When Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen grew to become the primary head of state to go to Myanmar because the army seized energy in a coup final yr, he appeared to suppose he would be capable to deliver the generals again into the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regardless of the nation’s worsening humanitarian disaster.
“I’m considering whether or not we should always preserve ASEAN 9 or ASEAN 10, as a result of, within the latest ASEAN Summit, we have now solely 9, this can be a downside,” he stated forward of the January journey.
In an unprecedented transfer, the group excluded Myanmar’s coup leaders from its annual summit and a particular summit with China in 2021, as a result of they did not make progress on an ASEAN-brokered peace plan, which included an finish to violence and negotiations with all events.
The army is believed to have killed greater than 1,700 civilians since seizing energy, sparking a broadening civil struggle. It has additionally declared the Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG) – arrange by elected politicians thrown out of workplace by the generals – a terrorist organisation, locked up civilian chief Aung San Suu Kyi in an undisclosed location, and refused to permit ASEAN representatives to fulfill both her or the NUG.
Many feared Hun Sen would attempt to rehabilitate the army and its chief, Senior Common Min Aung Hlaing – his go to was met with protests and statements of condemnation – however he got here away empty-handed.
In February, a annoyed Hun Sen stated there have been solely 10 and a half months left of his 12-month tenure as ASEAN chairman, and advised the following chair, Indonesia, ought to clear up the disaster.
“I’m in a scenario the place I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t, so simply let it’s,” he complained.
So the place did all of it go unsuitable?
On paper, the 2 males appear related.
Each come from a army background. In Min Aung Hlaing’s case, the Myanmar army; in Hun Sen’s case, the Khmer Rouge. Each are ruthless dictators who’ve staged coups, overseen massacres and mass arrests of peaceable political dissidents, and strangled civil society and the free press.
However analysts say the 2 males are very totally different.
The place Hun Sen is seen as a sensible and savvy political operator, Min Aung Hlaing is seen as cussed and irrational – unwilling to make minor concessions, even when it’s in his pursuits to take action.
Sebastian Strangio, creator of Hun Sen’s Cambodia, says Phnom Penh’s ruler is a pragmatist in contrast with Min Aung Hlaing.
“Hun Sen’s lengthy profession has been marked by a skinny adherence to any specific ideology other than his personal survival and preeminence, and he has at all times demonstrated a capability to make pragmatic changes and have interaction in tactical retreats as circumstances require,” he informed Al Jazeera.
Strangio factors out that whereas Hun Sen has made concessions and guarantees to alleviate worldwide strain he’s typically merely “manipulating Western perceptions as a way to maintain the advantages of their patronage whereas securing his maintain on energy”.
That maintain on energy has lasted for 37 years, making Hun Sen the longest-serving prime minister on the earth and one of many longest-serving heads of state.
Not like Hun Sen, Myanmar’s generals do have “deeply-held beliefs” and ideas, in keeping with tutorial Andrew Selth, an adjunct professor at Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. In a latest paper, Myanmar’s Army Mindset, Selth argues the junta’s dedication to the “three nationwide causes” of stability, unity and sovereignty are usually not simply “empty propaganda slogans”.
The army’s behaviour can also be knowledgeable by insecurity – a “pervasive sense of vulnerability within the face of bigger and extra highly effective international locations”, akin to neighbouring China and India – and Myanmar’s humiliating colonial previous.
“If there’s one challenge that stands out from this sophisticated image, it’s the generals’ lack of belief. They’re deeply suspicious of everybody, their so-called buddies and foes alike,” Selth writes.
Earlier than the nation’s short-lived shift in direction of democratisation, Myanmar spent a long time underneath army rule after Common Ne Win seized energy in a coup in 1962.
In contrast with Hun Sen, Strangio notes the Myanmar generals have taken a “extra hard-headed strategy”, prepared to “endure isolation from the west and bear the brunt of sanctions, regardless of the prices to its financial system and other people”.
Myanmar political analyst Khin Zaw Win agrees the variations between the 2 strongmen are stark.
“One may safely assume that each Hun Sen and Min Aung Hlaing have the identical intention – to carry on to absolute energy by no matter means it takes. However there the similarity ends,” he stated.
Khin Zaw Win says Hun Sen is “a way more subtle operator” than the generals. “In comparison with him the Myanmar junta is a set of murderous, cretinous thugs,” he stated.
He additionally argues it’s a mistake for the world to view Myanmar’s army as a “regular” establishment. “The entire junta doesn’t comprehend worldwide norms of behaviour,” he warned.
Selth variously describes the generals’ mindset as “peculiar,” “chauvinistic and conservative” and as a “fortress mentality”. He argues that regardless of many makes an attempt to review the army, the establishment stays “little identified and poorly understood”, making it troublesome for international governments to exert strain on the regime.
Misreading the scenario
Strangio says regardless of Hun Sen’s political acumen, he “clearly misinterpret the scenario in Myanmar”.
“He presumably imagined {that a} direct strategy to Min Aung Hlaing, and the inducement of a path again to ASEAN, would end in some tangible progress that will assist burnish his worldwide repute throughout his final yr answerable for the bloc. I feel he was genuinely stunned by the junta’s clear lack of curiosity in any compromise,” he stated.
Maybe Hun Sen’s biggest political achievement, one which he regularly referenced within the lead-up to his Myanmar journey, was the implementation of his “Win-Win Coverage” in 1998. This compromise satisfied the remnants of the Khmer Rouge to lastly lay down their arms, ending a long time of civil struggle, as a result of they had been allowed to maintain their ranks and properties.
In distinction, Selth argues that “Myanmar doesn’t have a powerful custom of compromise”, notably inside the army’s battlefield mentality.
“Battles are both received or misplaced, with the price counted solely after victory has been declared. Which means that just one aspect can emerge from negotiations because the winner. The opposite should be the loser,” he wrote.
Veteran Cambodian political analyst Lao Mong Hay says Hun Sen’s expertise in Myanmar was a humiliation for the long-serving prime minister.
“The 2022 ASEAN Chair seems to be extra like an apprentice barber going his personal approach to give an uncooperative man with matted pure hair a gentleman’s haircut,” he stated, including that Hun Sen did not do “thorough groundwork” earlier than assembly Min Aung Hlaing.
Lao Mong Hay predicted Hun Sen’s failure would depart him with little urge for food to proceed pursuing a compromise with the generals.
“As soon as bitten, twice shy, now that his daring try has ended up with nothing,” he stated.
What about Myanmar?
Whereas Hun Sen’s feedback about giving up on Myanmar seem to have been a slight exaggeration, Cambodia has tempered its expectations.
Cambodian international minister and newly-appointed ASEAN Particular Envoy on Myanmar, Prak Sokhonn, visited the nation in March, with none significant breakthrough. He failed to fulfill with any main stakeholders outdoors of the army regime, as is required by ASEAN’s five-point consensus, and secured no concessions from the army.
After the journey, Sokhonn stated it was clear the assorted sides had been “not but prepared for these negotiations” and repeated Hun Sen’s suggestion that the disaster wouldn’t be solved throughout Cambodia’s chairmanship.
The regime was blocked from attending an ASEAN international ministers’ retreat in Phnom Penh final month and can in all probability proceed to be excluded till it makes progress on the five-point consensus, which it has proven little inclination of doing.
Hun Sen’s “cowboy diplomacy” has uncovered different rifts in ASEAN, and a spat with Malaysian international minister Saifuddin Abdullah, who expressed his concern concerning the journey to Myanmar.
“We additionally really feel that as a result of he has already assumed the chair of ASEAN, he might have in all probability consulted if not all, a couple of different ASEAN leaders and search their views as to what he ought to do if he had been to go to Myanmar,” Saifuddin stated in January. In response, Hun Sen lashed out, calling the international minister “insolent” and undiplomatic.
Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have been essentially the most outspoken critics of the Myanmar army regime inside ASEAN.
“Partly [Hun Sen] overestimated how the junta would reply to direct engagement; partly, it displays the extent of the resistance inside ASEAN to Cambodia’s try and rehabilitate the junta and produce it again into the ASEAN fold,” Strangio stated.
Hun Sen seemingly smoothed issues over with Malaysia final month, assembly Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Phnom Penh. When a reporter requested concerning the rift with Malaysia, Hun Sen stated “every thing has already been solved”, however then angrily ended the press convention early.
Aaron Connelly, Southeast Asia analysis fellow on the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research, believes there’s a new “dynamism in ASEAN diplomacy” that seems to be largely pushed by Malaysia and Saifuddin. Connelly credited Saifuddin for the junta’s exclusion from the February international ministers’ retreat, saying Saifuddin “continues to push the boundaries of what’s potential inside ASEAN diplomacy on Myanmar”.
ASEAN has lengthy been identified for its refusal to intervene in member states’ home affairs. Myanmar joined the organisation in 1997 underneath a earlier army dictatorship, and remained a full member all through its violent crackdown on protests in 2007 and its 2017 marketing campaign towards the Rohingya, which the US not too long ago declared a genocide.
However the coup could have been a bridge too far.
“[The military’s] legitimacy in its personal neighbourhood is ebbing away rather more shortly than most anticipated,” Connelly stated.
Selth warns that an remoted and pressured army authorities could merely dig in more durable.
“It has develop into a degree of honour among the many generals to not present any weak point or lack of resolve. A readiness to compromise, even to take care of the pretence of a dialogue, may very well be painted as a betrayal of essential ideas. The better the strain utilized by the worldwide group, the extra resistant the regime appears to develop into,” he wrote.