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David Brenner

3 Feb, 5 tweets, 2 min read

This is actually big news and devastating for the KNU. It is also very illustrative of the state of the peace process under ASSK as well as what might come for EAOs and peace in #Myanmar more generally. #MyanmarCoup

Apologies, short thread again 1/5

karennews.org/2021/02/burma-…

Mahn Nyein Maung (MNM) has also been called Burma's Papillon for his "miraculous" escape from the high security prison on Coco Island aka “Burma's Devil's Island” He was then imprisoned again in Insein and released with the KNU ceasefire in 2012 after which he returned to KNU 2/5

I interviewed MNM in 2013 when he insisted that then semi-military administration of U Thein Sein (former Tatmadaw General) was a peace-loving government that the KNU should trust. Needless to say not everyone in the KNU agreed, especially with rampaging ceasefire capitalism 3/5

Not only devastating for the KNU that one of their former leaders so easily switched to the new junta re obvious intelligence reasons. It's also worrying to think what this means in the cementation of not-so-new alliances between regressive military figures from both sides. 4/5

Just some initial thoughts.. but certainly a space to watch and hopefully discuss with regards to wider EAO politics in this new age and what might be left of the "peace" "process", if anything. 5/5

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David Brenner

@DavBrenner

3 Feb

@schulmanic

As there is increasing talk about the need to rethink Western donor engagement with #Myanmar, get up to speed with the following open-access article by @schulmanic & me, in which we urged exactly this two years ago:

Some takeaways - 1/6

#MyanmarCoup

bulletin.ids.ac.uk/index.php/idsb…

The article historicises Myanmar's transition of 2011, which demonstrates that Western donors' understanding of the country's transition primarily through the lens of "democratisation" was not only analytically wrong but also politically problematic. 2/6

Operating on this assumption of democratisation, Western donors shifted funds from grassroots networks to militarised state bureaucracies that co-opted peacebuilding and development projects for the purposes of ethnocratic and authoritarian state-building & counterinsurgency. 3/6

Read 6 tweets

David Brenner

@DavBrenner

1 Feb

https://twitter.com/DrLeeJones/status/1356240368895983619

Some good reflections here on why it's not nitpicking to highlight that the coup happened largely within the confines of 2008 constitution. Re the question what the NLD has done to challenge the military’s practical hegemony over #Myanmar politics from within those constraints:

https://twitter.com/DrLeeJones/status/1356240368895983619

One of the biggest practical challenges the NLD mustered to Tatmadaw's power from within these constraints was removing the General Administration Department (Myanmar's bureaucratic backbone) from military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs, placing it under civilian controlled.

But that was two years ago, and obviously cannot be the sole explanation for today's escalation. Yet, it comes to show that the NLD has found some clever loopholes (including UEC) over the years, which all together apparently seem increasingly threatening to Tatmadaw interests.

Read 5 tweets

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