“Return of the Junta: Why Myanmar’s Military Must Go Back to the Barracks” by Oliver Slow

Oliver Slow

After the Myanmar military seized power on 1 February 2021, the country has been in the midst of a humanitarian crisis  The military, who have been a major disruptive force in Myanmar politics ever since independence in 1948, is the focus of Oliver Slow’s new book, Return of the Junta: Why Myanmar’s Military Must Go Back to the Barracks: an overview of the history of the military, its role in politics, education, and the myths and propaganda its members believe and propagate. 

The book opens with the Military seizing power, overthrowing election results and how this upended people’s lives and undid all the progress Myanmar’s reformists had made since 2012. Slow details how the military triggered a clause in the 2008 Constitution and enacted a state of emergency, after claiming that a government appointed body, the Union Election Commission, had failed to investigate allegations of voter fraud. To date these allegations remain unsubstantiated. The military’s newly formed State Administration Council (SAC) then took the reins of power. Union, state and regional ministers were sacked and many of them jailed, before being replaced with military aligned figures. Slow then details the protests and subsequent crackdowns that followed, as well as the role of the National Unity Government and the role of the People’s Defense Forces.

 

Return of the Junta: Why Myanmar’s Military Must Go Back to the Barracks, Oliver Slow (Bloomsbury, February 2023)
Return of the Junta: Why Myanmar’s Military Must Go Back to the Barracks, Oliver Slow (Bloomsbury, February 2023)

Slow interviews those who took to the streets, initially in peaceful protest, before moving onto armed resistance. Given Slow was a journalist in Myanmar, his contacts enable him to portray a variety of journalists, activists and human rights defenders, some of whom are living in hiding in Yangon, moving between safe houses each night, or have fled to Thailand or India. These interviews are a highlight of the book, and offer a glimpse into the precarious existence those fighting the Junta have to endure.

Slow provides a solid backdrop for recent events and describes being in Yangon 2012 and witnessing the heady exuberance that accompanied the early days of former president Thein Sein’s reforms, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the widespread hope for a new dawn. Yet this optimism often intersected with depressing reminders that things might not be so different after all, such as communal violence in 2012, violence against the Rohingya in 2017, which the US has declared as a genocide, and the continued imprisonment of political prisoners. Slow explains how civil society had struggled to achieve a democratic system in a constitution that guaranteed the military a veto, describes the assassination of U Ko Ni, the lawyer trying to amend the undemocratic constitution and the continued breakdown of relations between NLD and the military between 2015 and the 2020 election.

 

Given the book is focused on the military, there is a detailed historical analysis of the Myanmar military’s role over the last 80 years, both as an institution and how it saw its role as the “sole protector of the nation”. Slow describes its original formation as the Burma Independence Army, a resistance force fighting alongside the Imperial Japanese Army to end British occupation in World War 2 and how it later switched allegiance to the Allied forces and fought Japanese rule before becoming the military of an independent Burma in 1948. He then describes the military coup of 1962 where General Ne Win seized power, the ethnic conflicts that have rumbled on for decades, the mass protests of 1988, the 2007 saffron revolution which saw monks and civilians take to the streets in protest against the government and the military government’s inaction in the aftermath of the 2008 Cyclone Nargis. Slow also outlines how events in Myanmar could have been very different, when in 2011  Min Aung Lang became Commander in Chief, as opposed to the reforming Shwe Mann, who was rumored to be front runner for the job.

Slows explains how the “military’s influence was everywhere” and how the military’s own priorities and concerns was  “a major hindrance to any meaningful progress that was supposed to be taking place away from the decades of isolationism and authoritarianism its people had been forced to endure.” The grueling initiation rites for new recruits are described, helping to explain why its members remain supportive of the armed forces despite significant domestic and international criticism, including recruits being beaten and tortured by their superiors, all policies designed to indoctrinate into respect for hierarchy and military life.

There are also wider political and social issues discussed too, from the jade mines of Hpakant, to portrayals of the drug trade to interviews with Rohingya refugees in Malaysia and in Bangladesh. The book finishes with a discussion on the options available to tackle the junta from the imposition of sanctions, the role of the international community, and encouraging defections from the army. However there are no easy options, as Slow admits, for those inside Myanmar fighting for regime change, “removing the military from power will not be an easy task, nor likely a short one.”

 

In Slow’s own words, the book “is not an everything-you-need-to-know about the Tatmadaw, but an attempt to understand dynamics in the country, as well as the military’s motivations and influence in Myanmar, and with that, what actions could be taken to help remove it from power, and for the country to be put back on the democratic path”.

The book largely succeeds in these aims. The inclusion of a large collection of voices from Myanmar activists and members of civil society is particularly important. The book engages in a wider variety of topics than may be assumed from the title, and given the large number of current affairs books focusing on Myanmar as a whole, at times this feels like a missed opportunity to offer deeper insight into the armed forces. Nevertheless this eloquently-written book is a well-grounded overview of the most disruptive political force in Myanmar.


Maximillian Morch is a researcher and author of Plains of Discontent: A Political History of Nepal’s Tarai (1743-2019) (2023)