The webinar explored what the federal democracy vision might mean for different communities in a post-SAC Myanmar. Discussions also touched upon the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC)’s work and the complex challenges confronting multi-ethnic Myanmar.
MYANMAR STUDIES PROGRAMME WEBINAR
Friday, 5 August 2022 – The Myanmar Studies Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute convened a webinar under Chatham House Rule inviting Mr Saw Kapi, the Director of the newly established School of Governance and Public Administration, a joint programme of Myanmar’s Salween Institute for Public Policy and Thabyay Education Network Foundation. The webinar, moderated by Ms Moe Thuzar, co-coordinator of the ISEAS Myanmar Studies Programme, attracted the interest of 142 attendees. Mr Saw Kapi reflected upon previous efforts by non-Bamar ethnic groups to pursue the federal union vision, and elaborated his view of how the 2021 military coup catalysed the idea of federal democracy into a national-level discussion and consciousness among all ethnic nationalities in Myanmar, including the Bamar.
Key discussion points centred on three broad questions.
1. To what extent does the 2021 Federal Democratic Charter (FDC), which articulates a federal democratic vision for Myanmar, present a solution to the complex challenges facing a multi-ethnic country such as Myanmar?
〇 The FDC, which the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hlutttaw (CRPH) released in March 2021, includes a provision for convening a bi-annual People’s Assembly. The first People’s Assembly, held virtually in January 2022, revised and ratified the FDC, and laid out in clear terms the vision of a future democratic union. However, Myanmar’s ‘Federal Union’ dream did not start with the 2021 FDC. In 1947, a year before then Burma gained independence, ethnic nationalities came together to discuss establishing the future Union of Burma as a union of states on the basis of equal partnership.
〇 The FDC’s envisioned federal democratic union would require several departures from current practices.:
- The source of sovereignty would lie with the people or a body of representatives elected by the people within each federal unit. The new federal union would signal the end of state-sponsored chauvinism (where the central government promoted one language, one history, one culture, one literature and one ethnicity). In practice, this would entail a more inclusive history to be taught in schools.
- Education and health sectors would be both federal and state competencies. Each state or unit within the federal union would have its own education system. The federal Ministry of Education would serve a coordinating role, using its budgetary authority to shape and influence policy-making.
- Myanmar’s armed forces, the Tatmadaw, should also undergo comprehensive change. In its present form, the Tatmadaw can no longer claim to be the saviour or defender of the country. A comprehensive security sector reform should result in the formation of inclusive federal defence force(s), and new admission criteria for a federal-level defence services academy. This federal academy should admit qualified candidates regardless of ethnic background. The federal defence forces would have civilian oversight, with the president of the Union as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
- There should also be similar changes to the civil service training academies. These institutes should have new curricula, with the aim of producing civil servants who serve the people, not used as tools of an authoritarian regime.
〇 The FDC thus envisions reconstructing a new Myanmar as a nation of many nations. This is unprecedented in Myanmar’s history. Implementing this vision would present many initial inconveniences and challenges, as many in Myanmar were accustomed to the privileges and perks of the previous system of centralised governance within a unitary state. The federal democracy vision, however, requires recognising the right to self-determination and the sharing of sovereign rights.
〇 The future federal democratic union should also recognise diversity in culture, religion, and language. The FDC provisions indicate that the majority Bamar now realise that their freedom is intricately linked to the freedom of non-Bamar ethnic groups, and that one group cannot develop at the expense of others.
〇 The speaker expressed his hope that the centralised mono-nationalist approach to nation-building would give way to a new nationalism based on the spirit of citizenship which accommodates multi-ethnicity.
2. What are some of the challenges and opportunities for the NUCC in implementing the federal democracy vision?
〇 When NUCC announced the ratification of the FDC, there were high hopes among ethnic communities. Yet, there are a few obstacles that stakeholders must overcome in implementing the FDC.
- The NUCC’s current decision-making process, which is centred on inclusiveness, may present an obstacle to timely, effective implementation. The NUCC is intended as an overarching structure providing policy and philosophical guidance to the resistance movement and its participants. The NUCC had brought together ethnic resistance organisations, political parties, and civil society organisations in dialogue. However, the NUCC’s efforts to ensure inclusiveness also present some barriers to its effectiveness, as the diversity of NUCC members, and their varying degrees of legitimacy and political capital among different constituent communities, meant that trust-building was an important ingredient for collective leadership and consensus decision-making.
〇 Drafters of the FDC had expected some challenges to the FDC’s implementation. There was recognition that more minority groups might assert their aspiration to establish their own state/territory/autonomy, which might cause conflict between ethnic nationalities who had hitherto intermingled and coexisted peacefully. To minimise and mitigate such potential challenges, it was incumbent upon state constitutions in Myanmar’s multi-layered federalism to guarantee the rights of the ‘minorities within minorities’ in each state.
〇 Territorial disputes between member states could also present a potential cause of conflict that would challenge the federal vision. The speaker acknowledged the logistical difficulties of demarcating state boundaries along ethnic lines.
3. What does the FDC mean for the future of governance, social, and cultural institutions in Myanmar?
〇 On governance, the future federal democratic union should have maximum devolution of power and the greatest degree of autonomy in state governments. Elected representatives would sit in a bi-cameral legislature, with the chamber ensuring proportionate representation, and the second, equal representation of multi-ethnic federal units. Each state would elect its own governor.
〇 The proceeds from natural resources would be shared on the basis that the state from which natural resources are extracted would be entitled to those proceeds. A negotiated percentage of income earned from natural resources would be spent on education, healthcare and other development programmes.
〇 On social and cultural institutions, the future federal democratic union should ideally nurture a culture in which disputes and disagreements should be settled by discussion and debate in the legislature rather than by the use of lethal force on the battlefield. The new federal union should be one in which all citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status are treated equally under the law of the land.
〇 Lasting peace and development in Myanmar would be possible only if and when the different ethnic nationalities have the right to decide their own political destiny.
Members of the audience sought further clarification from the speaker on the co-existence of federal and state constitutions, the National Unity Government (NUG) role in the federal democratic union, the responsibilities of local governments under new federal arrangements, the prospects for reconciliation between Bamar and other ethnic groups, the NUCC’s definition of federal democracy, the existing capacities and political capital for drafting state constitutions, legislative and fiscal functions of local governments relating to state and federal level government, the future of Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAO) under new federal arrangements, and the international community’s support in Myanmar’s path towards a new federal democratic union.