Why Did the Myanmar Peace Process Fail?

By Tony Waters 20 April 2022

Time for an Analysis of Donor-Led Peace Efforts?

As just lately as 2020 probably the most outstanding logos on Yangon billboards, autos, and indicators was the woven fibers of the Joint Peace Fund (JPF). The JPF arrived in Yangon in 2016, loudly proclaiming that it had pledges from 9 western donors who would fund US$100 million in peacebuilding actions between 2016 and 2021.  

The JPF would help the Nationwide Ceasefire Settlement (NCA) of 2015, a Norwegian-sponsored settlement between the quasi-civilian authorities of U Thein Sein and a dozen or so Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs). A whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} additionally flowed into Myanmar within the identify of peace from Western embassies, United Nations (UN) companies, the World Financial institution, church teams, and worldwide non-governmental organizations (NGOs). All events have been satisfied that they might contribute to the nation’s highway to peace by bringing the peacebuilding abilities of the surface world to Myanmar.  

Worldwide specialists in peacebuilding, public well being, gender, democracy, displaced peoples, schooling and a number of different topics arrived. The Myanmar Police Pressure was even funded by the European Union to coach in crowd management strategies in 2013 and 2016, all a part of a scheme to help them to turn into “a contemporary police company that adheres to worldwide requirements, respects human rights and maintains gender consciousness.”

Conferences have been held in Yangon accommodations, workshops in villages, and leaders jetted off to see ‘greatest follow’ peace efforts in locations like Northern Eire, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Mindanao within the Philippines. After which after all all of it disappeared on February 1, 2021, when the Myanmar navy staged their coup. What went mistaken? No solutions appear forthcoming.

Monitoring, Analysis and the Coup of February 1, 2021

A whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} have been spent on peace and democracy efforts in Myanmar between 2016 and 2021. Myanmar’s service sector briefly flourished and rents in Yangon skyrocketed, notably in neighborhoods favored by expatriates the place homes owned by navy households have been snapped up. However that was OK as a result of every greenback spent was rooted in “proof primarily based coverage”, which meant a specific “benchmarked efficiency goal” pre-determined by the donor was aligned with success, nevertheless outlined.

So the JPF and the donor methods hummed alongside, at all times seeming to satisfy these benchmarked efficiency indicators. The Rohingya disaster of 2017 got here and went, ceasefires in Shan and Kachin States collapsed, and preventing resumed in Karen and Karenni States. The Arakan Military emerged, too. Monitoring and Analysis officers rigorously famous “roadblocks” on the “highway to peace”. Ambassadors lectured Myanmar folks that this was the “final likelihood” for peace. 

Nevertheless it didn’t work. The crash occurred on the day of the coup, when the elected management of the federal government was arrested and the navy occupied Myanmar’s cities. Peaceable demonstrators have been shot, navy operations towards ethnic peoples within the borderlands resumed, and resistance teams started to arrange. All of the efforts of the 2016-2021 peacebuilding appeared for naught. As for the evaluators, they appeared to have immediately disappeared. For instance, as a substitute of acknowledging failure and saying a brand new examine within the pursuits of transparency, JPF’s web site was scoured of all stories and successfully went clean. Or maybe it went underground, as rumors have emerged that the JPF is now negotiating with the navy authorities. Evidently the peacebuilding of 2016-2021 was in useless or maybe even counter-productive.

This implies, although, that it’s time to ask the crucial query of what went mistaken. All that data- pushed policy-building may be resuscitated, and the instruments used to guage the NGOs can now be used to guage the general peace course of. Monitoring and Analysis in donor-speak meant western accounting requirements benchmarking each kyat and greenback. The recipients have been held accountable to the stakeholders, of whom the donors have been most necessary. For this reason limitless reams of the monitoring and analysis stories have been submitted to Western embassies, JPF, World Financial institution, and others. Receipts for tea have been rigorously collated with a efficiency goal, finances line and benchmark. Monitoring and Analysis Officer turned a brand new occupation in Myanmar, judging by the variety of job advertisements promoting for this explicit talent.  

It appears callous to ask, however isn’t the coup and the seeming collapse of the help sector a terrific alternative for a remaining monitoring and analysis report? What are the teachings discovered? Why did the highway to peace fall off a cliff? The place did the a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} spent on peace go? Frankly have been JPF nonetheless round, it looks as if an ideal query for them to conduct an inquiry into.  

Measuring The Expertise of Peace

One drawback is that the JPF and different donors cut back peace to being a technical drawback. Within the imported model of ‘Peaceland’, battle, economics, and politics have been lowered to metrics that are simply monitored and evaluated with numbers. Thus, violent incident stories appeared fast and exact and financial growth was robustly measured in tenths of a % development. Election transparency was presumably measurable within the liters of purple gentian violet used to stain the fingers of voters.

The issue maybe is that peace isn’t just a technical drawback. Peace is sophisticated, as a result of there are numerous types of it and it’s greater than an absence of violent incidents. Certainly in peace research, an absence of violent incidents is usually known as “unfavourable peace”. Myanmar folks keep in mind effectively “unfavourable peace’” from the many years of navy rule when concern of presidency violence was fixed, even when there have been no violent incidents to depend. For unfavourable peace to turn into “optimistic peace,” there must be reconciliation and the start of a brand new sense of shared future. Peace research students use mystical phrases corresponding to soul of place, cultures of peace, social cohesion, and optimistic peace. The purpose is that peace is rooted finally within the morality and traditions of the native society, not {dollars} spent, incidents counted, and even gross nationwide product.

A Wonky Query for the Evaluators: What’s Your Actual Deliverable?

The monitoring and analysis occupation is about measuring progress towards a objective. Peace was the objective for the NCA however that got here to imply solely that violent preventing between the navy and EAOs ought to cease, even when the reign of concern continues. Monitoring and analysis stories, although, solely requested if the taking pictures stopped, not if steps towards what peace research students name “optimistic peace” have been taken. The motivation offered by Western embassies and NGOs was that if you happen to may reply ‘Sure’ that violence charges had decreased, you possibly can get the subsequent contract. One way or the other the world of monitoring and analysis missed the truth that assigning a cup of tea from a workshop to the proper finances class was not the purpose. “Constructive peace” is the purpose, however that is sadly not likely a deliverable that may be monitored and evaluated by merely counting violent incidents.

February 1, 2021 presents a traditional monitoring and analysis alternative for the ‘classes discovered’ crowd. Maybe what must occur is that the donors from the UN, Norway, UK and USA have to admit that the coup was a failure of their very own insurance policies, not simply of the Myanmar folks.  

Sadly, this isn’t but occurring. In Thailand, the place I work, USAID, Washington’s assist company, specifically has arrived with monitoring and analysis specialists promising {dollars} for packages addressing Myanmar points. The catch is that the intensive American accountability necessities imply that the identical insurance policies and similar NGOs that engineered the failure of 2016-2021 are being funded once more. Extra importantly, the pesky objective that’s “optimistic peace” continues to be lacking. So NGOs spring up, monitoring and analysis specialists are employed and villas rented in Chiangmai and Bangkok. After that’s achieved, some cash will make its method throughout the border to Myanmar and the somewhat small variety of NGOs with the wherewithal and workplace employees to proceed satisfying the technocracy of the peace trade.

What Would a Actual Analysis Look Like?

What would an actual analysis of the NCA and JPF appear to be? First, it would begin with not simply the failures within the 2015 ceasefire, however the dozens of different Myanmar ceasefires which have taken place for the reason that Fifties. After which earlier than that there’s the toxic legacy of British colonialism effectively remembered by Myanmar’s peoples. Myanmar has historians who may assist with evaluating why ceasefires have been ineffective for the final 100 years or so. For instance, little thought is put into why the Fifties ceasefires following the 1949 Battle of Insein failed. Neither is a lot written in regards to the Nineteen Nineties ceasefires with the Mon, Kachin, Wa, and others. In these failed ceasefires is likely to be discovered the rationale why the 2015 NCA additionally failed. And at last why did the Rohingya repatriations endorsed by the UN in 1978, 1992, 2012 and 2017 additionally fail?

In case you are a foreigner scratching your head in regards to the Battle of Insein, or different ceasefires, you aren’t alone. In any case, what monitoring and analysis officer created a profession primarily based on bragging in regards to the ceasefire that didn’t work, even when it was probably the most necessary occasions in twentieth century Myanmar historical past? However I’d guess that the unsuccessful endings of the Burmese Civil Struggle of 1949-1950 inform us extra about peace in Myanmar than the peace trade’s successes in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and many others.  

What such research mustn’t begin with are lectures about USAID monitoring and analysis necessities, or critiques from Western embassies about “Myanmar’s failure”. New concepts and ideas from outdoors ‘Peaceland’ should be sought. There are glorious books in English by Johan Galtung, Severine Autessere, John Paul Lederach, Thich Nhat Hanh, Elise Boulding, and others in regards to the nature of peace and peacebuilding that are hardly ever famous within the reams of stories. Myanmar students like U Pho Hlaing’s writings in regards to the nature of Burmese democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi’s writings about democracy and concern, Noticed Aung Hla’s writings in regards to the Karen and Maung Maung Gyi’s ideas relating to Burmese authoritarianism, have been nearly universally ignored in Yangon consultancy stories, regardless that they’re obtainable in English. Extra after all should be obtainable in Burmese, Karen, and the opposite languages of Myanmar.

Tony Waters is Professor of Sociology at Payap College. He’s the writer of Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan, which may be downloaded at Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan: The Limitations to Humanitarian Aid Operation.

He may be reached at [email protected]

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