The current situation in Myanmar is unusually volatile, and it would be rash to predict the likely outcome. As British Ambassador in Myanmar Mark Canning told the media today, we are now in uncharted territory.  

• Protests, in the wake of unexpected fuel price increases, against the overnight doubling of bus fares which seriously affected lower paid workers and labourers struggling to get into the centre of Rangoon and Mandalay seemed to be fading as the authorities clamped down hard on the 88 Student Generation activists said to be organising the marches.
• A display of sympathy for the sufferings of the people on 5 September by Buddhist monks in the religious centre of Pakokku not far from Bagan in Magwe Division was badly handled by the local militia who showed great disrespect by firing shots over their heads and beating up several. The failure of the authorities to apologise resulted in numerous protest marches by monks in many towns in Myanmar , which the civilian population were asked not to join.
• We have now entered the third phase, when monks have invited civilians to join them in their protests. There is evidence that during the last ten days the protests have been increasingly well organised, with a militant group in Mandalay known as the All Burma Monks Alliance calling for the downfall of the military “to banish the common enemy evil regime from Burmese soil forever”. In Rangoon the protests have been peaceful and carefully orchestrated, with balanced demands for dialogue and reconciliation as well as freedom for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

 In the current situation where various scenarios are possible, it seems sensible to go back to fundamentals:

·         It is highly unlikely that the military are about to surrender political power. They have invested too much in their Seven-Point Road Map process towards a “disciplined democracy” to abandon their plans.

·         It is equally unlikely that they will allow control of the streets to be taken over by activist groups, whether civilian or Buddhist, for long.

·         China, concerned as it is for stability in Myanmar , would not wish to see the State overthrown by either a Buddhist-based or a pro-democracy movement.

·         It is on occasions like this that changes at the top could be accelerated which could prepare the ground for reconciliation and a compromise solution.

No doubt the authorities had been hoping that the present series of protests would burn themselves out, but this seems increasingly unlikely. They have developed a dynamic of their own.  In this situation, repression on a massive scale would be likely to have serious international consequences, with China and Russia possibly willing at least to consider Security Council action, which hitherto they have not been prepared to contemplate.

The US and EU are not well placed to exert influence on the present Burmese Government. To a large extent this is a result of their policy of ostracism, isolation and sanctions - in the case of the UK in defiance of the well established criteria set out by the Government in 1999 for an effective sanctions policy which include strong regional support (which is totally lacking), effective support for the civilian population (who have been mainly affected) and protection of British financial and commercial interests (which have been sacrificed).

The protests in Myanmar are entirely home-grown and owe nothing to external agitation and campaigning.

Derek Tonkin

Chairman of the newly founded association “Network Myanmar ”