PRIME Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s recent call for Myanmar’s military junta and the National Unity Government (NUG) to meet at the negotiating table is strategically misguided.
These are not two opposing political factions that can reconcile through compromise. They represent diametrically opposed worldviews.
The junta seeks to entrench a brutal, centralised authoritarianism rooted in military supremacy and ethnic domination. The NUG and its allies envision a democratic federal Myanmar built on equality, decentralisation, and justice.
Indonesia tried a similar approach during its Asean chairmanship: behind-the-scenes diplomacy, engagement with junta officials, quiet talks. The result? Zero progress.
The military responded with airstrikes, executions, and the burning of villages.
Malaysia now risks repeating the same mistake. When Anwar recently called for a ceasefire, the military responded with fresh shelling. These are not good-faith actors. They are perpetrators of mass violence, using talks as a delay tactic while consolidating control through terror.
If Asean wants a real solution, it must stop looking up to power and start looking across to the grassroots. Civil society groups, ethnic resistance organisations, women’s collectives, and the NUG are already forging a different future under impossible conditions.
They are delivering services, protecting communities, and building institutions from the ground up. Their proposal isn’t a mere political reshuffle but a structural overhaul: a new federal arrangement that reflects Myanmar’s ethnic diversity and distributes power away from the centre.
This vision of bottom-up federalism is not utopian. It is the only response to a failed state long dominated by a military that has never been accountable to its people.
Inviting the junta to help shape Myanmar’s future is like asking Netanyahu to broker peace in Gaza. You don’t hand the arsonist the blueprint for rebuilding. The military isn’t misunderstood. It is the architect of destruction. Giving it a seat at the table while its jets bomb schools and displace thousands sends a clear message: power, not principle, determines legitimacy.
Anwar, who once stood as a symbol of resistance against authoritarianism, should know better. To stand for reform is to stand against the machinery of repression, wherever it operates.
If Malaysia wants to lead in Asean, it must do more than manage optics. It must reject false equivalencies, cut off the junta’s international lifelines, and support the only actors truly working toward peace. And, not through backroom deals, but through transformation from below. – May 26, 2025
Former three-term Klang MP Charles Santiago is Co-chair Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights