Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar military forms caretaker gov't with army chief as PM
Myanmar's military announced Sunday the formation of a caretaker government to rule until the next general election in 2023, with army chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing as its prime minister.
The commander-in-chief's deputy will be Vice Senior Gen. Soe Win, who also serves directly under him on the State Administration Council, according to an order issued by the ruling body six months after the Feb. 1 military coup.
The council has governed since the coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's government, reversing the country's democratization less than a decade after its transition to civilian rule.
Earlier Sunday, Min Aung Hlaing promised in a televised speech to hold a "free and fair multiparty general election" by August 2023 at the latest, after the two-year state of emergency expires.
The council last month canceled the results of the previous election held on Nov. 8 last year, in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a majority of seats in both houses of the parliament.
Read: Rohingya genocide continues after Myanmar military coup: BROUK
In his speech, the top general re-asserted that the last election was rigged, the military's rationale for seizing power.
More than 900 people have been killed in the military's crackdown following the coup.
Suu Kyi remains detained along with former President Win Myint and other senior officials of her government. She faces a slew of charges, while her party faces possible dissolution for allegedly masterminding vote-rigging.
Min Aung Hlaing also showed his willingness to accept the dispatch of a special envoy agreed in April by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to mediate among the parties and find a peaceful resolution to the country's crisis.
"I would like to say that Myanmar is ready to work on ASEAN cooperation within the ASEAN framework including the dialogue with the ASEAN special envoy in Myanmar," he said.
Of the three original nominees for the ASEAN special envoy, he said, his government had agreed to select Virasakdi Futrakul, former Thai deputy foreign minister and veteran diplomat.
Read: US sanctions Myanmar military and junta leaders for attacks
"But for various reasons, the new proposals were released and we could not keep moving forwards," he said.
ASEAN sources have said other nominees put forward include Hassan Wirajuda, a former Indonesian foreign minister, and Razali Ismail, a Malaysian who was a U.N. special envoy for Myanmar in the 2000s tasked with facilitating national reconciliation and democratization in the country.
The envoy's selection is expected to be finalized when ASEAN foreign ministers gather virtually between Monday and Friday for an annual series of meetings.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Myanmar caught off guard as cases surge, oxygen dwindles
Soe Win stood in line at a plant to buy oxygen for his grandmother, who is struggling with COVID-19 symptoms.
“I have been waiting since 5 in the morning until 12 noon but I’m still in line. Oxygen is scarcer than money,” said the resident of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.
Consumed by a bitter and violent political struggle since the military seized power in February, Myanmar has been slow to wake up to a devastating surge in cases since mid-May. It has left many of the sick like Soe Win’s grandmother to suffer at home if they cannot find a bed at an army hospital, or prefer not to trust their care to the widely disliked government.
Read: Myanmar: UN expert calls for emergency coalition to end junta's 'reign of terror'
Under Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader ousted by the military, Myanmar had weathered its second coronavirus surge beginning in August last year by severely restricting travel, sealing off Yangon, and curbing election campaigning in virus hot spots where lockdowns were imposed.
Suu Kyi appeared frequently on television with stern but empathetic entreaties to the public on how to deal with the situation. Vaccine supplies were secured from India and China. Her ouster came less than a week after the first jabs were given to health workers.
Suu Kyi’s removal by the military sparked widespread protests, and medical workers spearheaded a popular civil disobedience movement that called on professionals and civil servants not to cooperate with the military-installed government.
Military hospitals continued operating but were shunned by many, while doctors and nurses who boycotted the state system ran makeshift clinics, for which they faced arrest. The pace of vaccinations slowed to a crawl, threatening an explosion in infections.
“No wise person with a good heart and a sincere desire for truth would want to work under the junta’s rule,” said Zeyar Tun, founder of the civic action group Clean Yangon who helped out at quarantine centers. “Under Suu Kyi, the government and volunteers worked together to control the disease, but it is difficult to predict what the future holds under military rule.”
Photos and news stories early last week of people lining up to buy oxygen in the city of Kalay in the northwestern Sagaing region brought home the reality that Myanmar’s health care, already one of the world’s weakest, was on its knees.
“From Myanmar, our U.N. colleagues on the ground say they’re concerned about the rapid increase in the number of recorded COVID-19 cases,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York.
Read:In Myanmar, the military and police declare war on medics
“The U.N. team warns that a major outbreak of COVID-19 would have devastating consequences on both people’s health and on the economy. They stress the importance of resuming the delivery of essential health services, implementing measures to prevent the spread of the virus, and to scale up vaccinations.”
By the end of the week, residents of Myanmar’s two biggest cities, Yangon and Mandalay, were also having trouble finding oxygen supplies.
Myanmar’s new leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, in a Friday meeting on COVID-19 response ordered oxygen plants to work at full capacity, including converting industrial oxygen for the needs of patients.
Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Aung Naing Oo followed up on Saturday with an announcement that the government is dropping all duties and licensing requirements for the import of oxygen concentrators — devices that generate oxygen.
The Health Ministry on Saturday reported a record 4,377 new confirmed cases for a total of 188,752, as well as a record 71 deaths, bringing the toll to 3,756. The number of tested people found to be infected is hovering around 25%, and equally alarming is how quickly the numbers have been rising.
The data on vaccinations is not very clear, but it appears that as of last month, only 3.5 million doses had been administered to the country’s 55 million people, meaning a maximum of 3.2% of the population would be fully vaccinated with two doses.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average rose from 1.18 cases per 100,000 people on June 25 to 6.08 cases per 100,000 people on July 9. In the same period, deaths jumped from 0.01 per 100,000 people to 0.08.
Read:Washington announces further sanctions against Myanmar army personnel and enablers
Even those numbers are likely an undercount.
According to aid group Relief International, Myanmar’s major challenges are a lack of adequate screening, testing capacity and availability of vaccines.
The Health Ministry announced Thursday night that all schools would be closed for two weeks. Stay-at-home orders had already been issued for badly hit neighborhoods in several cities, including Yangon, and basic field hospitals set up.
Resident: Junta burns Myanmar village in escalating violence
Government troops have burned most of a village in Myanmar’s heartland, a resident said Wednesday, confirming reports by independent media and on social networks. The action appeared to be an attempt to suppress resistance against the ruling military junta.
Government-controlled media reported the fires were set by “terrorists” the armed troops were trying to arrest. The government and its opponents each refer to the other side as “terrorists.”
The near-destruction of the village is the latest example of how violence has become endemic in much of Myanmar as the junta tries to subdue an incipient nationwide insurrection. After the army seized power in February, overthrowing the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, a nonviolent civil disobedience movement arose to challenge military rule, but the junta’s attempt to repress it with deadly force fueled rather than quelled resistance.
Read: Ousted Myanmar leader on trial; critics say charges bogus
Photos and videos of devastated Kinma village in Magway region that circulated widely on social media showed much of the village flattened by fire and the charred bodies of farm animals. One report said the village had about 1,000 residents.
A villager contacted by phone said only 10 of 237 houses were left standing. The villager, who asked that his name not be used because of fear of government reprisals, said most residents had already fled when soldiers firing guns entered the village shortly before noon on Tuesday.
He said he believed the troops were searching for members of a village defense force that had been established to protect against the junta’s troops and police. Most such local forces are very lightly armed with homemade hunting rifles.
Read: Suu Kyi appears in Myanmar court for 2nd time
The village defense force warned residents before the troops arrived, so only four or five people were left in the village when they began searching houses in the afternoon. When they found nothing, they began setting the homes on fire, he said.
“There are some forests just nearby our village. Most of us fled into the forests,” he said.
The villager said he believed there were three casualties, a boy who was a goat herder who was shot in the thigh, and an elderly couple who were unable to flee. He believed the couple had died but several media reports said they were missing.
Ousted Myanmar leader on trial; critics say charges bogus
Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi was set to go on trial Monday on charges that many observers have criticized as attempt by the military junta that deposed her to delegitimize her democratic election and cripple her political future.
Suu Kyi’s prosecution poses the greatest challenge for the 75-year-old and her National League for Democracy party since February’s military coup, which prevented them from taking office for a second five-year term following last year’s landslide election victory.
Human Rights Watch charged that the allegations being heard in a special court in the capital, Naypyitaw, are “bogus and politically motivated” with the intention of nullifying the victory and preventing Suu Kyi from running for office again.
“This trial is clearly the opening salvo in an overall strategy to neuter Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy party as a force that can challenge military rule in the future,” said Phil Robertson, the organization’s deputy Asia director.
Read: Suu Kyi appears in Myanmar court for 2nd time
The army seized power on Feb. 1 before the new lawmakers could be seated, and arrested Suu Kyi, who held the post of special counsellor, and President Win Myint, along with other members of her government and ruling party. The coup reversed years of slow progress toward more democracy for Myanmar.
The army cited the government’s failure to properly investigate alleged voting irregularities as its reason for seizing power — an assertion contested by the independent Asian Network for Free Elections and many others. Junta officials have threatened to dissolve the National League for Democracy for alleged involvement in election fraud and any conviction for Suu Kyi could see her barred from politics.
The junta has claimed it will hold new elections within the next year or two but the country’s military has a long history of promising elections and not following through. The military ruled Myanmar for 50 years after a coup in 1962, and kept Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 years after a failed 1988 popular uprising.
The military’s latest takeover sparked nationwide protests that continue despite a violent crackdown that has killed hundreds of people. Although street demonstrations have shrunk in number and scale, the junta now faces a low-level armed insurrection by its opponents in both rural and urban areas.
Read: ASEAN envoys meet Myanmar junta leader to press for dialogue
Suu Kyi is being tried on allegations she illegally imported walkie-talkies for her bodyguards’ use, unlicensed use of the radios and spreading information that could cause public alarm or unrest, as well as for two counts of violating the Natural Disaster Management Law for allegedly breaking pandemic restrictions during the 2020 election campaign, her lawyers said Sunday.
“All these charges should be dropped, resulting in her immediate and unconditional release,” said Human Rights Watch’s Robertson. “But sadly, with the restrictions on access to her lawyers, and the case being heard in front of a court that is wholly beholden to the military junta, there is little likelihood she will receive a fair trial.”
Government prosecutors will have until June 28 to finish their presentation, after which Suu Kyi’s defense team will have until July 26 to present its case, Khin Maung Zaw, the team’s senior member, said last week. Court sessions are due to be held on Monday and Tuesday each week.
Two other more serious charges are being handled separately. Suu Kyi is charged with breaching the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carried a maximum 14-year prison term, and police last week filed complaints under a section of the Anti-Corruption Law that states that political office holders convicted for bribery face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a fine.
Read:US sanctions Myanmar military and junta leaders for attacks
Although Suu Kyi faced her first charge just days after the coup, she was not immediately allowed to consult with her lawyers. Only on May 24, when she made her first actual appearance in court, was she allowed the first of two brief face-to-face meetings with them at pre-trial hearings. Her only previous court appearances had been by video link.
A photo of her May 24 appearance released by state media showed her sitting straight-backed in a small courtroom, wearing a pink face-mask, her hands folded in her lap. Alongside her were her two co-defendants on several charges, the former president as well as the former mayor of Naypyitaw, Myo Aung.
The three were able to meet with their defense team for about 30 minutes before the hearing began at a special court set up inside Naypyitaw’s city council building, said one of their lawyers, Min Min Soe. Senior lawyer Khin Maung Zaw, said Suu Kyi “seems fit and alert and smart, as always.”
Suu Kyi appears in Myanmar court for 2nd time
Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been hit by criminal charges one after another, appeared in person in court for a second time on Monday in the coup-hit country's capital Naypyitaw.
Her lawyers said the five cases being dealt with by the Naypyitaw court will enter the full-scale trial phase next week, and verdicts could be handed down as early as August.
Suu Kyi has been prosecuted for six offenses, among which five minor ones -- such as the illegal import of walkie-talkies and violation of coronavirus restrictions -- are being collectively tried at the special court.
READ: Myanmar construction magnate claims cash payments to Suu Kyi
The sixth and most serious charge is for leaking state secrets, a felony punishable by up to 14 years in prison. That case will be tried separately in the capital.
The Naypyitaw court has not conducted any substantive hearings so far, but they are expected to start in earnest on June 14 and wrap up by July 26.
The specific date for handing down the verdicts is undecided, but Khin Maung Zaw, leader of the defense lawyers team, said it could happen as early as mid-August if things proceed smoothly.
But he added that everything might not go as planned. For example, if either side raises objections, a higher court might get involved, he said.
Another defense lawyer, Min Min Soe, who also met Suu Kyi on Monday morning with other lawyers, said she asked them to arrange some money for herself, her staff and their family members who are living with her to purchase items such as food and medicine.
She was said to be living with eight people, as well her pet dog, in an undisclosed location.
READ: Myanmar residents ask Japan to push military to free Suu Kyi
Suu Kyi has told her lawyers that she and the people living with her were moved out from her former residence in the capital one day before she made her first physical appearance in court on May 24.
100 days in power, Myanmar junta holds pretense of control
After Myanmar’s military seized power by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, they couldn’t even make the trains run on time: State railway workers were among the earliest organized opponents of the February takeover, and they went on strike.
Health workers who founded the civil disobedience movement against military rule stopped staffing government medical facilities. Many civil servants were no-shows at work, along with employees of government and private banks. Universities became hotbeds of resistance, and in recent weeks, education at the primary and secondary levels has begun to collapse as teachers, students and parents boycott state schools.
Read:More than 200 NGOs call for UN arms embargo on Myanmar
One hundred days after their takeover, Myanmar’s ruling generals maintain just the pretense of control. The illusion is sustained mainly by its partially successful efforts to shut down independent media and to keep the streets clear of large demonstrations by employing lethal force. More than 750 protesters and bystanders have been killed by security forces, according to detailed independent tallies.
“The junta might like people to think that things are going back to normal because they are not killing as many people as they were before and there weren’t as many people on the streets as before, but... the feeling we are getting from talking to people on the ground is that definitely the resistance has not yet subsided,” said Thin Lei Win, a journalist now based in Rome who helped found the Myanmar Now online news service in 2015.
She says the main change is that dissent is no longer as visible as in the early days of the protests — before security forces began using live ammunition — when marches and rallies in major cities and towns could easily draw tens of thousands of people.
At the same time, said David Mathieson, an independent analyst who has been working on Myanmar issues for over 20 years, “Because of the very violent pacification of those protests, a lot of people are willing to become more violent.”
“We are already starting to see signs of that. And with the right training, the right leadership and the right resources, what Myanmar could experience is an incredibly nasty destructive, internal armed conflict in multiple locations in urban areas.”
Meanwhile, the junta also faces a growing military challenge in the always restive border regions where ethnic minority groups exercise political power and maintain guerrilla armies. Two of the more battle-hardened groups, the Kachin in the north and the Karen in the east, have declared their support for the protest movement and stepped up their fighting, despite the government military, known as the Tatmadaw, hitting back with greater firepower, including airstrikes.
Even a month ago, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was describing the situation as grim, saying Myanmar’s “economy, education and health infrastructure have been brought to the brink of collapse, leaving millions of Myanmar people without livelihood, basic services and, increasingly, food security.”
It was not surprising that The Economist magazine, in an April cover story, labeled Myanmar “Asia’s next failed state” and opined it was heading in the direction of Afghanistan.
Read:Pro-democracy forces in Myanmar create "People's Defence Force"
The U.N.’s Bachelet made a different comparison.
“There are clear echoes of Syria in 2011,” she said. “There too, we saw peaceful protests met with unnecessary and clearly disproportionate force. The State’s brutal, persistent repression of its own people led to some individuals taking up arms, followed by a downward and rapidly expanding spiral of violence all across the country.”
Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has shunned all efforts at mediation, from the United Nations as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member.
Myanmar’s resistance movement, meanwhile, has organized widely and swiftly underground.
Within days of the junta takeover, elected parliamentarians who were denied their seats convened their own self-styled Parliament. Its members have formed a shadow National Unity Government with guidelines for an interim constitution, and last week, a People’s Defense Force as a precursor to a Federal Union Army. Many cities, towns and even neighborhoods had already formed local defense groups which in theory will now become part of the People’s Defense Force.
Aside from being morale boosters, these actions serve a strategic purpose by endorsing a federal style of government, which has been sought for decades by the country’s ethnic minorities to give them autonomous powers in the border areas where they predominate.
Promoting federalism, in which the center shares power with the regions, aligns the interests of the anti-military pro-democracy movement with the goals of the ethnic minorities. In theory, this could add a real military component to a movement whose armaments are generally no deadlier than Molotov cocktails and air rifles — though homemade bombs have been added to its arsenals in recent weeks.
In practice, at least for the time being, the guerrilla armies of the Kachin in the north and the Karen in the east will fight as they always have, to protect their own territory. They can give military training to the thousands of activists that are claimed to have fled the cities to their zones, but are still overmatched by the government’s forces. But on their home ground they hold an advantage against what their populations consider an occupying army. That may be enough.
Read:Myanmar’s military disappearing young men to crush uprising
“The only thing that the military is really threatened by is when all of these disparate voices and communities around the country actually start working against it, not as a unified monolith, but all working against the military’s interests,” said the analyst, Mathieson. ”And I think that’s the best that we can hope for moving forward, that the people recognize that all efforts have to go against the military. And if that means fighting up in the hills and doing peaceful protests and other forms of striking back against the military in the towns and the cities, then so be it.”
It’s hard to gauge if the army has a breaking point.
Mathieson said he’s seen no signs the junta was willing to negotiate or concede anything. The Tatmadaw is “remarkably resilient. And they recognize that this is an almost existential threat to their survival.”
More than 200 NGOs call for UN arms embargo on Myanmar
More than 200 global organizations urged the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar, saying the time for statements has passed and immediate action is needed to help protect peaceful protesters against military rule and other opponents of the junta.
A statement by the non-governmental organizations said the military “has demonstrated a callous disregard for human life” since their Feb. 1 coup, killing at least 769 people including 51 children as young as six years old and detaining several thousand activists, journalists, civil servants and politicians. Hundreds of others have disappeared, it said.
Also Read: Pro-democracy forces in Myanmar create "People's Defence Force"
“No government should sell a single bullet to the junta under these circumstances,” the NGOs said. “Imposing a global arms embargo on Myanmar is the minimum necessary step the Security Council should take in response to the military’s escalating violence.”
The organizations urged the United Kingdom, the Security Council nation in charge of drafting resolutions on Myanmar, “to begin negotiations on a resolution authorizing an arms embargo as soon as possible.” This “will demonstrate to the junta that there will be no more business as usual,” they said.
Myanmar for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country. The coup took place following November elections, which Suu Kyi’s party won overwhelmingly and the military contests as fraudulent.
The 15-member Security Council has issued several statements since the coup demanding the restoration of democracy and the release of all detainees including Suu Kyi, strongly condemning the use of violence against peaceful protesters and the deaths of hundreds of civilians and calling on the military “to exercise utmost restraint” and “on all sides to refrain from violence.”
It has also stressed “the need to fully respect human rights and to pursue dialogue and reconciliation,” and backed diplomatic efforts by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and U.N. special envoy Christine Schraner Burgener to find a solution.
“The time for statements has passed,” the NGOs said. “The Security Council should take its consensus on Myanmar to a new level and agree on immediate and substantive action.”
They said a U.N. global arms embargo against Myanmar should bar the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of “all weapons, munitions, and other military-related equipment, including dual-use goods such as vehicles and communications and surveillance equipment.” Training, intelligence and other military assistance should also be banned, they said.
Amnesty International’s Senior U.N. Advocate Lawrence Moss told a virtual news conference launching the statement that many countries supply weapons to Myanmar.
Citing Amnesty’s research and information from other trusted sources, he said Russia has been supplying combat aircraft and attack helicopters to Myanmar while China has been supplying combat aircraft, naval weapons, armored vehicles, surveillance drones and aiding Myanmar’s indigenous naval industry. In addition, he said, Chinese weapons, small arms and armored vehicles have been diverted to ethnic armed groups, especially the Kachin Independence Army.
Also Read:Myanmar’s military disappearing young men to crush uprising
Moss said Ukraine has also supplied Myanmar’s military with armored vehicles and is involved in the joint production of armored vehicles in Myanmar, Turkey has provided shotguns and shotgun cartridges, India has provided armored vehicles, troop carriers and naval equipment including a submarine with torpedoes, and Serbia has recorded transfers of small quantities of artillery systems and small arms.
Israel had supplied frigates and armored vehicles to Myanmar along with police training but that stopped in 2017 though it may still be providing surveillance equipment, Moss said. South Korea transferred an amphibious assault system in 2019 but announced a halt to further military exports after the coup.
Human Rights Watch’s U.N. Director Louis Charbonneau said: “This is the beginning of what we hope will be an escalation of advocacy to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Security Council, wringing its hands, sticking with inaction and the occasional statement of concern.”
But getting the Security Council to adopt a resolution authorizing an arms embargo faces an uphill struggle, especially with China and Russia’s general opposition to sanctions.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun, whose country holds the council presidency this month, told a news conference Monday that China is “a friendly neighbor of Myanmar” and is putting more emphasis on diplomatic efforts. It is “not in favor of imposing sanctions” which may hinder diplomacy and lead to suffering of ordinary people, Zhang said.
Amnesty’s Moss countered that an “arms embargo would not hurt the ordinary people of Myanmar in any way, shape or form... and I hope that China will consider that.”
Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, said Myanmar’s “murderous, military-led regime” shouldn’t be allowed to buy bombs or even “camouflage underwear” and “should be treated like the pariahs that they are.”
“I think all of us share concern that the country could become a failed state, armed conflict could intensify, and so an arms embargo now is also a kind of preventive against a refugee crisis that flows across borders in the region, and an armed conflict which serves nobody’s interests,” Adams said.
Also Read: UN calls for return to democracy in Myanmar, end to violence
Myra Dahgaypaw, managing director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma who recalled fleeing from past military airstrikes, said an arms embargo won’t solve all the country’s problems but “it will significantly increase the safety of the people on the ground, including the ethnic and the religious minorities.”
“Today I just want to tell the U.N. Security Council that the people of Burma need your help, and they need it urgently,” she said. “Please don’t let the efforts, the struggle and the resilience of the people on the ground who are trying to survive go in vain.”
Will Myanmar learn its lessons?
Myanmar is a good example of what not to do when managing a state. The military takeover was coming given the way the situation was shaping up and the scenario is all one big mess now. It’s no longer Suu-Kyi’s game to play and the army is wishing that it didn’t have such risky sports ambitions either. Both are now caught as small cogs in a tournament where they are at best proxies and the worst victims of both old wars within and a new cold war. The West is challenging China and Myanmar is a hapless battleground for the moment as Myanmar is nowhere near to solving its own internal ethnic war driven state.
Politics of who’s who
Myanmar’s internal politics does matter but it has been in the doldrums for so long that it carries little value. Its only significant achievement as far as political success is concerned relates to the expulsion of the Rohingyas which everyone cheered. The elections were hardly a triumph as it has only triggered a situation which has made Myanmar’s long term failure as an attempt to construct a state even more absurd.
That Myanmar was going to be in this mess couldn’t be predicted when they were throwing the Rohingyas out. The reasons are never clear as to why this was needed as the Rohingyas neither consumed much national resources nor were a threat to anyone’s supremacy aspiration. They had simply served as a scapegoat for everyone. Suu Kyi, increasingly feeling the heat to be more “Myanmar” assented to the desire of the army to throw them out and gain some much needed popularity.
When the ICJ trial issue came up Suu kyi tried to up end the army and went full throttle to demonize the trial and tried to turn the issue into one of Myanmar people’s supremacy question. It was very patriotic which in that land means Bamar/Burman supremacy. That led to her electoral victory but what she or others expected was that the army takeover would happen so quickly. The army had no intention of giving her a second chance and with their civilian party doing so poorly, there was no reason to give her a round two.
Also read: Myanmar cuts wireless internet service amid coup protests
One after another, the dominos had fallen and once all had, only the final pusher, the army remained. Suu Kyi was gone in a night and with it the stability that could make it an attractive investment destination for many including the West. That the world is run according to convenience and not political morality of any kind should have been obvious from the past.
Does Myanmar justify being called a state?
Currently, global media including Bangladesh are busy deifying the protestors in Myanmar against the military takeover. To the world, thanks to the media campaign they are heroes who are resisting military rule. Yet this is the same crowd which took to the streets to protest aid to the Rohingyas.
“Hundreds of Buddhists in Myanmar have tried to block a shipment of aid to Muslims in Rakhine state, where the United Nations has accused the military of ethnic cleansing. Several hundred people tried to stop a boat being loaded with 50 tonnes of aid. Some protestors carried sticks and metal bars and threw petrol bombs. A witness said protesters threw petrol bombs before police dispersed them by firing into the air. The shipment, being organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was bound for the north of the state where insurgent attacks on August 25 sparked a military backlash. The violence has sent more than 420,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh but many remain in Myanmar, hiding in fear of being caught up in more violence without food and other supplies, aid workers believe. The protest was a testament to rising communal animosity that threatens to complicate the delivery of vital supplies. The violence and the exodus of refugees has brought international condemnation and raised questions about the commitment of Government leader Aung San Suu Kyi to human rights, and prospects for Myanmar.” (abc.net.au. 21/9/ 2017)
Trying to establish the fight as a form of struggle for democracy is inaccurate. It’s largely an internal conflict of a state where ethnic question has been the key to power balancing and managing. As long as the Rohingyas were inside the land, Suu Kyi had a chance of surviving but with no Rohingyas to scapegoat and use as a shield of hate, Suu Kyi became the target. The insurance based on hate was gone.
Also read: Myanmar still mired in violence 2 months after military coup
There are few if any conventional participatory states in the world. What went around in the name of “democracy” was basically the formula for Western domination. It was sourced in the politics of the cold war but the collapse of the Soviet Union showed that states survive if its economics works not the other way around. And in that battle, China is gaining while the West is declining.
Myanmar’s problems bigger than elections
In Myanmar, the funding of the protestors is drawing increasing suspicions. No one can afford to be on strike for long in a lower end economy. Civil or military rule has no better economics to offer in either space. For a hostile racist people and supporters of genocide, so much for the sake of “democracy’ is worthy of questions. But certain facts are obvious. Longer the battle of attrition continues, lesser are the chance of any independent decision making on either side.
In such a situation, the army rule is set to continue with a weakened army which will make everyone happy but China the most as it was speculated that it was not being listened to by the army anymore.
However, the obvious targeting of China is clear. That its stake in a country it has helped to rule is stronger than all others is beyond doubt. Meanwhile Russia has also moved in.
China is the biggest supporter of the ethnic armies now in Myanmar fighting the central army which it also supports. While it won’t tolerate yaba inside, it’s a Chinese supported “state” that profits from the 75 billion dollar yaba economy. These states with their independent armies have no intention to rejoin Naypyitaw and that’s why Myanmar has been short sized to what the army controls.
Myanmar’s worry about who rules is not the biggest issue but how it can disintegrate even more. The prospect of endless war and strife threatens it and as long as they remain the army is not going to depart. Everyone in Myanmar believes that ethnic conflict can be solved through military violence or ethnic cleansing of the more vulnerable. There is no reason to think that this attitude will change and no reason either that Myanmar will be a better place to govern soon.
(This article was first published on dhakacourier.com.bd)
Stepping up Myanmar coup penalties, US suspends trade deal
The United States on Monday suspended a trade deal with Myanmar until a democratic government is restored in the Southeast Asian country after a Feb. 1 coup followed by a violent crackdown on protests.
The military overthrew the elected government, jailed Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders and has killed and imprisoned protesters in the country also known as Burma.
“The United States supports the people of Burma in their efforts to restore a democratically elected government,'' U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement. “The United States strongly condemns the Burmese security forces’ brutal violence against civilians. The killing of peaceful protestors, students, workers, labor leaders, medics, and children has shocked the conscience of the international community.''
Also read: Biden orders sanctions against Myanmar after military coup
Tai's office said the United States was immediately suspending “all U.S. engagement with Burma under the 2013 Trade and Investment Framework Agreement.'' Under the agreement, the two countries cooperated on trade and investment issues in an effort to integrate Myanmar into the global economy, a reward for the military's decision to allow a return to democracy — a transition that ended abruptly with last month's coup.
Tai’s announcement Monday doesn’t stop trade between the two countries.
Also read: UN official: Myanmar people want UN sanctions, peacekeepers
But the United States is separately imposing economic sanctions on Myanmar. In response to the military takeover, for instance, the United States and the United Kingdom had earlier imposed sanctions on two conglomerates controlled by Myanmar's military, Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. and Myanmar Economic Corp.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted that the U.S. has also slapped export controls on Burma and added several Burmese businesses to a trade blacklist. “We, of course, continue to work with our allies and partners and like-minded institutions, as we condemn the actions of the military, call for the immediate restoration of democracy, and hold those who seize power accountable,” she said.
Also read: Countries curb diplomatic ties, weigh sanctions on Myanmar
Two-way trade between the two countries doesn't amount to much: Myanmar last year was the United States' 84th biggest partner in the trade of goods such as automobiles and machinery. U.S. goods exports to Burma came to just $338 million; imports to $1 billion.
But the U.S. and other wealthy nations are major importers of garments and other household items from Myanmar factories, mostly owned by companies from other countries, that have led the modernization of the impoverished country's economy, helping provide millions of jobs.
UN official: Myanmar people want UN sanctions, peacekeepers
The people of Myanmar have huge expectations from the United Nations and the international community following the Feb. 1 coup, with many calling for sanctions and some urging the U.N. to send peacekeepers to stop the killings of peaceful protesters seeking a return to democracy, the top U.N. official in the country said Friday.