Racial wart on Myanmar’s revolutionary troika

As Myanmar’s political opposition complex marks a three-year anniversary since the 2021 military coup, its progress has been at best mediocre and at worst an abysmal failure.

The three groups that comprise the complex are the multi-member policy advisory body the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), the appointed executive National Unity Government (NUG) and the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a group of parliamentarians from the National League for Democracy (NLD) elected in the 2020 nationwide election annulled by military coup-makers.

There are 204 delegates and a further 230 observers. Long-standing tensions between these groups surfaced during the Second People’s Assembly convened by the NUCC from April 4-6, which was extended for three days amidst heated debate.

The NUG and CRPH boycotted the last day, likely from acrimony that surfaced between attendees stemming from procedural irregularities and division of responsibilities, long-standing personal animosities, dramatic accusations of a NUG-sponsored hit on a popular People’s Defense Force (PDF) leader and disagreements over priorities for the movement going forward.

All in all, there wasn’t much “unity” on display.

One issue was likely contained in the NUCC’s post-assembly statement around the perennially contentious 1982 Citizenship Law. Of the three “decisions” passed by the assembly, the third “determined that the (law) would be abolished…implemented in accordance (w)ith (sic) Chapter (5) ‘Interim Legislature’ of the Federal Democracy Charter.”

Chapter Five of the charter, revolutionary Myanmar’s guiding document released in March 2021, states: “provisions and policies in this Charter are the basic guidance that shall be applied in