Why military defections still matter to Myanmar’s revolution

By THINZAR SHUNLEI YI

Not too long ago Frontier revealed an version of its Political Insider e-newsletter with the provocative title “Abort Mission: Why are fewer troopers defecting?” It describes a discouraging slowdown of defections from Myanmar’s safety forces this yr, primarily based on numbers offered by programmes encouraging defections, and contains interviews with some defectors who argue that solely armed fight will flip the tide of the revolution. It is a tempting mistake, made in numerous conflicts previous, that many analysts have argued compellingly towards. 

Revolutionaries should stay versed within the navy’s language of violence, however we’re more likely to succeed if we persevere within the ostensibly much less glamorous, base-broadening work of cold resistance. This work is upheld by defection programmes, strikes, diplomacy, and even the much-belittled pillar of debate and ideological refinement and messaging.

I could also be a pacifist personally, however I concede that the Nationwide Unity Authorities and anybody with entry to worldwide weapons markets and sympathetic militaries ought to pursue these avenues. They need to hold looking for their model of Charlie Wilson (the USA Congressman who surreptitiously funnelled weapons to the Afghan resistance within the Eighties). However what of these of us who should not have entry to such networks? The place does that depart me, a five-foot-tall lady and avowed Buddhist however with greater than a decade of expertise in full-time grassroots activism? What can we provide aside from crowdfunding for weapons and constructing landmines? 

The Frontier evaluation ends with a quote from distinguished defector Captain Lin Htet Aung, who argues: “It’s time for the NUG to place extra effort into successful the revolution reasonably than specializing in defectors…When the military is defeated, troopers will robotically give up to resistance forces.” 

If solely it had been so easy. Many shedding sides previously have had limitless entry to weapons; our goals of freedom should not be pinned to acquiring them. I’ve little doubt that our individuals would thrash the hateful junta if we had been flush with arms, however till such a windfall will be conjured, we have to be extra strategic and inclusive in our rebuilding of the nation. 

In 1971, on the peak of the American conflict in Vietnam, the US navy analyst Emmett J. O’Brien wrote a now declassified report lamenting the dearth of help for a programme that induced 1000’s of defections from Vietnamese communist forces between 1963 and 1971. The misguidedness of the American trigger however, O’Brien wrote, “two observations had been apparent: (1) the variety of lives saved on either side and (2) the unimaginable injury finished to [enemy] navy and political organizations.” However regardless of the programme’s deserves, O’Brien writes it didn’t obtain sufficient help as a result of it wasn’t seen as “glamorous compared to different packages”.

These “different packages” noticed Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Lyndon B Johnson throw extra weapons at a battle than anybody thought potential, and related errors had been made within the Soviet and US campaigns in Afghanistan.

Within the case of our Myanmar revolution, which facet will we most bear a resemblance to? Is the US going give us sufficient weapons to strive the “shock and awe” technique towards our tormenters? Or are we way more just like the wide-based individuals’s resistance of Vietnam, the place ideological dedication, primary righteousness, and inclusive participation performed essential roles together with simply sufficient weapons to remain afloat?

Of their 2011 e-book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Battle, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan analysed 323 resistance campaigns between 1900 and 2006. They stunned themselves to find that nonviolent campaigns had been twice as efficient as their violent counterparts. Additionally they discovered that “nonviolent campaigns have been most profitable once they have produced security-force defections. The truth is, such defections enhance the chance of success by practically 60 %.” 

Nevertheless, Chenoweth and Stephan don’t advocate handing out olive branches – sound recommendation within the case of Myanmar, the place the individuals are already conscious of the navy’s irredeemable dangerous religion in the case of guarantees and negotiations. Slightly, Chenoweth and Stephan argue for fierce asymmetrical cold preventing, and that nonviolent resistance is extra terrifying to the enemy as a result of it’s extra more likely to wind them up in courtroom and on the gallows. 

They contend that “a important supply of the success of nonviolent resistance is mass participation, which might erode or take away a regime’s fundamental sources of energy when the individuals symbolize various sectors of society.” I can take part in nonviolent resistance. So are you able to. Anybody can. 

It begins with messaging. After the coup, we protested within the streets. Many refused to work, many have stayed away from faculty. Others accumulate and share data. Others sabotage. Others debate and brainstorm. Others have defected, and most of them have gone on to contribute in different methods to the resistance. Out of 1000’s of defectors, only some have been treacherous; we mustn’t let these pink herrings blind us to defection’s well-documented worth. 

We don’t want 1000’s of heroes and martyrs, simply thousands and thousands of rocks within the machine. 

Marianne Dahl of the Peace Analysis Institute Oslo adopted up on Chenoweth and Stephan’s analysis and located one thing else that applies to Myanmar. She seen that many regimes that fell to nonviolent resistance, such because the Shah in 1979 Iran, appeared steady from the skin. It’s because strong-looking militaries, just like the one managed by the junta, make use of methods to forestall inner coups. 

These methods embrace promotion programs that reward loyalty over talent and the rotation and dismissal of officers to forestall them from constructing their very own energy centres. This creates a physique of troopers who would possibly secretly pine for regime change however don’t really feel assured sufficient to plot a coup. As Dahl writes, “no sound man would ever attempt to commit a coup that he believed no different soldier would help, however a soldier may change sides and defect, even when he believed that nobody would comply with his actions… As defection doesn’t hinge on coordination, anybody can select to defect.”

There may be a lot work to be finished in so many areas. When international allies hear about our battle, they shouldn’t be led to consider that supporting defection programmes is ineffective. The identical goes for strike committees, civil society growth, counterintelligence, media and messaging, sanctions advocacy, and different elements of the Civil Disobedience Motion. 

It’s the trail of activists like me to speak until we’re blue within the face, and to maintain speaking to anybody who will pay attention and to those that don’t need to pay attention. Conversely, it’s the trail of an NUG member to community, weigh choices and make offers, the trail of a fighter to battle (or defect), and the trail of a union member to strike. 

The move of the revolution is fed by many streams. Let’s assist everybody have entry to it!

Thinzar Shunlei Yi is a Myanmar democracy and human rights activist who has labored with grassroots political coalition Motion Committee for Democracy Growth since 2016. She is an govt member of Individuals’s Purpose, previously often called Individuals’s Troopers, an organisation advocating for and supporting navy defections in Myanmar. Colleagues related to Individuals’s Purpose assisted with researching and writing this text.