Episode #393: “It’s now time to be more principled and say that, ‘We would like to support democracy.’” With this statement, Audun Aagre, former head of the Norwegian Burma Committee (NBC), distills three decades of Norway’s involvement in Myanmar into a call for credibility and purpose.
Aagre’s own engagement with Myanmar began in the early 1990s, when Burmese exiles in Norway trained as journalists with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). Witnessing their dedication inspired him to travel to the Thai–Myanmar border, and later help form a Burma support group back home. He was eventually tapped to lead the Norwegian Burma Committee (NBC), an advocacy group supporting Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD’s opposition to the military. Under Aagre’s leadership, NBC was broadened to include building political party capacity and working with civil society across ethnic lines.
While Norway’s policy was pro-democracy early on, it shifted during the Thein Sein era. Norwegian diplomats began to argue the generals had seen the light and were more popular than Aung San Suu Kyi— a view Aagre dismissed as fantasy. Norway launched the Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI), which emphasized short-term “peace dividends” like development projects, but failed to address structural issues of federalism and military control, and seemed to back the military’s approach. The trust his country had built with democratic forces in Myanmar for decades all but collapsed. The Rohingya crisis then revealed the futility of believing cooperation with the military could ever be compatible with human rights.
Meanwhile, business entanglements further eroded Norway’s credibility. Telenor, once a symbol of empowerment as cheap SIM cards and internet spread across Myanmar, soon collided with the junta’s demands for surveillance data. Forced into compliance, it eventually sold its operations—only to see sensitive information handed straight to military-linked companies. Energy ventures like SN Power’s dam project and Statoil’s offshore contracts followed the same pattern, funneling resources into conflict zones and, ultimately, into the generals’ coffers.
For Aagre, the lesson is clear: Norway must stand firmly for democracy, not realpolitik. Otherwise, compromise and “trickle-down” strategies only undermine the very struggles they aim to support. The warning resonates now, as democracies everywhere face pressure from rising authoritarianism and strategic disinformation. “If the military was able to turn Norway, then you can turn any country in the world. The symbolism of turning Norway was very high.”