Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, , 2:39:41 to 2:57:34
The Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar and the Myanmar Research Centre provide an assessment of conflict intensity and the strength of ethnic resistance organizations. They highlight the military's loss of territorial control and the rise of civilian administrations.
Topics: Human rights, National security
Speakers: Min Zin, Dr Nicholas Cheesman, Dean Smith, Hon Sarah Henderson, Sophia Htwe, Dr Morten Pedersen
>> I thank you very much. We will now move to the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myar and the Myamar Research Center and I welcome representatives from those organization organizations. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to Senate committees has been provided to you for the Hansard record. Just wait for people to come to the table. Thank you for your haste. Uh for the hands record, uh could I please ask you to state your name and the capacity in which you appear today, starting with uh the Institute for Strategy and Policy, Myar.
>> Thank you, chair. Um thank you, uh honorable senators. I'm deeply grateful
to you. if sorry if I could just ask you to state your name and position and then I'll come back to you. Thank you.
>> Thank you. My name is Menzen. I'm the executive director of the Myanmar Institute uh for policy and strategy.
>> Thank you. And to the Miami Research Center.
>> Thank you, Senator. I'm Nicholas Cheeseman, the director of the Myanmar Research Center.
>> Thanks, Mr. Cheeseman.
Uh Mortyn Peterson, policy director for the Myanmar Research Center.
>> Thanks Mr. Peterson and Sophia Tu uh affiliate with the Myamma Research Center.
>> Thanks Muay. Uh if I could ask a representative from uh each organization if you have a brief opening statement. Uh firstly to the institute uh Mr. Mr. do you have a brief opening statement?
>> Yes. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, good morning honorable senators. I'm deeply grateful to you and the people of Australia for your dedicated support to my from humanitarian assistance to your solidarity with our struggle for democracy. I will make three brief points. First, the focus is on the spillover effects of the Myimma conflict and why cooperating with non-stick actors is crucial to addressing them. As we all know, the drug trade and cyber scams exported from Myanmar directly harm Australians. These transnational crimes grow from state fragility. Therefore, the law enforcement approach alone is not enough. The military dictatorship in Myanmar provides safe havens for criminal networks that turn Nera into a capture state targeting the people around the world including Australian citizen. To confront this, we must think beyond traditional stateto-state cooperation. Australia should consider constructive engagement with credible non-state actors in Yema. Due to time constraints, I don't want to go into details how we can find creative ways to support non-state actors who are the front lines against transnational organized crime. The second point I would like to urge is Australia should reinforce and energize existing multilateral mechanism such as Azen 5point consensus and Azin plus initiative to address the Myimmar crisis. Nimma has largely slipped off from the global agenda let alone effective intervention from the international community. Beside the reason that we often mention such as ongoing crisis from Ukraine to Gaza, the complexity of our own conflict, there's another important reason especially among the western policy maker which is a growing fatalistic narrative that Nema is immediately backyard of China due to Beijing's proximity and strategic interest. I think this narrative is dangerous and self-fulfilling. It allows PRC to exclude the broader international community from the region, normalize a form of regional hetchimony and claim license to intervene. In doing so, it creates the very concept of bada in legitimize a hierarchy that people of do not accept. Therefore, it is important to uphold and strengthen any forms of multilateral initiative. the AENA 5 point incentive Azan plus coalition of willing to establish a strategic gut against the PRC's excessiveness the less point the third we believe that Australia will continue to demonstrate a principal commitment to democracy human rights including religious freedom ethnic and gender equality in today's geopolitical environment some great powers dismiss this value throw away their moral compass The people of Myamma are fighting and dying for these principle. Yet we are often treated as naive idealist, irrelevant or even as burdens on the western resources. This cynical attitude toward democratic value is not only unjust, it undermines global and regional peace. The people will continue to fight for their dignity. We believe Australia can help shape a different future by taking moral and political leadership in Asia-Pacific. One powerful avenue is to invest in Nemar's next generation through scholarship, educational opportunity and exposure programs so that the one day they can return to serve their country as democratic leaders, economist and human rights defender. As Australia continue to stand with us in solidarity and practical support, the people of Mawa be always grateful. Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. And now to the Myanmar research center.
Senators, it's in Australia's national interest to assist people whose lives have been upended by conflict and disaster in Myanmar, as well as those who have fled to neighboring countries to protect their human rights from a military whose elections have fooled nobody. We do already assist, but we really could be doing more. How? First, uh, building on Mr. Sedote's recommendations from earlier this morning, Australia is well placed to lead in the establishment of a multilateral group under United Nations opaces. This friends of Myammar group could facilitate access to the country's borders and interior and raise support for regionally coordinated relief programs. Second, Australia has underutilized expertise to contribute. Public health and policy experts at the Australian National University, for instance, have designed the scheme to strengthen emergency health care capacity in war zones. Were this scheme implemented, it could save lives today and produce tangible benefits tomorrow through mentorship, data analysis, and more. We know schemes like these work because they are working already. Paramedics and teachers, many trained in collaboration with international partners, are delivering basic services right now across at least onethird of Myanmar, administered by groups autonomous from the military state. These groups differ in their political strategies and popular support. And not all share our values, but some are developing more inclusive and deliberative methods of governing. To be sure, conditions change daily. In Sagine, air attacks are a constant threat. Going to Senator Smith's recurrent point. Nearly everywhere, things are complicated by many actors and alliances, and we need trustworthy information about who is doing what, where, and how come. Australian universities could redouble their efforts with more funding available and where Myan nationals who build their knowledge base more highly valued. They could be scaling up policy relevant research into for instance the Arakhan army's attitude towards Rohinda in Rakine state or into how justice provision figures in plans of the national unity government and its affiliates. Australia could be doing more in training talented myamar students. Yet some who have won prestigious scholarships to our universities have been refused visas. This is counterproductive to efforts for democracy and human rights in Myamar. Australia should be rushing to admit scholarship recipients. It should enlarge the Australia Awards Myanmar program and open more pathways to Myanmar nationals to study here. Senators, the barriers to establishment, let's not say return, of an inclusive civilian democratic government in Myamar are formidable. The military's elections have likely made things worse. But we cannot turn our backs. We can do more to address urgent needs today while charting a course for democracy and human rights to come. It's possible to do both of these through partnerships with like-minded countries and multilateral institutions abroad together with people and groups in Myamar whose struggle to end dictatorship deserves not only admiration but backing. We already know many of these people. Our graduates and friends are among them. We can identify and work with others and so we should. We thank you for your time and for conducting this inquiry.
>> Thank you so much. I'll now go to questions from senators. Senator Smith again reminding that we are going to have to keep our session truncated >> to try and >> Thank you very much for your
participation. It's very very important to us. So Mr. Mining, great to see you again. We met for the first time in Shiang Mai just a few weeks ago. Uh and I thought that your contribution to our deliberations would be very powerful. Can you um u make some key observations for us about how the conflict has recently changed in Myammar with some specific observations about the intensity of the conflict and why a greater focus on uh disruption to the aviation fuel issue is so critical if we are to you know engineer a turnaround in
>> Thank you senators. Very good to see you again. Um I would say like we need to make a clear distinction between the frequency of conflict and the intensity of conflict when it comes to my otherwise it will be very misleading. The frequency of conflict has declined recently mainly because of Chinese support. The Nema military regain the military tandra offensive but in terms of intensity of conflict which is what we operationalize in terms of massacre uh massacre is like at least 10 or more people got killed in one incident. uh that we documented more than 97 incidents in five years. At one incident there are more than 171 people got killed by the air strikes and so you have like you can see majority of the 171 in one incident are childrens and young people. So I think like it's all contributed to the Nema military air strike. So unless we try to find a way to constrain that uh with people of Nema will suffer more. Even 2025 alone there are 32 incidents of massacre in Yema largely because of the air strikes.
it is easy to be um uh critical or disillusioned about the AEAN response to date, but what observations do you have about the strength and the success of the Malaysian leadership of AEAN? Uh and what can we learn? What what can Australia learn from that in terms of how it should be advocating in Azan to perhaps lean forward or lean into the Myanmar issues with more confidence?
I think both Malaysia and Indonesia play crucial role in uh providing safe space for the resistance stakeholders so that they can deliberate about the future federal democracy what they are fighting for. That's a very important thing. Another thing I think Malaysia and Indonesia can work closely with Thailand which is directly affected by uh the the conflict spill over. So I think like it's important for Australia to work closely with Azan both mainland Southeast Asia and maritime Southeast Asia because the PRC is trying to pit mainland Southeast Asia against Maritime Southeast Asia on Namra issue and the most important point is the PRC does not have any reason to oppose Azen fivepoint consensus which is very minimum right stabilization humanitarian assistant political dialogue but PRC intentionally dodge and undermine this uh aan multilateralism because they do not want to set any precedent on the multilateral initiative. So on the one hand they give lip service to their fivepoint consensus because the nema issue cannot be further internationalized in the UN security council but on the other hand they do not cooperate so that they can undermine multilateral initiative so Australia can restrengthen and and energize this multilateral initiative that'll be very
>> and finally before I turn to others uh what comments or observations would you make about the strength of the ethnic armed organization resistance distance to date. the success that they have had in setting up um um civilian authorities um civilian administration over parts of of of Myanmar. And you know, is this should be should should should should we be looking to this as a way of finding greater confidence in our pursuit of some you know um you know betterment or some advancement in regards to democracy and human rights in Myanmar over the
I do think uh for the empirical reason the Nema military has lost at least 38% of their territory largely along the all borders and then when you include the administrative control it could be more than 50% of that the territory military has lost but on the other hand ethnic resistance organization they do two important thing one is they keep on fighting for the for the uh the ethnic equality and federal democracy inma on the other hand they don't wait for the day two they start organizing the governance the the the federal local governance with all these limit uh uh uh the constraints but I think they they are trying their best now they are trying to come together with that you know broader alliance to to make this federal vision not only in the fragmented version in more unified way I think there are a lot of issue that we can be be be cautious but I think we are on the right track.
>> Thank you. One more if I may just to the Myanmar research center. What are or can we be doing to strengthen the capability and capacity of the various groups um in Myanmar that operate and exist outside of Myanmar to ensure that as the situation improves, we would hope that would be our ambition that there is a capacity um whether it be you know um you know understanding of you know how to create um civil society mechanisms, political mechanisms that might overcome historical uh grievances uh between particular uh groups in Myanmar. What are we doing at the moment to support that? uh and what more could we be doing so that we're just not waiting for the situation to improve inside Myanmar, but if a vacuum should appear, for example, that vacuum would be that vacuum could be filled uh with reliable, trusted um participants that have a very clear commitment to pursuing democracy and the the the the preservation of human rights.
>> Yes. Thank you, Senator. So this is one of the reasons that we concentrated on partly on the question of collaboration and also training and education uh through long-term relationships person-toperson relationships and also working with organizations both in Myammar and those across the border with whom we share values. There are many of those. Of course, you've heard already today from the National Unity government, which up to the present is the best representative nationally for a program for democracy and human rights in Myamar. And the Australian government as well as our universities have collaborated with and been involved with NU. But there are so many initiatives. This is one of the points that we want to stress that there are both a lot of opportunities, but also things we need to learn about how we can work together and why. So for instance, the initiative I alluded to very briefly is uh being designed in collaboration with the Spring University Myanmar, which is a university that's set up working effectively virtually, but very effectively to engage in online education with people inside my practical education for the delivery of services, not just learning off paper. So we do have many opportunities to work with organizations like those civil society organizations, educational institutions as well as with those uh arrangements for new forms of governance, inclusive governance uh governance through dialogue with local partners around the country. But the situation is enormously diverse from one part of the country to the next. So we ourselves as much as we spend so much time thinking and talking about myamar are always learning and trying to figure out what the best approach would be and who our collaborators ought to be and if Dr. Peterson or Sophia may have
>> Thank you very much, Senator Smith. Senator Shoebridge,