On January 7, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen arrived in Myanmar for a two-day visit, during which he met the country’s military ruler, Min Aung Hlaing.
It was the first visit to Myanmar by a foreign leader since the February 2021 military coup that ousted the country’s elected government.
The visit carried additional weight given that in October, Cambodia officially assumed the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The group, which includes Cambodia and Myanmar, has spearheaded efforts to end the bloodshed after the coup.
Also in October, Myanmar from an ASEAN summit for failing to enact the , ASEAN’s plan to end violence in the country.
Hun Sen framed his trip to Myanmar as part of ASEAN’s efforts to bring peace. But the visit in Myanmar, and bombs were detonated near Cambodia’s embassy in the capital, Yangon.
Critics charged Hun Sen with giving legitimacy to Myanmar’s military rulers, an accusation he denied.
The Fresh News service, which is aligned with Cambodia’s government, that Hun Sen “did not care about” those in Myanmar “opposing his efforts to resolve the Myanmar crisis,” and that “his mission is to assist Myanmar escape civil war.”
"I did not blame some Burmese people who burned and stepped on my portraits, but they need to know that their lives will be rescued from wars thanks to ASEAN roles, which includes my visit to Myanmar,” Fresh News quoted Hun Sen as saying.
“The agreement to declare ceasefire by the Myanmar leaders is an important step [to securing peace].”
Fresh News added that Hun Sen urged “all parties in Myanmar to end the violence” so that Myanmar could avoid the decades of civil war that Cambodia experienced.
However, there is little evidence that Hun Sen’s visit or Myanmar’s “cease-fire” will actually foster peace. It is also misleading to frame Myanmar’s violence as a civil war between opposing groups of citizens.
Rather, the popular uprising against Myanmar’s military rulers is a direct result of the ouster of the country’s elected government and the military’s willingness to use force to maintain undemocratic rule.
Myanmar’s military announced a five-month cease-fire with Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) in September 2021. During Hun Sen’s visit, the military announced the cease-fire would be extended until the end of the year.
EAOs, which come from Myanmar's varied non-ethnic Burmese communities, control as much as a third of Myanmar's territory. Broadly, they have fought for independence, greater autonomy, control of resources in their ancestral homelands and/or greater representation/rights in Myanmar's civic and political life.
But analysts believe the decision to maintain the cease-fire with the EAOs, some of which have been struggling for independence for decades, is intended “to take pressure off the military,” the Voice of America’s sister organization .
That, analysts argue, will allow Myanmar’s military to wipe out the People’s Defense Force (PDF) militias, which are the armed wing of Myanmar’s government in exile.
There are in Myanmar, but only 10 have signed off on the cease-fire.
The cease-fire was announced weeks after Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) called for a popular uprising. Despite the cease-fire, Myanmar’s military has ratcheted up its violence.
Last month, a senior United Nations official over a December 24 attack against civilians in Kayah State (also called Karen State) that left at least 35 dead, including children and humanitarian workers.
Meanwhile, in Kayah State sent hundreds fleeing into neighboring Thailand, Reuters reported.
Those and other attacks prompted the United Nations’ new special envoy to Myanmar to over escalating violence in the country.
According to Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, a Myanmar nongovernmental group, 1,461 people have been killed by the military since the coup. State-backed torture, disappearances, extrajudicial killings and of those opposed to military rule have continued unabated.
An Associated Press investigation in December 2021 found that Myanmar’s military is relying on a strategy of “massacres and scorched-earth tactics — such as the razing of entire villages” to violently suppress popular opposition.
As chair of ASEAN, Hun Sen sidestepped a key sticking point that led to Myanmar’s exclusion from the October ASEAN summit — the military junta's the ASEAN special envoy’s team to meet with “all parties concerned” in the country.
Hun Sen to meet Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was hit with an additional four-year prison sentence on January 10, just days after Hun Sen’s visit.