Thread by @Kim_Jolliffe

THREAD: ERO or EAO?

Why are they now "ethnic resistance organisations" not "ethnic armed organisations" and what does ERO mean?

Here I will share some background context and my thoughts.

#WhatsHappeninglnMyanmar

In summary:

The specific accronym "ERO" was introduced by the National Unity Consultative Council in 2021, but is essentially what they'e always been called in Burmese.

EAO was a neutral term agreed in 2013 for the NCA text but it is less accurate in my opinion.

ERO is better

I personally define EROs as:

Well-established ethnic-based organisations that actively oppose rule from Naypyitaw militarily, politically & socially.

This excludes state-backed ethnic militia (BGFs and PMFs) and ethnically based 'defence forces' (more below)

The R in ERO corresponds to တော်လှန်ရေး - most commonly translated to "revolution" but also "resistance"

In Burmese, EROs have long been called တိုင်းရင်းသားတော်လှန်ရေးအဖွဲ့အစည်း

Taingyinthar - Ethnic Nationality
Htaw La Yae - Revolution
Ap'weh Asee - organisation (not group)

တော်လှန်ရေး has always been the term that EROs and people who know them use in Burmese.

Resistance and revolution are regularly used in classic texts by revolutionary scholars like Mahn Ba Zan, Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, Lian Sakhong & others.

(Local languages have equivalent terms)

သူပုန် (rebel) and သောင်းကျန်းသူ (insurgent) are pejorative terms used by military/state-run media.

To illustrate, a young KNU administrator recently told me "Some people misunderstand we are သူပုန် but I know we are not because we always stand for the rights of the people"

Before 2013, there was not a singular agreed term for EROs (people often used EAGs).

The ENC alliance used "ethnic nationalities forces" or groups.

From at least 2013, the orgs themselves starting using resistance consistently to distance themselves from BGFs and criminal orgs

Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) was the term agreed in 2013 in the a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) negotiations

This was between Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (representing 16 EAO/EROs), Thein Sein gov & military.

"Organisation" was agreed rather than "group"

NCCT insisted on including "resistance", proposing both "Ethnic Armed Resistance Organisation" and "Armed Resistance Movement" but the military rejected them.

NCCT dropped the issue, obviously deciding to move on to more important things.

That is how we got the term EAO.

Most researchers and policy writers (like me) starting using EAO, especially in policy documents and reports aimed at the government or UN agencies.

This was essentially a politically neutral term and made sense. It was accepted by all sides. Not pejorative. Just neutral.

Nonetheless, the groups themselves continued to use တော်လှန်ရေး and resistance.

For example, they had big meetings officially called "EAO summits" but the statements used "resistance"

Institutions close to ERO negotiators (e.g. SHAN, BCES) continued to use "resistance"

In 2017, the ERO alliance led by the United Wa State Party (the FPNCC) released three position papers on its vision for federalism in the country.

They used "Revolutionary Armed Organisations" & "Ethnic Revolutionary Armed Forces"

UWSP also uses Wa State for its institutions

A journalist recently told me they use ERO rather than EAO because "UWSP is not an ERO".

I disagree. The UWSP is an ERO.

Firstly, UWSP does use တော်လှန်ရေး / revolution for itself and allies.👆

Secondly, they are politically opposed to Naypyitaw rule, and not just a militia.

The accronym ERO itself was first introduced in the Federal Democracy Charter (FDC), negotiated by the NUCC.

The NUCC was formed in March 2021, agreed first FDC and then formed the National Unity Government.

The FDC has been reviewed and edited since then but EROs remains same

Sidenote: the FDC uses the term တော်လှန်ရေး in Burmese but "resistance" in English

For some reason, "resistance" seems to be preferred to "revolutionary" by some negotiators in the English language.

Nonetheless, the FDC refers regularly to "revolution" as the general goal.

"EROs" is not defined in the doc, but there is nothing to suggest it only includes orgs that are in the NUCC

Indeed, this is (broadly) the term EROs have been using for over a decade, including UNFC, NCCT, EAO summits and FPNCC

It reflects their overall political objectives

I personally think it is important not to actively separate EROs into categories based on their immediate political affiliations.

It would be misguided to say all groups who work with NUG are real revolutionaries and all others are just EAOs.

It is just divisive and not correct

Finally, I would also argue that ERO is more accurate than EAO because:

1) They do much more than hold arms - they have political, governance and social bodies

2) their political positioning is the main thing that separates them from BGFs, gangs and militia

...

Spend time with soldiers and admins in any ERO and I guarantee you will hear တော်လှန်ရေး (or equivalent local concepts) a lot

The concept is central to their training, internal socialisation and own view of their role

It is a purely external construct to just label them "armed"

The term EAO is not offensive or incorrect per se

But it is only "neutral" if you are trying to appease the military that demanded it.

For me, that is no longer a consideration, because they ripped up the law, are burning people everyday and have no legitimacy.

Finally, there could be whole other thread on ther တိုင်းရင်းသား (taingyinthar) or "ethnic nationality" part of ERO.

Younger ethnic activists seem to be using multi-ethnic rather than "ethnic national" in English and are using "lu-myo" more than "taingyinthar"

... but I digress

To conclude, just start using "ERO"

It's more accurate, it's closer to the Burmese and the genocidal military was the only reason we started using EAO in the first place.

I really appreciate feedback, corrections and rejections (I am sure I missed some things or made mistakes)

N.B. I meant "ERO" is closer to the Burmese terms that EROs and their sympathisers use

The Burmese for "EAO" also entered the mainstream in 2013, was used officially and is used in news reports etc.

So it is not as much about the language - more about self-identification

Also,

https://twitter.com/Kim_Jolliffe/status/1583865534323359746