00:00Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about the
00:24Myanmar crisis almost a month after that devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck on March 28th
00:33and the following aftershocks. Now, could the aftermath of the earthquake shift the balance
00:41of Myanmar's civil war? Joining me on the show to discuss this further is Mo Thuzar, who is a senior
00:47fellow at the ICS Youth of Asia Institute in Singapore. She's also the coordinator of its Myanmar
00:51Studies program and prior to joining ICS, she spent close to 10 years at the ASEAN Secretariat. Mo,
01:00welcome back to the show. Thank you for joining me. Can you begin by sharing how you see or to what
01:06extent you see the March 28th earthquake? Whether that has reshaped Myanmar's internal conflict? Has
01:14it created any significant shifts in dynamics between the military regime and resistance forces?
01:23Thanks for having me back on the show, Melissa. It's always good to continue the conversation,
01:28albeit it's a very sad, tragic topic that we're talking about, of course. And at the outset,
01:35may I also just express my sympathy and condolences to all the people and communities in Myanmar who
01:42have suffered from yet another tragedy adding to the staggering toll that they've been going through
01:49since 2021 and the coup. Your question is really interesting about the extent to which this recent
01:57earthquake has or has the potential to reshape the internal conflict raging on in Myanmar. I think at this
02:08point, it's maybe a bit hard for me to see how the dynamics might change. And why I say this is because
02:17the earthquake hit areas are mainly in, you know, in central Myanmar, those areas are the Mandalay region,
02:26Zagayan region, and the Nibida Federal Territory. And these are areas that are largely under the
02:33military regime, the State Administration Council or the SAC as acronym. These are areas under the SAC's
02:41administrative control. So, of course, we do see that some of the smaller towns in the earthquake hit
02:50region may have what you might call weakened governance or administrative assertion from the center,
03:00from Nibida. And they might also be in those areas, you know, those smaller towns and so on. They might
03:07also be in those areas where the resistance against the military are also contesting the military's reach
03:16and assertion. So, I think those dynamics are there. And what we've seen, of course, is that the Myanmar
03:24military, the SAC has tried to take advantage of the various ceasefires that were announced for humanitarian
03:33reasons after the earthquake, and also taking advantage of earlier brokered ceasefires with some of the
03:40ethnic armed organizations to try and renegotiate some terms to either regain or resume territorial and
03:50administrative control in some parts of Northern Shan State. So, these are all happening while, of course,
03:57the focus of the region and the world at large would be on the aftermath of the earthquake. So,
04:04we're trying to just look at all of these shifting dynamics. Okay. Well, the International Red Cross
04:11said that the ceasefire has really helped them in terms of distributing aid to the hardest hit areas.
04:18Talk to me about the ceasefire. How genuine is it? Is it likely to hold? How fragile are we thinking?
04:24Because the military regime has extended the post-earthquake truce till the end of the month,
04:30if I'm not mistaken. How do we think about this ceasefire? That's a really interesting and important
04:38question, Melissa, because there have been earlier attempts at different types of ceasefire with
04:46different ethnic armed groups since the coup. And what's different, of course, is this current ceasefire
04:55is for humanitarian reasons. And I think the kind of attention and even pressure, if I could use that
05:03word, from various ASEAN members, particularly current ASEAN Chair Malaysia, of course, really pushing for
05:11extending the ceasefire so that humanitarian access could, you know, humanitarian assistance could be
05:18reached, could reach the communities that really need them. And for whoever wishes to deliver and
05:26provide humanitarian assistance, including medical support and relief, of course, reaches and accesses
05:32those areas. I think that's the main concern. And here, of course, if we are looking at it under the ASEAN
05:40framework, there are these intergovernmental concerns about, you know, the country that needs the assistance,
05:49has to request for it. And even if assistance is offered, say, by regional neighbors,
05:55it has to be something that that assistance, once it reaches the ground in Myanmar, needs to be a kind of like
06:04coordinated or, you know, delivery needs to be coordinated by the requesting party. So in this case, the requesting
06:11party is the State Administration Council, the military regime. And that brings into question of how much needed
06:19assistance reaches the communities that are in need. What is the priority? What is the triage?
06:25Because, of course, we have visible destruction in places like Nebidaw, the capital. But, you know,
06:32the epicenter is in areas like in Zagai, which I understand is where the Malaysian humanitarian teams
06:40really tried very hard to negotiate access too. So I think, despite all these, you know, the complexities of
06:47getting access and reaching communities in need, what we're also seeing, you mentioned the ceasefire.
06:54Despite ceasefire announcements, even after extending them, we've also seen the SAC continuing with
07:03airstrikes in several areas, including the peripheral parts of central Myanmar, which is where the
07:09earthquake struck. And up to mid-April, of course, they are continuing ongoing monitoring,
07:15but up to mid-April, those that were really monitoring the incidents of the airstrikes were
07:19reporting that there have been over 20. And so this is something, you know, this raises,
07:24I think for researchers like myself, this raises more questions about how the military regime
07:29actually interprets its ceasefire announcements, similar to how the State Administration Council
07:35regime also interpreted the five-point consensus after, you know, agreeing to it with the nine ASEAN
07:41heads of state and government way back in April 2021. Well, you referenced the meeting with Prime
07:50Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Bangkok to negotiate the extension of the ceasefire. I'm curious about that,
07:57because ASEAN has largely sidelined the military junta since the 2021 coup. I'm wondering what this recent
08:08engagement with Prime Minister Anwar, that meeting in Thailand. What does that signal about ASEAN's current position
08:16in meeting with the SAC? Are there signs that maybe the military regime is using this disaster to
08:24try and reset its international image or maybe even consolidate its power internationally or regionally?
08:30Oh, thanks for bringing that up, Melissa. It's an important point to raise, particularly in the context of
08:40Prime Minister Anwar's recent meeting with the chairman of the State Administration Council, Senior General Min online.
08:48I think we need to differentiate between ASEAN summits that involve the heads of state and government from
08:55all the ASEAN members and meetings that are held, say, for example, you know, what has just taken place
09:04recently in Bangkok, meetings that are held as an initiative of the ASEAN chair in a specific context
09:12to push for more acquiescence from the State Administration Council chief in this current post-earthquake situation.
09:21And as we were talking earlier, the ASEAN countries actually called for ceasefires as a humanitarian pause.
09:30So that's one part. Of course, up to now, the ASEAN countries are still upholding or holding the line
09:38on the decision that was made since October 2021 by the ASEAN foreign ministers in the SAC foreign
09:47ministers' presence as well to restrict the SAC's attendance at high-level political meetings, such as the ASEAN summit,
09:56restricting that attendance to a non-political representative only. And since 2022, that restriction was expanded
10:04to the foreign ministers' meeting. So, you know, from a researcher's point of view, I think I have to be clear
10:11that meeting a military regime which has, you know, been so intransigent about implementing
10:20the five-point consensus to which it had agreed to, I think we have to be clear that meeting in a specific
10:28context such as pushing for humanitarian access is different from inviting the junta back to the ASEAN table.
10:36And, you know, my institute, the ICC Sufisak Institute, runs these annual surveys called the State of Southeast
10:45Asia Survey. So for this year's survey findings for the Myanmar question, we do see that regionally,
10:54appetites for, you know, inviting the military regime back to the ASEAN table, you know, such reinstatement,
11:02appetites are even lower this year. In fact, there is more preference regionally to impose harder
11:10measures on the State Administration Council to increase the cost of its non-compliance with the
11:16five-point consensus. I think that was the second part to your question. I'm sorry, I may have missed it in
11:23talking about differentiation.
11:24You answered it beautifully. It was whether or not the military regime is using this disaster to
11:30reset its international image. I do want to ask you, in the very brief time that we have left,
11:35the minute or so that we have left, what will you be watching out for, Mo, in the near future,
11:39in the coming weeks or so, as Myanmar tries to recover from this disaster?
11:43Well, the situation in Myanmar is, you know, it's fluid, it's constantly evolving, you know,
11:47that's almost a truism. But that is the situation. And so what we can try to watch for from where
11:53we're sitting is how the different political actors are reacting to this critical moment,
11:59the different political actors in Myanmar. So the earthquake's immediate impacts have been
12:03devastating on a people who've already been suffering from the effects of the conflict and
12:08the cycle of violence that has spiraled since 2021 and now the earthquake. So the recovery needs
12:15from the earthquake are still emerging and those recovery needs and the longer-term reconstruction costs.
12:21Who will bear the cost of reconstruction? I think all of these, you know, require this kind of medium
12:28to long-term perspective of why it's important to continue caring about what happens in Myanmar,
12:33because there have been spillover effects in this region from the Myanmar crisis. There will be
12:39spillover effects continuing to which the earthquake's impact will only add.
12:43Mo, always a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for speaking with me.
12:47Mo, those are there from the SES Youth Association Institute in Singapore,
12:51wrapping up this episode of Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for the evening.
12:56Thank you so much for watching. Good night.
13:17Good night.
13:23All right.
13:26I'll see you next time.
13:26Good night.
13:28Good night.
13:28Good night.
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