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Ruling Myanmar: From Cyclone Nargis to National Elections
November 2010 sees the first elections in Myanmar/Burma since 1990, to be held as the culmination of the military regime's 'Road Map for Democracy' The conditions under which the elections are being held are far from favourable, although the laws and procedures under which they will be conducted have been in place for seven months and quite widely publicized. Political controls remain repressive, freedom of expression and assembly does not exist, and international access is restricted by government controls as well as sanctions. While the elections represent a turning point for Myanmar/Burma, the lead-up period has not been marked by many notable improvements in the way the country is governed or in the reforming impact of international assistance programmes. Presenters at the Australian National University 2009 Myanmar/Burma Update conference examined these questions and more. Leading experts from the United States, Japan, France, and Australia as well as from Myanmar/Burma have conributed to this collection of papers from the Conference.
370 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2010
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May 24, 2023
It has been more than a decade since this book’s publication, which was largely intended to analyse the process of Burma in charting its political transition towards democracy in the events following Cyclone Nargis which had devastated the country in May 2008. The disaster struck Burma as the junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), was making a decision to adopt by referendum the 2008 constitution which became a blueprint for the SPDC in making the political transition - a controversial decision in itself that was given more attention compared to the humanitarian crises caused by Cyclone Nargis at that time.
At the initial stage of the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, the SPDC infamously rejected humanitarian aid offered by the international community, despite indications of the gravity of the disaster. It was expected that a total of 140,000 people lost their lives in the disaster and more than 7.5 million people living around the Irrawaddy Delta were affected. What could Cyclone Nargis teach us about the state of Burma at that time and the prospect of political transition in the country?
In various articles that are interdisciplinary in nature and with issues that intertwine with each other, this book makes a case for the prospect of change in Burma in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. At that point in history, Burma was crippled economically with virtually little in the way of economic growth as the country had no preconditions to sustain microfinancing to its rural populations, as argued by Sean Turnell, who later would become Aung San Suu Kyi’s economic adviser during the rule of the National League for Democracy (NLD) up until the 2021 military coup. There is also the prospect presented through Burma’s membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which paved the way for the international community to tap into bringing humanitarian aid to Burma, providing the much-needed unimpeded access and later transformed into the establishment of a “troika” in the form of Tripartite Core Group - a group consisting of the Government of Burma, representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat and representatives from the UN - to govern and monitor the post-Nargis recovery efforts, a case commended for its effectiveness by William Sabandar who was the special envoy of ASEAN Secretary-General for post-Nargis recovery efforts.
I think the views expressed by each author with their differing viewpoints provide some counterbalance in this book. We could in one way or another observe the authors’ political preferences by looking at the term they use to refer to the country, i.e. Burma, Myanmar, Burma/Myanmar, or by looking at their case studies which either commend the meager achievements of the SPDC that are largely ignored by the international community (particularly the European Union with its normative stance) or present evidence of the SPDC’s inability to govern effectively prior to and after the country was devastated by Cyclone Nargis.
In looking at the analyses in this book from today’s context, we could see similar patterns that were observed in the last days of the SPDC in 2010 - particularly with the way the ruling junta viewed elections as an exit strategy and some behavioural changes in the part of the regime in the events preceding the election - which could give us some cues to understanding the inner workings of the Myanmar military. Yet new trends also affected Burma now compared to 2010, with the increasing leadership role of an alternative government in the form of the National Unity Government (NUG) and some ethnic armed organisations opposing the current military regime, leaving the situation in a more unpredictable state.
At the initial stage of the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, the SPDC infamously rejected humanitarian aid offered by the international community, despite indications of the gravity of the disaster. It was expected that a total of 140,000 people lost their lives in the disaster and more than 7.5 million people living around the Irrawaddy Delta were affected. What could Cyclone Nargis teach us about the state of Burma at that time and the prospect of political transition in the country?
In various articles that are interdisciplinary in nature and with issues that intertwine with each other, this book makes a case for the prospect of change in Burma in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. At that point in history, Burma was crippled economically with virtually little in the way of economic growth as the country had no preconditions to sustain microfinancing to its rural populations, as argued by Sean Turnell, who later would become Aung San Suu Kyi’s economic adviser during the rule of the National League for Democracy (NLD) up until the 2021 military coup. There is also the prospect presented through Burma’s membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which paved the way for the international community to tap into bringing humanitarian aid to Burma, providing the much-needed unimpeded access and later transformed into the establishment of a “troika” in the form of Tripartite Core Group - a group consisting of the Government of Burma, representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat and representatives from the UN - to govern and monitor the post-Nargis recovery efforts, a case commended for its effectiveness by William Sabandar who was the special envoy of ASEAN Secretary-General for post-Nargis recovery efforts.
I think the views expressed by each author with their differing viewpoints provide some counterbalance in this book. We could in one way or another observe the authors’ political preferences by looking at the term they use to refer to the country, i.e. Burma, Myanmar, Burma/Myanmar, or by looking at their case studies which either commend the meager achievements of the SPDC that are largely ignored by the international community (particularly the European Union with its normative stance) or present evidence of the SPDC’s inability to govern effectively prior to and after the country was devastated by Cyclone Nargis.
In looking at the analyses in this book from today’s context, we could see similar patterns that were observed in the last days of the SPDC in 2010 - particularly with the way the ruling junta viewed elections as an exit strategy and some behavioural changes in the part of the regime in the events preceding the election - which could give us some cues to understanding the inner workings of the Myanmar military. Yet new trends also affected Burma now compared to 2010, with the increasing leadership role of an alternative government in the form of the National Unity Government (NUG) and some ethnic armed organisations opposing the current military regime, leaving the situation in a more unpredictable state.
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