By Courtney Weatherby

Protest on behalf Myanmar’s political prisoners in London. Source: totaloutnow’s flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

President Thein Sein’s failure to fulfill his promise in July 2013 to release all remaining political prisoners by the end of the year attracted criticism from a number of international observers and human rights groups. However, there are important factors at play that prevented his government from releasing all prisoners of conscience.

Disagreements among different actors and branches of Myanmar’s government over how to define political prisoners were a major obstacle for Thein Sein. Despite the executive branch’s apparent desire to free all prisoners of conscience, the reality is that power is still shared among various factions within Myanmar’s traditional elites, some of whom are not fully invested in pushing ahead with political reforms.

Since taking power in 2011, President Thein Sein has issued at least a dozen amnesties in response to international attention and pressure, leading to the release of many prominent activists. By early 2013, human rights organizations estimated the number of political prisoners had dropped from an estimated 1,200  to approximately 330. Releases continued periodically throughout the year and in December 2013, in what appeared to be an attempt to fulfill the president’s pledge, the government released 41 political prisoners and dropped charges against 200 others in a general amnesty. The President’s Office declared shortly thereafter that the country was free of political prisoners.

However, the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a leading group campaigning for political prisoners in Myanmar, noted that 30 prisoners of conscience still remain behind bars as of March. The majority of them are ethnic Rohingya and Kachin activists, members of the opposition National League for Democracy, and a handful of military intelligence officers who were detained in 2004 as a result of a power struggle within the military.

In addition, those released still face constraints on their activities – some activists who had been pardoned from political charges were re-arrested on criminal charges – and the arrests of journalists and activists have continued well into 2014.

The failure to free these prisoners should not be seen as a failure of Thein Sein’s leadership alone, but rather a result of fundamental disagreements among political actors over the definition of political prisoners. There is an ongoing debate over whether or not military intelligence officers should be classified as political prisoners given their past roles in locating and imprisoning dissenters of the military regime. Although the Political Prisoners Scrutinizing Committee, a body tasked by the government to review cases of political prisoners, officially requested that these intelligence officers be pardoned in January, many human rights groups believe ethnic and opposition activists and members of ethnic armed groups should have been released first.

Soe Thane, the committee’s chairman and a minister in the President’s Office, called the remaining cases “complex.” Yet the reluctance of committee members to endorse the release of ethnic and opposition political prisoners or resolve the issue in early 2014 could be seen as a sign of gridlock. In addition to government-appointed advisers, members of the committee also include lawmakers and independent activists, some of whom may have different priorities, making it difficult for the body to reach a consensus.

President Thein Sein’s failure to deliver on his promise to rid the country of all political prisoners by the end of 2013 has certainly dealt a blow to his government’s reformist credentials. The President’s Office’s decision to refuse to allow the Political Prisoners Scrutinizing Committee to meet with prisoners and clarify their status in March 2014 reinforces this view and indicates that Thein Sein is hesitant to recognize the remaining prisoners after publicly stating that all political prisoners were freed. The inability to resolve the issue is indicative of the fundamental discord among Myanmar’s elites on many issues, which will remain a major obstacle facing the country’s reform process.

Ms. Courtney Weatherby is a researcher with the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies at CSIS.