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After several months, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has finally appointed a new Special Envoy for Myanmar: former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop. This ends an unedifying period of speculation over the replacement for previous envoy Noeleen Heyzer, who left the position in mid-2023. Several Asian female candidates were considered and are rumored to have turned down the offer. As diplomatic gigs go, it won’t be a barrel of laughs.

The new envoy’s appointment came as a surprise, but has been greeted with largely positive support. Bishop said in a statement: “I am deeply honored to be appointed special envoy … to help deliver on the mandate of the general assembly and the security council resolution of December 2022.” Security Council Resolution 2669 is heavily weighted to supporting efforts by the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the text “(u)rges all parties in Myanmar to work constructively with the ASEAN Special Envoy and the UN Special Envoy to commence dialogue to seek a peaceful solution in the interests of the people of Myanmar.” 

Bishop was Australian foreign minister in the Liberal Party coalition government from 2013 to 2018, so in Myanmar terms she has experience in the hopeful days of Myanmar’s ‘transition’ and the historic 2015 election, then the shock of the Rohingya ethnic cleansing campaign of 2017. To Bishop’s credit, Australia deployed a generous aid package to Myanmar during the transition, much of it very positive education support that sent clear messages of long-term investment in Myanmar’s development. This should be factored into her potential as the new envoy. But then there was a dark side, with Canberra’s reprehensible financial assistance for a new mining law and some questionable investments in that most dirty of sectors (and Australian firms are still investing, according to Justice for Myanmar).

Natural multilateralism

Australian foreign policy is deeply invested in regional multilateralism, especially ties with ASEAN. Bishop has already signaled she will work closely with them as a part of UNSC Resolution 2669. This will certainly include ASEAN’s moribund Five Point Consensus (5PC) peace plan. She will have to work cooperatively with China and Thailand especially, which will require some deft approaches. Australian political leaders often prefer elite engagement over more hands-on community interaction (unless they’re seeking re-election), but Bishop should pursue more consultations with multiple voices on the ground. There is no Aung San Suu Kyi to sidle up to anymore.

Yet Bishop has to contend with regional apathy. The Institute for South East Asia Studies (ISEAS)’ annual ‘State of South East Asia’ study found that regional concern over the Myanmar crisis was a mere 26.6%. The highest concern was the Israel-Hamas conflict at 46.5%, followed by the Russia-Ukraine conflict at 39.4%, global scam operations at 39.4% and international drug smuggling at 37.2%. Faith in ASEAN’s 5PC is extremely low, with 22.4% of respondents claiming the 5PC will not work due to the “intransigence of the SAC [junta].”

When asked how to ‘move the Myanmar issue forward,’ 38.6% of respondents supported the approach of “Engage[ing] in independent dialogue with all key stakeholders, including the National Unity Government, in Myanmar to build trust.”

Another survey produced around the same time by Myanmar researcher Blue Shirt Initiative found support for mediation efforts by ASEAN and the UN at a surprising average of around 40%, much higher than expected. But support for military means of ending the conflict was around 50% (but 25% of respondents refused to answer), with support for negotiations between military and political leaders slightly lower. Bishop may have more to work with than many often credit the UN envoy with.

The envoy needs to take a leading role with ASEAN and key regional states, including China and Thailand, in working with multiple forces arrayed against the regime to forge a viable future for Myanmar. One initial approach could be reviewing why Indonesia’s 2023 term as ASEAN chair failed to live up to expectations, and what moves the key regional states of Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia are considering to break out of the impasse. The consensus seems to be that a year of Laos as chair is a lame-duck period before a possibly more vocal and energetic Malaysia takes over in 2025. But the envoy must use this year as productively as possible to foster new and practical approaches and not waste time on over-optimism.

Bishop should not be distracted by human rights and humanitarian concerns; these are already being taken care of and are imperfect vehicles for political change. Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur, is doing an effective job keeping the issue alive and crafting key messages of international action, beyond what a normal special procedures appointee would achieve. And it’s clearly having some effect, as the SAC’s Permanent Mission in Geneva has taken to calling him the ‘so-called Special Rapporteur’, venting fury at Andrews having his term extended for another year by a European Union-sponsored resolution at the Human Rights Council on April 4: “another one year while (sic) unwarranted post created over thirty years ago does not contribute to dialogue and cooperation between Myanmar and the international community as envisaged by the Council.”

Envoys and rapporteurs for Myanmar have a history of mutual animosity and competitiveness, but Bishop and Andrews could be an effective duo: coming from domestic political arenas instead of the UN system or state diplomacy should engender a different outlook, and working more cooperatively could possibly unsettle the SAC (State Administration Council)’s foreign relations efforts.

Bishop should not be distracted by assisting the dysfunctional UN Country Team in Myanmar. The UNSG needs to step up and appoint a Resident Coordinator to do that. Bishop should take the hard road to directing the UN to find ways to support a new post-military society throughout Myanmar and urging practical plans for assisting people across the country. With the UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths stepping down for health reasons, Bishop won’t need to look over her shoulder in wariness of being shoved aside as Heyzer was in 2023.

The SAC Ministry of Foreign Affairs made that clear following Bishop’s appointment, with a press-release broadside against the UN as a whole, following the special Security Council briefing on Friday, declaring always excellent relations with the UN special envoy and boasting of facilitating multiple humanitarian access missions. They then signaled a less than positive reception for Bishop: “Despite Myanmar’s rejection of the country-specific resolutions, including the resolution which contains the creation of the mandate of appointing a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar, Myanmar has constructively cooperated with the previous Special Envoys of the Secretary-General on Myanmar as a gesture of constructive cooperation with the United Nations. Pertaining to the appointment of Ms Julie Bishop as the Special Envoy on Myanmar, no official communication has been made to Myanmar by the United Nations.”

Not an auspicious start. SAC foreign minister Than Swe is an accomplished diplomatic bamboozler, and Bishop should anticipate the SAC offering entreaties of various sorts, interspersed with rebukes.

Australian foreign ministers adore spouting their adherence to the rules-based international order, but only the rules they like. Australia’s abhorrent record of incarceration of refugees and asylum seekers goes back decades. During Bishop’s tenure, the government established a gulag for refugees on Manus Island, which wasn’t much of an improvement on the Rohingya camps outside Sittwe.

Australia was always proud of its reluctance to issue statements on human rights violations in Myanmar, preferring sotto voce engagement. There is little evidence that this approach produced more impressive results. Bishop will likely take a similar approach, which she should as a political envoy, and people shouldn’t expect, nor demand, strong condemnation when there is already sufficient strong criticism of the SAC, as the Security Council discussion on April 4 shows.

Bishop has also been criticized for joining the board of Australian foreign aid contractor Palladium soon after leaving office, when the company was a key recipient of multiple contracts during her tenure: principally the merger of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) and AusAID. Similar complaints were made after the former Norwegian deputy foreign minister and the ambassador to Yangon were handed lucrative jobs with the telecoms company Telenor. Senior State Department official Kurt Campbell, often (erroneously) credited with shaping US engagement with Myanmar, left government service only for his consulting firm, Asia Group, to bid for a contract developing Yangon airport, raising eyebrows in Washington DC. Lucrative private sector jobs for former senior government officials are hardly novel, and not anything that would seriously compromise Bishop’s integrity in this new role.

Most special envoys on Myanmar are hardly models of moral rectitude. Ibrahim Gambari was a notorious example of using a “dictator envoy” to engage previous Myanmar military strongman Than Shwe, drawing on his long experience representing the repressive Sani Abacha dictatorship in Nigeria. “To get a foot in, to get a hearing, I felt that background, my background, helped me tremendously. And they [SPDC] listened,” he told Foreign Policy in 2010. No, they didn’t. Gambari’s predecessor, the Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail, actively did business with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) junta while envoy, on an e-passport scheme.

Any criticism of Bishop has to be couched in the reality that she is a better choice, by far, than many who came before her.

No special military relationship

Bishop may possibly harbor the insufferable Australian delusion that a special relationship existed with the Myanmar military. That understanding was never real, let alone reciprocated, and belief in it should have died on the day of the 2021 coup, although Australia (and Bishop) continuing military engagement after the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya post-2017 was both inexplicable and unforgivable and yielded no tangible diplomatic benefit. Bishop has to studiously reject any perspectives that proclaim vestiges of entry points with the Myanmar military leadership.

The main conduit for this post-coup confab between the Australian military and the SAC was Vice Senior General Soe Win, who has been a primary strategist behind airstrikes as punishment and war crimes as daily pacification across the country. If his death or injury in a drone strike at Southeast Command in Mawlamyine on April 9, by the superbly named Alpha Bats Drone Force, is confirmed, then that avenue may be permanently closed.

On engaging with the SAC, there will obviously be pressure within the UN system and the region to seek mediation of some kind, regardless of the litany of failures since the 5PC was reached. But this has to be carefully calibrated to avoid risking the humiliation the regime inflicted on Heyzer in mid-2022 when her visit to Naypyitaw turned into an abject disaster. Bishop should learn the lessons of Heyzer and her predecessor, Swiss diplomat Christine Schraner Burgener, over the efficacy of direct diplomatic talks: especially now as the regime looks closer to defeat. You don’t pet a burning dog.

As envoy, she should realize that propping up the regime would be a failed approach. Preparing for its eventual collapse is the more realistic scenario. The new envoy has a potentially important role in sensitizing the international community to a new Myanmar, and switching alarmist narratives of fragmentation to a future of decentralized political units with a productive relationship to a ‘Central Myanmar’ state. More emphasis must be exerted on planning for the heartland as the periphery takes shape by military action.

Bishop has to realize from the start that events on the ground will prove far more decisive to the direction of the conflict than anything outside mediation can possibly achieve. Battlefield momentum since Operation 1027 has been dramatic, as has expansion of operational space in many ethnic areas. Central Myanmar will likely be a zone of anarchy for the foreseeable future, but working on stabilizing it, through multiple challenges of armed conflict, smashed livelihoods and the disastrous effects of climate change should be one of the central policy priorities.

Working with what you have

Bishop is hardly an inspired choice: she is suitable chiefly for accepting the job offer. There will be the inevitable gnashing of teeth by reflexively outraged activists, banalities by the Bangkok commentariat, and shrill people who live in the parallel reality of X (Twitter), all of whom were predictably diverted from the new envoy’s appointment to the vital question of ‘who controls Myawaddy?’, and the mad scramble for messaging dominance over the Thingyan period. After three years of the SAC rule, it should be obvious by now that there are no ‘game-changers’, whether it’s an envoy’s appointment or taking a key border trading town (and it’s not a ‘game’ and how much has really changed?)

But who did people expect to be appointed after such a long wait? Taylor Swift? The baying hordes need to get over an unhealthy animus towards the UN and the incessant criticism of Myanmar being abandoned by the world: that was obvious in 2021 when Burgener was still pretending she had SAC cachet. The UN simply doesn’t matter much anymore, therefore an envoy’s role won’t be as central as so much criticism suggests.

But what can a new envoy actually achieve in a low-expectation environment? The situation simply doesn’t favor any major breakthrough: so stop expecting any. If the SAC falls rapidly and utter chaos ensues, as some predict, albeit prematurely, then she will equally have a limited role mediating disorder: if prolonged disorder or rapid collapse are the only scenarios. If expectations of Bishop and ASEAN are kept exceedingly low, she could potentially make some modest progress on preparing for the future and expand the networks of armed actors, key states, individuals and the real actors working to effect change on the ground in Myanmar, not just those easy to meet in Jakarta.

Bishop should certainly continue engaging the National Unity Government (NUG), but also be aware it has largely failed to construct a credible foreign policy, beyond pleading for official recognition and more funding. NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung is well respected in some circles, especially by the Myanmar diaspora, as a recent profile in Radio Free Asia illustrated, but there is widespread frustration at the lack of foreign policy dynamism. (Bishop may well face an awkward first meeting with the NUG’s Ministry of Human Rights: one of their advisors is Jaivet Ealom, a Rohingya who escaped from Manus Island when Bishop was foreign minister, and wrote a scathing book about it after reaching Canada).

The NUG responded to her appointment, “(w)e have full confidence that Ms. Bishop’s extensive experience and expertise in diplomatic acumen (sic) make her a great fit … to serve the best interests of the people of Myanmar in alignment with their desires and aspirations.” This suggests a possible positive start, but also the limited options open to the NUG on the world stage, especially with the UN.

The NUG is also widely derided as taking too much credit for gains on the ground in conflict areas, and failing to improve relations with the ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) who have achieved most of the dramatic battlefield gains of recent months. Working with the multiple EAO leadership will be crucial. But Bishop should also realize that what is being talked about on Myanmar is not always what is really happening, and she should seek insight outside the safety rope established by the Special Envoy office. Operation 1027 should be an example of embracing the unknown, and not swallowing the dynamics being mapped out by the proliferation of studies from rent-by-the-hour academics and secretive analytical units rehashing open-source intelligence, which are often misleading and of limited value. The envoy’s intelligence/analysis sources invariably guide their strategy.

Bishop should actively seek out multiple Myanmar perspectives on context updates, conflict analysis, and various Track 1.5s and embrace the natural complexity of conflict-wracked Myanmar. An effective envoy should balance not just how to engage multiple actors, but also how to avoid obviously misguided ventures. There have been numerous diplomatic mediation gambles, all failing as roundly as UN efforts, plus the sadly ineffectual international hacks from over a decade of failed liberal international peacebuilding who persist like scurvy stalkers, addicted to funding from helicopter parent donors indoctrinated in the bureaucratic compulsion of activity regardless of efficacy. Bishop should ideally be immune to the oily charms of the skulking peace mediation set, but their recidivism is resilient.

Ideally, the new envoy’s thinking should range beyond the confines of standard foreign policy thought, definitely of the ultra-conservative Australian school, which is instinctively risk-averse, value-shy, and synchronized to Southeast Asian sensibilities. Yet if expectations are low, then work in the realm of the possible, not the fantasyland of the ideal. In other words, policy advice to Bishop must be low-yield, mechanical, and long-term, not activist-led, which has had the same scorecard of success as official diplomatic entreaties.

Bishop’s appointment has to be balanced between her professional qualities – which are technically impressive and well suited to the role – and the insurmountable challenges of engaging with a regime that stonewalled her predecessors, befuddled the UN, ASEAN, and pretty much everyone else in the international community, and is ultimately losing in the long run. Bishop may be the right person for the wrong job. But if there is any chance for small changes that can have a positive impact for people inside Myanmar, it requires all sides working with the new envoy as productively as possible, and convincing her that the Myanmar military must be removed from the national political system once and for all.

David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarian and human rights issues on Myanmar.

This article was originally published on The Irrawaddy.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.