Tampadipa Institute

In Iran Protests, the Hijab Is the Red Line for Both Government and Women The protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini are rooted in 40 years of tension over the mandatory hijab, which is seen by both authorities and citizens as a proxy for authoritarian control.

Reads like a spy thriller

Inside the Secret Prisoner Swap That Splintered the U.S. and China The detention of a Chinese executive to stand trial in the U.S. provoked a standoff between global rivals and opened an acrimonious new era. “You are lapdogs of the United States.”

Please look closely at this map which is of Burma as part of the British Empire. While the rest of the country is coloured pink, the three Karenni states are coloured yellow. (I had an old school atlas belonging to my aunt and this feature intrigued me).
It’s because the three Karenni states were protectorates and not under British administration. At independence they joined the Union as Kayah State, with the same secession privileges as the Shan States. French Indochina also had protectorates – Laos and Cambodia. When the Geneva Agreement was signed at the end of the First Indochina War, the two protectorates became independent sovereign countries.
With the death and destruction happening now in Kayah/Karenni, it is no wonder that many would want to return to that status.

Independent Commission of Enquiry’s (ICOE) Report

It’s been submitted to the president and the attorney-general’s office issued a short statement in today’s paper. Most news media wouldn’t bother to comment but one foreign broadcaster wanted to run a story and interviewed me.

The law office said action has been taken and will continue to be taken. The interviewer asked whether it includes abuses committed by the military. If it is really an independent commission, all abuses have to be included, but it may indeed be side-stepping the military ‘sector’.

Will it have any effect on the international procedures against Myanmar? The government (and the ICOE) evidently hope so, but that’s not going to be the case. I patiently explained why.

An American once asked me – “what do you think of the ICOE? The US is supporting it.” Well to be frank, nobody outside the Myanmar government thinks much of it. With today’s ta**ry effort, its credibility declines even further.

Anyway I commend the broadcasters for putting out a story. And I continue to say not only what’s on my mind, but also what needs to be said under these sordid circumstances. The ICOE has got a bunch of has-beens together to put out half-measures to find off international action.

I know there are precious few who will speak out like this. But I am one of them.

Myanmar’s elections will accelerate ethnic division
28 October 2020
Author: Khin Zaw Win, Tampadipa Institute

Myanmar’s return to democracy has occurred at huge cost. The 1988 nation-wide protests were the starting point of a process that lasted until the multi-party elections of 2010. Thousands have been killed in the streets, tortured, maimed, imprisoned, or driven into exile. Much hope was pinned on the National League for Democracy (NLD) and its leader State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. This culminated in the party’s landslide election victory in 2015.

A boy looks from his temporary shelter at a Rohingya refugee camp in Sittwe, Myanmar. (Photo: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun).
Sadly, in the years since, Myanmar’s path to a more entrenched democracy that represents its diversity has faced big obstacles. Pluralism, freedom of expression, ethnic equality and peace have all taken a back step. The worn-out excuse that democratic progress is being held up by the military’s presence in politics holds true only up to a point. The main responsibility rests with the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi.

In the 2015–20 term the division of power became more clear-cut, with the NLD government gaining responsibility over many portfolios while the military retained its hold over the three security-related ministries. Granted that the civil-military relationship remained uneasy, the military generally stayed out of ‘civilian’ or overtly political business. In the ‘peace process’, whose failure would be hard to refute, the military has been less than helpful. But on intertwined issues such as federalism, and ethnic relations per se, the NLD could have been more constructive. NLD governance has left many ethnic parties and armed organisations alienated.

With the military too, the all-important National Defence and Security Council has never had a single official meeting in this term of office, due to Aung San Suu Kyi’s unwillingness.

The NLD has shown its true colours over its five-year term and it’s not a pretty sight. The public’s view on this will be clearer in the coming election. But Myanmar’s diversity will be reflected too. Gone are the days of the collective expression of will seen in the drive to unseat the military-linked parties in 2015.

The election results this year are much more likely to conform to ethno-territorial lines. In this election Myanmar’s ethnic nationalities will likely vote along ethnic or tribal lines. The ‘Burman–non-Burman’ divide has never been more apparent. The Burman political centre is no different. It is a mistake to assume Burman social or political cohesion. All of Myanmar’s mainstream political parties up to now have only had a unitarist, monist outlook on social and ethnic issues surrounding the state. This has been the case since the 1930s.

The only way out of the rut is to recommit to pluralism. This is unlikely to happen under Aung San Suu Kyi. As an interim arrangement, even in the Burman political centre, Myanmar could have a form of federalism with different parties running regional governments in different regions. Constitutional change is not required for this. It is a matter for the president, Win Myint, to decide. The current party-president is unlikely to make a decision that favours a shift to federalism. This is why it is crucial for other parties to get as many seats as possible in this election.

This year, the NLD urges the public not to vote for smaller (ethnic-based) parties, realising that political winds might be shifting. The NLD is pushing the view that smaller parties will never be able to form a government. But this is an inaccurate message pushed by the NLD and it needs to be countered in public debate. A coalition of smaller parties forming government is possible.

The sad fact is that the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi are not at all comfortable with pluralism and this has become more apparent over time. On 26 October 2020, parties from five ethnic nationalities (Kachin, Chin, Kayah, Kayin and Mon) announced that they will contest the election as a coalition. Four new ‘national’ parties have registered and will be running too. These trends run counter to the NLD’s supremacist stand and can be seen as self-correcting mechanisms in the politics of the country. However imperfect or vestigial they may seem now, they hold the key to a more plural Myanmar – the Myanmar that should have been.

Myanmar’s political parties often use official and non-official campaign slogans. Some larger parties have election manifestos, but these are not taken very seriously. One slogan that carried the NLD to power in previous general elections was ‘don’t let the vote be split’.

No matter what the outcome of November’s election, Myanmar’s ethnic divisions are likely to continue. Myanmar’s multiplicity of single-ethnic political parties and its ethnic politics have been a persistent feature of itspost-1988 democratic revival. They are integral to Myanmar’s politics. But peace issues and the continuing civil war has become a larger impediment to unity. Political party differences have intensified during the NLD’s term. The current wave of ethnically based political party mergers is one manifestation of this.

One hopes that this change is not irreversible and that there is future in which pluralism can be reconciled with political representation. For now, the prospects for federalism in Myanmar have dimmed. Any illusions that the NLD favour a federal system have been dispelled.

The NLD is aiming for long-term dominance, if not outright supremacy, in Myanmar’s politics. It could be on a pathway of dominance similar to Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party or Singapore’s People’s Action Party. This would not be a problem if the NLD had either of those parties’ capabilities, but it has done next to nothing to build up its human assets.

The NLD is relying on its party machinery, Myanmar’s Union Election Commission (UEC) and as a fallback, the military, to secure continuing power. It has flatly dismissed the possibility of entering into a coalition agreement with any other party. The UEC is virtually an extension of the NLD and is not considered the independent, non-partisan body it should be. Recently the constituencies for Myanmar’s upper house, Amyotha Hluttaw or the House of Nationalities, were altered without notifying election candidates. The UEC also has no commitment, rather hostility, towards election monitoring.

ThisMyanmar’s elections will accelerate ethnic division
28 October 2020 election will take place in the shadow of Myanmar’s second wave of COVID-19infections. Its implications for Myanmar’s future are deeper than simply a tarnished NLD victory.

Khin Zaw Win is Director of the Tampadipa Institute, Yangon.

I am in quarantine after returning from Sittwe and I wrote this series about my trip.

The Story Didn’t End at Auschwitz-Birkenau
Khin Zaw Win

A visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau* death camps is always to be remembered – especially a first visit. I had been to Poland before, and quite some years ago attended a Community of Democracies event in Krakow. At the end of that conference, two special tours were offered – the Wieliczka Salt Mine and Auschwitz. I would have taken that chance, but it required an extra day and my return flight was already booked. So special thanks are due to those who organized this recent programme, which was for two days, taking in Auschwitz and Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter of Krakow.
I had read a lot about the extermination camps since my early teens, but actually being at the locations is something else again. As luck would have it, the coronavirus outbreak intervened. Most public institutions including universities and museums were closed the day we arrived in Poland. So the Auschwitz Museum was out, and we could only look at the buildings from outside. The Museum occupies the complex known as Auschwitz I, which used to be a Polish army barracks before it became a concentration camp. It has the iconic iron grillwork gate, and the solid brick buildings surrounded by a double electrified fence still look forbidding.
Birkenau or Auschwitz II is outside the town and extensively laid out with rows of wooden tenements. It has its own iconic gatehouse and two tall crematoria. Nearby are the sites of mass graves, one holding the remains of Russian prisoners-of-war.
In the absence of museum accounts, we had to rely on the stories and details provided by able guides – like the infamous Block 11, at the wall of which 10,000 people had been shot. One gets benumbed by the horror, which was revealed in full near or at the end of the war. When news of the Red Army’s advance came in, bodies of victims were burned to ‘destroy’ evidence. But such incredible numbers could not be hidden for long.
The next day we went on a walking tour of Kazimierz, which became the high-point of the visit. Listening to our guide was such an enriching experience. Not only was he erudite, and there was the prevailing sense of sadness, but he brought in deep insights into the thinking of peoples through the ages – all laced with a dose of humour.
Despite the discomfort of the cold morning, I listened to every word of his. When he chronicled the steady slide in the 1930s and 40s from discrimination and exclusion, to ghettoization and finally extermination, I could not help but see the many present-day parallels we are witnessing at this very moment. Not only do we have to become aware of the past, we have to wake up to the present too.
*Oswiescim- Brzezinka” in Polish
When the Jewish Ghetto was set up in occupied Krakow, the N**i government designated two buildings as hospitals. And also a labour registration office – to maintain the tiny thread of hope that this was “normal” life. But six hundred patients were crammed into a space meant for sixty.
The N**is were anxious to keep Red Cross parcels coming in until the US entered the war. They would make documentary movies with small-time actors dressed in German Army uniforms looking after the Jews and giving them health care. When the ghetto was finally eradicated, all the patients were shot in their beds (as well as a woman doctor who protested).
At the end of the War, most world leaders vowed “never again” and international instruments like the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide were adopted. But did genocides stop there? No they did not.
When you try to assess it all, there are those who steadfastly maintain that the Holocaust is unique and does not bear comparison. But the drawing of parallels cannot be entirely dismissed either, not least in the search for ways to prevent further genocides. And that is where the rub is: are we as a human species unable to forgo or prevent mass murder? And when it happens, and one looks for accountability, do we seek all avenues to evade responsibility?
The War Crimes Tribunals and the dispensation of justice notwithstanding, the perennial (conscientious) question is how do individuals and nations atone or otherwise come to terms with the scale of such crimes? Germany has made a game effort, whereas other countries - victors as well as losers – have not. The postwar system of international organizations and states bear primary responsibility (not always successfully), but so do the peoples of individual states. Of leadership, what is most unforgivable is the deliberate denial and dismissal of such crimes. Besides the egregious moral shabbiness, that very act amounts to a crime by itself. Unlike the Holocaust, there are unfinished businesses. Another point of difference is that there is still room to make amends and provide restitution. That is the only chance left.
19 Mar 2019, 10:28 am.

I gave a talk on statelessness and discrimination at the Law Department, Yangon University on Wednesday. An associate professor from Mandalay University sent me her recently-published paper. It is titled “Legal Aspects of the Right to Nationality Pursuant to Myanmar Citizenship Law”. In 23 pages it covers the Citizenship Law, the Rakhine crisis and the plight of the Rohingya. I was pleasantly amazed that something like it could be published by a serving Myanmar academic.
The paper offers a solution – in amending the Citizenship Law; we are quite aware how much of an effort it will take. But we have something to hope for.