Myanmar’s Resistance Finally Has a Unified Front

I was serving as Dean of the University of Medicine in Yangon when Myanmar’s military staged its coup in February 2021. Overnight, I became an activist in the resistance movement, serving in a variety of roles. Like millions of my fellow citizens, I joined peaceful protests and helped lead the Civil Disobedience Movement.

My involvement soon made me a wanted man, forcing me to flee to a neighboring country before I eventually received refuge in Europe. I was later appointed minister of health and education in the National Unity Government (NUG), which was formed in April 2021 to lead the resistance to the coup.

Since then, throughout what has become known as the Myanmar Spring Revolution, I have witnessed both its triumphs and its setbacks firsthand. Living abroad also allowed me to engage extensively with foreign governments and Myanmar diaspora communities before I returned to Myanmar in 2025. I am now based in one of Myanmar’s liberated areas – territories under the control of revolutionary forces.

Against this backdrop, I believe the recent creation of the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF) represents the most significant turning point in Myanmar’s resistance movement since the 2021 coup.

Some have dismissed the SCEF as merely another acronym. Nothing could be further from the truth. It represents one of the most consequential political and military realignments in Myanmar’s modern history. It addresses one of the central weaknesses that has long undermined Myanmar’s democratic struggle: the inability of anti-military forces to sustain a unified political and military front across ethnic and ideological lines.

The Steering Council brings together several of Myanmar’s most powerful and politically significant resistance actors, including the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the Karen National Union (KNU), the Chin National Front (CNF), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), the exile parliamentary body, and the NUG. Such broad participation is unprecedented.

For decades, Myanmar’s ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) understood that none could defeat the military on their own. Yet repeated attempts to build durable alliances collapsed under the weight of mistrust, competing interests, ethnic divisions, and external pressures. At the same time, many EROs came to recognize that their remarkable battlefield successes since 2021 would not have been possible without the nationwide Spring Revolution, which fundamentally transformed Myanmar’s political landscape.

One major attempt at unity followed the 1988 uprising with the creation of the Democratic Alliance of Burma, which brought together the KNU, the KIO, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, and several other organizations around a shared federal vision. The alliance fractured in 1994 after the KIO signed a ceasefire agreement with the junta. Subsequent ERO coalitions were more limited in scope, focusing primarily on military coordination and territorial defense rather than the development of an inclusive federal political framework that incorporated the Bamar-majority democratic movement.

The Steering Council is different from previous alliances because it integrates political leadership with military coordination. It unites long-established ethnic armed organizations with the post-coup democratic resistance led by the NUG and the CRPH. In doing so, it also addresses the question that I have been repeatedly asked during meetings with foreign officials: whether Myanmar’s anti-junta movement can evolve into a coherent national alternative rather than remain a loose collection of armed groups pursuing divergent political objectives. Some feared that the collapse of military rule might produce fragmentation resembling the post-conflict experiences of Libya or Syria. The emergence of the Steering Council should go a long way toward alleviating those concerns.

The Steering Council Was Built to Last

The formation of the SCEF has been several years in the making. Discussions began during confidential meetings in Europe in October 2022 and continued through a series of negotiations inside Myanmar and across neighboring countries. This slow and deliberate process reflected the difficulty of building trust among organizations with different political cultures, military structures, and historical grievances.

As an initial step, on January 31, 2024, the CNF, KNPP, KNU, and NUG issued the Joint Position Statement Towards the Annihilation of Military Dictatorship and the Establishment of a Federal Democratic Union. Informally known as the K2C–NUG Position Statement, the document outlined six political objectives that closely resemble those of the Steering Council. The KIO’s formal participation in the Steering Council represents a major breakthrough in coalition-building and provides a roadmap for the eventual inclusion of additional ethnic organizations.

Discussions are also underway with several other EROs. While understandings and frameworks for future collaboration are being developed, the sensitive nature of these negotiations prevents any further public disclosure at this stage.

The Steering Council is the product of years of patient negotiations and incremental consensus-building, making it more likely to endure than previous alliances. Its institutional design also reflects a level of organizational maturity that earlier coalitions lacked. The SCEF has been deliberately structured as a long-term institution capable of leading both wartime resistance and the subsequent political transition.

The Structure of the Steering Council

At the SCEF’s apex is a Strategic Leadership Committee composed of seven senior representatives, one from each member organization. Beneath it operates a Secretariat consisting of 12 senior officials empowered to make operational decisions without constant referral to their respective organizations. This is a deliberate effort to streamline coordination within a movement often criticized for fragmentation and slow decision-making. I serve as one of those 12 Secretariat members.

Supporting the Secretariat are committees responsible for foreign affairs, finance, federal affairs, security, and interior affairs. Resources and funding are intended to be shared equitably, while the Steering Council seeks to present itself internationally as a unified body speaking with one voice.

Alongside the Secretariat is the Military Affairs Coordinating Body, composed of ten senior commanders from member organizations responsible for military operations, procurement, and logistics. It reports directly to the Strategic Leadership Committee.

In effect, the Steering Council institutionalizes what Myanmar’s resistance has historically lacked: unified political leadership directly linked to coordinated military operations. For the first time since the 2021 coup, Myanmar’s principal democratic and ethnic resistance organizations have created a genuinely integrated political and military framework with national ambitions.

Myanmar’s resistance landscape remains extraordinarily complex, and powerful external actors could still complicate efforts to expand or consolidate the coalition. The alliance’s members are fully aware of these challenges, and we understand that our credibility will ultimately depend on demonstrating effective battlefield coordination, measurable progress, and coherent diplomacy abroad.

Several Steering Council representatives have already visited foreign capitals to brief governments, with additional visits planned. Most recently, a briefing was held in Thailand for diplomats and representatives of selected civil society organizations. We have been encouraged by the positive response and optimism expressed by many participants.

The Military’s New Government Will Not Bring Peace

In April, following a widely discredited sham election in December and January, the junta has attempted to rebrand itself as a civilian government. The new president is none other than the former junta chief, while the ruling party remains dominated by former military officers and junta loyalists. This arrangement cannot bring genuine peace or stability because it runs contrary to the people’s aspirations for freedom, democracy, and equality among all ethnic communities.

The major EROs controlling large portions of the country are currently members of the Steering Council and have rejected the new government. The Arakan Army, which controls significant territory in western Myanmar, continues to wage major offensives against the military. Several other EROs governing extensive areas in northeastern Myanmar are not currently engaged in active fighting, despite their remarkable success during the Operation 1027 offensive in late 2023 and 2024, largely because of external pressure.

The claim that the new government, which controls only a handful of major urban centers, can bring peace and stability therefore does not withstand scrutiny. Myanmar is no longer governed exclusively from Naypyidaw. Across large parts of the country, ethnic resistance organizations already provide governance, including local administration, education, healthcare, and other public services.

The Steering Council is the clearest indication yet that Myanmar’s resistance is evolving from a reactive anti-coup movement into an increasingly organized national coalition capable of shaping a post-junta federal order.

In many respects, the Steering Council is laying the institutional foundations for the future state of Myanmar – a process that has repeatedly been interrupted repeatedly by military coups, fragile ceasefires, sham civilian governments, and periods of incomplete democratic rule since the country gained independence in 1948.

The Steering Council offers the people of Myanmar their best opportunity in decades to end military rule and replace perpetual conflict with a new political system capable of delivering lasting peace, security, freedom, democracy, and equality.

For the international community, it presents a rare opportunity to engage with a resistance movement that is increasingly coordinated, politically coherent, and committed to building a democratic federal union capable of bringing long-term stability and prosperity to Myanmar and the wider region.