Last week, a delegation consisting of 16 members from four Karen ethnic resistance groups visited Indonesia‘s Aceh province. The Karen are one among eight ethnic groups in Myanmar, out of a total 16, to have signed the National Cease-fire Agreement with Yangon.

This is not the first time Myanmar ethnic groups have included Aceh in their “lessons learned” tour itinerary. Several ethnic group representatives, government officials and military officers have come to Aceh in order to study the postconflict peace management.

I have been to Myanmar several times and met with both the leadership and the grassroots levels of several ethnic resistance groups. At first, it had seemed to me that there were hardly any similarities between them and Aceh.
Yet, when we discussed problems up close, I could not help but see similarities and in turn have come to realize that study tours like this one are indeed very valuable.

Organized by the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, based in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the delegation was received in Aceh by the International Center for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies, an interuniversity center in Banda Aceh. The visitors were so impressed with what they saw in Aceh that they asked the tour organizers to arrange for a return visit as soon as possible, in order that they may learn how they could emulate the peace process in Aceh.

Since the end of World War II, Myanmar and Indonesia have been undergoing parallel political development, with the former seeming to follow one step behind. Indonesia proclaimed its independence in 1945, Myanmar in 1948. Both countries started off with very democratic parliamentary systems of government.

When I look at Myanmar now, I cannot help feeling a sense of deja vu. Both countries achieved independence through a great struggle against imperialism and colonialism. Indonesian people suffered severe poverty while their leaders concentrated on international issues, followed by a period of relative prosperity in conjunction with the degradation of democratic practices and human rights under military dictatorship, bloody suppression of popular upheavals and finally the return to democracy and a recognition of the rights of the many minority ethnic groups through decentralization.

Like Indonesia, before independence Myanmar was fooled by the Japanese promise to help free the country from Western colonialism. But while the British granted independence to Myanmar, then Burma, through a process of negotiations, rather than showing brutal opposition as did the Dutch to Indonesia, the Burmese still came to hate colonialists and refused to join the British Commonwealth, aligning itself to the leadership of the Non-Aligned countries.

Myanmar was once known as “the rice bowl” of Southeast Asia. However, when the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy did not materialize, widespread unrest occurred and in 1958 the army took over under Gen. Ne Win. He purged “communist sympathizers” and began to suppress the minorities with military force.

Elections in 1960 brought U Nu back as Prime Minister, but Ne Win staged a coup in 1962 and the country’s decline under military dictatorship began in earnest. As if emulating Indonesia, Myanmar nationalized all major industries without compensation.

In September 1987 a “demonetization” measure left the people severely impoverished. The elder generation of Indonesians would remember how, many years ago, Sukarno had done the same. In 1988, driven by economic desperation, the people of Myanmar revolted. On Aug. 8 that year, troops began firing into the crowds, eventually killing over 3,000 people.

Still, the resistance continued and forged alliances with ethnic resistance movements. In Rangoon (now Yangon), the daughter of founding father Aung San, Suu Kyi, was approached to join the burgeoning democratic movement. Her incredible persistence and patience finally paid off and, as it had done the first time its leadership had been quashed by the military, her party won the election, in a landslide victory. The rest is not yet history.

The question now is whether the Myanmar military, guaranteed under the new constitution to hold 25 percent of seats in the parliament (as in Indonesia until 2004), will follow the example of the Indonesian generals and relinquish political privilege. Indeed, one of the most important questions asked by a general at a seminar organized by the Habibie Center in Jakarta a couple of years ago was how the Indonesian senior generals convinced their younger troops to give up their political privileges.

It seems that the old Myanmar generals have started to realize that their time is up, but they do not know how to stop riding the fat tigers that control the wealth of the country, especially jade trade with China. This is not overly different from the problem faced by Indonesian military big brass who control vast business interests all over the country.

Myanmar is indeed at a crossroads. Will it continue to follow in the footsteps of big brother Indonesia? Indonesian leaders, through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, could and should play a stronger role in persuading Myanmar’s rulers to quickly emulate Indonesia. With its vast natural resources, Myanmar has the potential to rise rapidly and join its more prosperous neighbors. However, like Indonesia, it has to set its house in order first.

By M. Nur Djuli

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M. Nur Djuli is an independent international consultant on conflict resolution and postconflict peace management, a former Free Aceh Movement negotiator in Helsinki, a leader of the Aceh National Party and was a 2011-2012 Weatherhead fellow for international affairs at Harvard University. --Ed.

The Jakarta Post (Indonesia)