myanmar: Of Dubious Ceasefire Offers and Delusions of Peace
A deep dive into what the Cambodian Prime Minister's controversial visit to Myanmar on 7-8 January 2022 means for "peace" in post-coup Myanmar.
On 7 January, Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia, landed in Naypyitaw and became the first head of state of any country to make an official visit to Myanmar since the military coup on 1 February 2021.
As expected, he received a red carpet welcome at the airport, with the junta foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, personally present to receive him. Subsequently, Sen met coup leader, Min Aung Hlaing (MAH), at the regal Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw. This was followed by a delegation-level bilateral meeting or ‘summit’.
There was some epic bromance on display, complete with fist bumps and gleaning faces. It looked nothing short of a warm and fuzzy meeting of two old buddies.
And of course, the whole thing got premium front-page coverage in the junta mouthpiece, The Global New Light of Myanmar.
It was projected by both parties as a two-day visit, but Hun Sen flew back to Phnom Penh after a very short daytime itinerary on the second day itself. He had earlier talked about the possibility of extending it, but didn’t.
Notably, Cambodia recently took on the mantle of the ASEAN Chair from Brunei. So, Sen’s visit, although technically bilateral in nature, involved a lot of ASEAN talk, given that the organisation is currently engaged in an internal negotiation process with Myanmar over the coup. This process – underpinned by a ‘Five-Point Consensus’ and a Chair-appointed ‘Special Envoy’ mechanism agreed upon by ASEAN last April – hit choppy waters soon after its inception, with the junta dragging its feet over it.
So far, Myanmar was facing the heat from ASEAN under the Chairmanship of Brunei, which had taken a considerably firm position on the junta. The organisation, which usually works on the norm of non-interference in the “internal affairs” of its member states, barred the junta from attending crucial meetings – a historic snub by ASEAN standards. Last October, the outgoing (and first) Special Envoy, Bruneian Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof, cancelled his visit to Myanmar after being informed that he wouldn’t be allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest.
But, Sen, even before his visit, had made it clear that he would be doing things differently – speaking in favour of directly engaging with, not boycotting, the junta and asserting the latter’s rights to attend ASEAN meetings. His visit, which received widespread flak on social media, only confirmed this.
This brings us to the joint press release put out by both parties after the visit. Of other things, the presser announces the appointment of Prak Sokhonn, Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, as the ASEAN Chair’s Special Envoy on Myanmar. But, that’s probably the least of the concerns here.
Does Hun Sen know what’s going in Myanmar?
One of the first substantive points in the presser is the junta announcing an extension to a unilateral five-month “goodwill ceasefire” with all Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) that it had announced on 27 September 2021 (effective from 1 October). Slated to lapse on 28 February, the junta revealed that it would now be extended “until the end of 2022”.
MAH, who has silently watched over his troops use lethal violence, torture and scorched-earth tactics against peaceful dissenters and ordinary civilians across Myanmar since February last year, “called on all parties concerned to accept the ceasefire in the interest of the country and people, end all acts of violence and exercise utmost restraint.” The irony here is rich. Richer than the richest cronies in the junta ecosystem.
According to the joint statement, the move was “strongly supported” by the Cambodian PM “with the view to deescalating tension and enable constructive dialogues among relevant stakeholders to achieve enduring peace and national development.” It also says that the Special Envoy would be joining the ceasefire talks “with and among” the EAOs, which it claims is an “important step [that] is embodied in the ASEAN five-point consensus.”
Hun Sen then pulled out his favourite catchphrase, one that he hasn’t stopped talking about since the late 1990s – ‘Win Win Policy’. The statement said that he shared the policy’s “success in achieving national reconciliation, lasting peace, stability, development and prosperity” and “stressed that based on the experiences and lessons learned from Cambodia’s peace process, complete peace and national reconciliation cannot be achieved without participation and agreement from all parties involved.”
Oodles of pontification and vacuous lessons there.
Later, on his return to Phnom Penh, Hun Sen patted his own back for what he clearly thinks was a job well done. He pronounced on his official Facebook page that he visited Myanmar to prevent the country from slipping into violence and civil war and that those opposing the ceasefire want “people to be killed and wounded by war” (rough English translation).
Those like Hun Sen and MAH like their horses high, and once they mount them, they don’t want to come down. Even if they do, it is only to…play golf.
The Cambodian PM is clearly under an illusion that he has successfully set the ground for some kind of historic ceasefire agreement with the EAOs, which would instantly bring peace to Myanmar. He seems to believe that his great ‘Win Win Policy’, which he used to broker an agreement with former Khmer Rouge cadres in 1998 and has since repeatedly used for personal political gains, can be transplanted onto Myanmar and all will be well.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Even as Hun Sen was writing his shoddy utopian fiction of peace and rambling on about his ‘Win Win Policy’, the military raided the Kayah State capital of Loikaw, burning houses and conducting airstrikes. During the same time, the military also conducted airstrikes against the Karenni Army (KA), the armed wing of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), along the Thai border, sending 200 people across the international border.
As obvious as this might be to most, it certainly eluded the Cambodian PM and hence, needs to be stated for posterity – the ongoing armed conflict in Myanmar isn’t just a simple “military versus EAO” fight that is restricted to the ethnic regions. It is a much more complex, multi-front, multi-layered battle between the military and several armed militias – or People’s Defence Forces (PDF) – spread out across the whole country, including major urban centres in the Bamar heartland.
In fact, the PDF-led armed movement against the military is the dominant conflict trend in the country right now, with most of the EAOs playing a secondary and arguably muted role in pushing back against the coup regime. So any effective ceasefire agreement in Myanmar has to include the PDFs.
But, a reality that even MAH knows too well is that the PDFs don’t want a ceasefire. They have a far more revolutionary goal – to defeat the military for good. That is why MAH summarily proscribed them as ‘terrorist organisations’ early on into the fight so that his troops have broad leeway to use brute force against them. But, that hasn’t stopped the PDFs, who are now present in every state and region of Myanmar, from constantly attacking the military using a range of locally-made, improvised and imported weapons.
None of these found mention in the joint press statement. Neither did the fact that the junta has killed more than 1440 people in Myanmar since 1 February 2021.
So, either Hun Sen really has no idea about what’s happening in Myanmar or he is deliberately looking away to stay in line with MAH. In all likelihood, MAH managed to successfully convince him that Myanmar is facing a coordinated assault by “foreign-funded PDF terrorists” and Hun Sen, being the status quoist, ivory tower Southeast Asian elite that he is, quickly bought into it.
Why does the junta want to make peace with EAOs?
If you think the junta is offering and extending unilateral ceasefires to the EAOs simply out of goodwill or some altruistic desire for peace and harmony in Myanmar, you are wrong.
The fundamental reason why the junta is doing so is because it wants to weaken the anti-military armed movement by splitting it from the middle.
Currently, both EAOs and PDFs are fighting the military throughout the country. While not all EAOs are doing so, out of those involved in combat, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Karenni Army (KA) are the most active at the moment. All of them are heavily-armed and highly-experienced armed groups.
In fact, EAOs and PDFs have often joined hands to attack junta forces – such as the recent KIA-PDF joint operations in Sagaing Region; the potent alliance between the KA and the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) [a coalition of PDFs] in Kayah/Karenni State; and links between the Chin National Front (CNF) [an EAO] and the Chinland Defence Forces (CDF) [a PDF].
The junta fears this formidable unity, mostly because the battle-hardened and well-resourced EAOs could help the PDFs strengthen their tactical capabilities and also beef up their armouries. This could make it much harder for the military to defeat the PDFs.
Isolating the younger PDFs from their more experienced EAO compatriots through a selective ceasefire regime could render the former weak and vulnerable – that is what the junta seems to believe. Classic divide-and-rule.
Further, the military has to expend a great deal of resources to fight the EAOs, who possess sophisticated military hardware and understand the battlefield very well. So, by making peace with the EAOs, the military hopes to reduce the overall cost of fighting and divert critical combat assets towards their fight against the PDFs.
Besides, it is convenient for MAH and Hun Sen to frame the whole thing in the ‘military versus EAO’ binary. The EAOs are established entities with identifiable organisational structures, leadership, operational theatres and behavioural patterns. In that sense, they are easy to understand and manage.
Very importantly, some of the most powerful EAOs, all based in the north and northeast, have longstanding links with China. They listen to what the Chinese tell them and are somewhat okay with talking to the junta. Only last month, amidst all the fighting, six north-based EAOs – all members of the non-ceasefire EAO group known as the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) – met with junta representatives in the Kokang casino town of Mong La under China’s supervision. Reportedly, the junta was eager to talk to them and hence, had asked Beijing to facilitate the same. Now, with pro-China Hun Sen on board, the military leadership will be in a better position to tame the EAOs, at least in theory.
On the other hand, PDFs are new groups that are largely disparate, unpredictable, without established leadership structures and tactically fluid. Most of them have some primary areas of operation, but don’t mind moving around. And many of them are based in the dense Bamar heartland, unlike the EAOs that operate out of ethnic minority areas. All of these make it incredibly hard for the military to bring the PDFs under control, despite the fact that they might be weaker than the EAOs. There is a reason why traditional standing armies dread guerrilla warfare – its messy, psychologically exhausting, and you can never truly preempt the enemy’s next move.
Further, as opposed to the EAOs, China doesn’t command any direct influence over the PDFs. For them, talking to the junta is simply out of the question. It is for this critical lack of leverage that the junta has chosen the kinetic option over peace talks with the PDFs for now.
Beyond these immediate reasons, the Myanmar military leadership is simply tired of fighting the EAOs for decades on end. The last seventy odd years have made it amply clear to the Generals that it is a costly, never-ending battle of attrition. They have realised that it is practically impossible to comprehensively defeat or disarm the EAOs. So, the next best option is to make peace with them to ensure that the rebels remain within their own territorial limits and do not launch unprovoked offensives against the military.
A lucrative bonus of formal ceasefires with large EAOs is that they allow the Generals to chalk out mutually-beneficial, profit-making arrangements with ethnic leaders over valuable resources and trade routes (including the illicit ones). By making temporary peace, elites from both parties can share the spoils of war without actually shedding any blood. Both the Kachin ceasefire of 1994 and the Karen ceasefire of 2012 were undergirded by such politico-economic interests and spawned what many scholars have labelled “ceasefire capitalism”.
All of these together formed the guiding philosophy behind the much-touted Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), signed by eight EAOs in 2015. Since then, the military has been pushing all the other EAOs, especially the big ones in the north who continue to reject the NCA, to sign it. In fact, the junta has doubled down on asserting the NCA’s importance since the coup, urging the EAOs who have not signed it to do so and those that have signed it to abide by it. But, with whatever trust left between the military and the EAOs fraying since the 1 February putsch, the NCA has practically fallen apart over the last few months.
Can the military be trusted with ceasefires?
This isn’t the first time the military is offering or extending a unilateral ceasefire to the EAOs. It has done so thrice since the 1 February 2021 putsch. In fact, since 2018, it has made 12 unilateral ceasefire moves with EAOs who haven’t signed the NCA – 6 offers and 6 extensions. And except in the case of the informal ceasefire deal with the Arakan Army announced in November 2020, the military has violated every single unilateral ceasefire in one way or the other.
The first time it announced a unilateral ceasefire with non-NCA EAOs was when it decided to halt all operations from its five regional commands in Kachin and Shan States in December 2018. Initially slated to lapse in April 2019, the military then extended the same thrice till the end of September 2019. During that period, the military attacked a TNLA base in northern Shan State and raided and overran nearly 8 KIA bases in Kachin State. In fact, the TNLA reported more than 130 clashes with the military in 2019.
Then, the military announced another unilateral ceasefire in May 2020, this time in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally meant to lapse in three months, it was extended twice till the end of October 2020. During that period, the military was accused of expanding operations and troop presence in northern Shan State. It clashed several times with the KIA, TNLA, MNDAA and even the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), which is an NCA signatory.
After the coup, the junta announced its first unilateral ceasefire on 1 April 2021. On the same day, it conducted multiple airstrikes and ground attacks against KNU/KNLA positions in northern Karen State, eventually displacing almost 20,000 people. By May, 90% of the rural population in Mutraw district had been displaced, according to a report by the Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN). During the one-month ceasefire period, the military also launched a large ground-and-air offensive to retake a key strategic base in Alaw Bum (Kachin State) that the KIA had captured the previous month.
Then the junta announced yet another unilateral ceasefire on 30 May, to be effective from 1 June till the end of the month. During that period, the military, along with the Border Guards Force (BGF), clashed with the KNLA in Hpa-an, Karen State. According to the KNLA, the military had deployed troops in their territory without permission – a violation of ceasefire norms. Notably, the KNLA, which is the primary armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), is a signatory to the NCA, although there is a serious internal difference within the group regarding the sanctity of the agreement.
The final ceasefire announcement came in late September 2021 as a “goodwill gesture”. Starting on 1 October, it was meant to end in five-months, but has now been extended. Right after the announcement, the military began assembling heavy troops in Kokang, Mong Ko and Theinni in northern Shan State, according to information supplied by Kokang 311, an MNDAA-affiliated media channel, to Frontier Myanmar. Subsequently, reports began to emerge of the military intruding into KNU territory and engaging in shootouts.
Two months later, in the middle of the ceasefire, the military began raiding the KNU-controlled town of Lay Kay Kaw in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township. Soon after, full-fledged clashes between the KNLA and the military erupted in the area. Just before Christmas, the military pounded the town with airstrikes and heavy artillery, sending thousands across the border to Thailand. Once again, let us recall that the KNU is technically still an NCA signatory. Even then, the military conducted brazen attacks against not just the group’s strategic positions, but also non-combatant civilian populations residing in its territories.
Even before the coup, the military had been incessantly poking the KNU despite the 2012 bilateral ceasefire agreement and the 2015 NCA. It had expanded troop deployment in Karen State under the garb of widening a road in Hpapun Township’s Mutraw district, triggering an unending cycle of violence and displacement. Till 2020, it continued to shell Karen villages, displacing hundreds. In May 2020, it burnt a KNU COVID-19 screening post, fuelling fresh clashes.
All of these show how little the Myanmar military respects ceasefire agreements, including the high-profile NCA, which it keeps flaunting as some kind of ultimate deal for peace.
Ultimately, in Myanmar’s asymmetric battlefield, most ceasefires tend to favour the military the most. It is, after all, still the most powerful politico-military actor in the country and is comprehensively empowered by the military-drafted 2008 constitution, which allows it to maintain a firm monopoly over all state structures, including revenue streams and formal trade routes. It also has the largest number of active troops, the most advanced military hardware and the advantage of having an air force. These are facts that MAH knows well, just as his predecessors did.
In such a situation, ceasefires only maintain a lingering, regressive, awkward status quo under which the Generals can go on dominating all aspects of life and fattening themselves up without having to fight bloody wars. More importantly, they can claim to guarantee peace for all without having to initiate meaningful structural reforms to establish a federal democratic union. Hun Sen obviously doesn’t care about this lopsided power dynamic and how useless a nationwide ceasefire in the current context would be.
What now with the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus?
The joint presser mentions MAH pledging to fully support the ASEAN Chair’s Special Envoy “in fulfilling his mandate to implement the five-point consensus in accordance with the ASEAN Charter”. On the surface, this looks like a progressive decision. But, it is far from that when seen in conjunction with other points in the presser.
The joint statement also says that the “implementation of the five-point consensus should be complementary in realization of the five-point roadmap of the State Administration Council.”
MAH has cleverly balanced the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) with his own ‘five-point roadmap’, which lays out a vague politico-economic “plan” to stabilise the country, reconstitute the Election Commission, and restore democratic rule. Even a cursory reading of it makes it amply clear that the junta doesn’t plan to hand back power to the people through free-and-fair elections anytime soon. So for all practical purposes, it plans to drag out both the 5PC and its own “roadmap” for years on end, one rationalising the other.
All of these basically imply that under Cambodia’s ASEAN Chairmanship, the 5PC won’t be implemented unconditionally and will remain hostage to the junta’s whims.
As far as the joint proposal for the Special Envoy to participate in ceasefire talks with the EAOs is concerned, MAH is using a very limited interpretation of the third point in the 5PC to broker a temporary agreement. The 5PC talks about “dialogue among all parties”, and not just between the military and the EAOs. This entails participation of the civilian political leaders (many of whom remain under detention), civil society leaders, PDFs and other non-junta actors in Myanmar. Now, that’s something that MAH won’t allow anytime soon.
These are deadlocked realities that both the Myanmar junta and the Cambodian leadership know well. They have just managed to reach a carefully-curated “middle ground” which is in the interest of no one but their own. Through this strategic arrangement, the junta will be able to participate actively in ASEAN processes while feeding a slow-drip of faux promises of peace and reconciliation to the rest of the world. Hun Sen, on the other hand, will be able to flex his muscles within and outside ASEAN as a constructive peacemaker.
One can hope that the other ASEAN members realise how Cambodia’s approach to the Myanmar situation can adversely affect its international image and do something about it. The last thing that they would want is for the 5PC to become a sad joke that rewrites itself every day under Hun Sen’s callous leadership. Right now, it seems to be rapidly heading towards that direction.