What next for Burma?

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOK

Thant Myint-U
18 MARCH 2021

With their recent coup d’état the Burmese army hoped for a surgical shift in power that would leave everything else more or less untouched. Instead, the coup has sent the economy into freefall, raised the possibility of international intervention and triggered a political earthquake. The fight is no longer over elections and constitutional amendments. One path leads to dictatorship without end. The other to a revolution whose exact shape is difficult to see. A crumbling economy may send the lives of tens of millions of poor and vulnerable people spiralling into disaster. And what unfolds in Burma may be impossible for the region, perhaps the world, to ignore: a failed state between India and China, at the heart of 21st-century Asia.

Tension had been mounting for weeks. Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the country’s de facto ruler since 2016, won a thumping victory in last November’s elections. Taking more than 60 per cent of the vote, she was set to consolidate her hold over Burmese politics, vowing to push for constitutional changes that would limit further the army’s once limitless powers.

Myanmar Coup Is Xi Jinping’s Preliminary Skirmish:Detaining 75-Year-Old Aung San Suu Kyi Is a Human Rights Issue

The Liberty Web

March 16, 2021

 Detaining 75-Year-Old Aung San Suu Kyi Is a Human Rights Issue

One month has already passed since Myanmar’s armed forces, after suffering a landslide defeat in last November’s general election, seized power from the National League for Democracy (NLD) and detained Myanmar’s 75-year-old State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi among other senior leaders of the NLD.

US Slams Myanmar Military For Brutal Crackdown On Protesters And Responding With Bullets

REPUBLIC WORLD

Written By Vishal Tiwari

16th March, 2021

US State Department criticised Myanmar’s military for “brutally” attacking their own people and killing dozens throughout the country last weekend.

The United States on Monday slammed Myanmar’s junta over a surge in violence against pro-democracy protesters, saying “they have responded to calls for the restoration of democracy with bullets”. US State Department deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter criticised Myanmar’s military for “brutally” attacking their own people and killing dozens throughout the country last weekend. Porter said the crackdown of civilians in Myanmar proves that the military orchestrated the coup for their own benefits.

Myanmar Mire: Democracy Under Fire

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Mercy A. Kuo
March 16, 2021

Insights from Jane Ferguson.

Trans-Pacific View author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Jane Ferguson – senior lecturer in Anthropology and Southeast Asian History in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, at the Australian National University, and the author of the forthcoming book “Repossessing Shanland: Myanmar, Thailand and a Nation-State Deferred” – is the 263rd in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”

Black Sunday in Myanmar: Dozens Killed as Martial Law Declared

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Sebastian Strangio
March 15, 2021

The day saw at least 39 people killed by security forces, as Chinese-financed factories came under attack.

Anti-Coup protesters carry an injured man following clashes with security forces in Yangon, Myanmar. Match 14 2021, Credit AP Photo

Myanmar’s ruling junta has declared martial law in parts of the country’s largest city as crackdowns by security forces began to take the contours of an internal counterinsurgency war. At least 39 people were killed by police and soldiers in Myanmar on Sunday, a harrowing crescendo to the six weeks of protests that have followed the military’s seizure of power on February 1.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a local civil society group, the death toll included at least 22 anti-coup protesters killed in the working class suburb of Hlaingthaya, in the northern suburbs of Yangon, as Chinese-owned businesses in the area were set on fire. At least 16 people were killed elsewhere in the country, including one policeman. The real death toll from the day could well be much higher, with Radio Free Asia reporting as many as 70 deaths from the day’s crackdown, including 51 in Hlaingthaya.

The making of a national revolt in Myanmar

ASIA TIME

By THARAPHI THAN
MARCH 17, 2021

Youth-led protests against the military's coup have morphed into a resistance movement involving nearly every segment of society.

Nurses hold up signs as they march during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on February 13, 2021. Photo: AFP/

Young people were the first in Myanmar to peacefully protest against the country’s new military regime. Then came labor unions.

In the weeks since a February 1 military coup, Mynamar’s resistance movement has expanded dramatically to include some perhaps unlikely activists: doctors, nurses, bankers, grocers, railway workers and other working professionals risking their middle-class comforts.

Myanmar was under military rule from 1988 to 2011. During the elections in 2015, the National Democratic League won by a landslide, and party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a well-known dissident, became the country’s leader. The army overthrew her government on February 1, 2021, and imposed martial law.

Soon, thousands of Myanmar’s health care workers were refusing to go to work – an attempt to thwart the coup regime by grinding government machinery to a halt. Health care is public in Myanmar, and health workers hold 10% of all government jobs. Most hospitals and medical schools have closed their doors.

Japan just talks the talk on Myanmar

ASIA TIME

By TEPPEI KASAI
MARCH 15, 2021

Tokyo's passive diplomacy will only embolden the Tatmadaw, which continues to commit grave abuses with impunity.

Myanmar people living in Japan and others protest near Shibuya Station in Tokyo on February 28, 2021. Protesters demanded the release of the nation's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others. Photo: Taketo Oishi / The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP

Since the Myanmar military seized power on February 1, the Japanese government has expressed its “grave concerns” over the coup. It has called on the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, to “swiftly restore Myanmar’s democratic political system,” and demanded the release of National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all others arbitrarily detained.

Japan also expressed condolences for protesters killed by security forces, while “strongly” condemning the “violence against civilians.”

Such statements are important, but when compared with the concrete actions taken by other Group of Seven democracies, it’s clear that Japan is not yet using its full weight to pressure the Myanmar military. It has in effect taken a “wait and see” approach.

Solidarity needed to halt crisis

BANGKOK POST

VITIT MUNTARBHORN

PROFESSOR OF LAW AT CHULALONGKORN UNIVERSITY
PUBLISHED : 16 MAR 2021 

The desperate situation in Myanmar calls for concerted international solidarity to counter the Feb 1 coup d'etat and its heinous consequences. To date, scores of people have been killed by junta forces, while several thousands have been detained. The crisis compounds two disquieting situations of a longstanding and multi-faceted nature in the country -- the mistreatment of the Rohingya population (a Muslim community) and the decades-long civil war between the authorities and different ethnic groups.

The generals, the Buddhists and the Rohingyas

NEW AGE
Mar 15,2021

Getty Images/R Asad

Protests against the February 1 military coup, which ousted Aun San Suu Kyi, continue in Myanmar despite an increasingly brutal crackdown. At the same time there are signs that widespread public resentment against the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority may be softening, writes Dominik Muller

‘YOU messed with the wrong generation’ is one of the popular slogans chanted by many of the young people who have been demonstrating in Myanmar for weeks. ‘My ex is bad, but military is worse’ or ‘I don’t want dictatorship, I just want boyfriend’ are just a few more of the phrases on signs held up by the young generation. After all, their protest also takes aim at a conservative social order represented by the generals and many Buddhist monks.

Days of Killings and Defiance in Myanmar, With Neither Side Relenting

The New York Times

By Richard C. Paddock
March 14, 2021

At least 51 people were fatally shot over the weekend, but the nationwide protest movement shows no sign of waning.

Seeking help for a wounded man in the Hlaingthaya district of Yangon, Myanmar, where several dozen people were killed by security forces on Sunday.Credit...The New York Times

Soldiers and police officers shot and killed at least 51 people in Myanmar over the weekend, as they pressed their campaign of attrition against protesters who have defied them in cities and towns across the country.

Despite weeks of killings by the security forces, a nationwide civil disobedience movement — which has paralyzed much of the economy as well as the government’s operations — shows no sign of waning, a month and a half after the Feb. 1 military coup that ousted the civilian leadership.

“We must fight until we win,” said Mr. Tin Tun, 46. “The regime must step down. There is no place for any dictator here in Myanmar.”

Late Sunday afternoon, another wave of killing began in the Hlaingthaya district of Yangon, which is heavily populated by factory workers and where the protests against military rule have been among the most aggressive. A large force of soldiers and police officers was deployed to the township and fatally shot at least 31 protesters, according to a doctor at Hlaingthaya General Hospital. It was the highest daily death toll in one location since the coup.

On Sunday evening, the ruling junta declared martial law in the district — the first such declaration since the takeover — allowing the military to assume all authority in the township from the police.

For ‘love’: charity-washing colonialism, fascism and genocide

Aljazeera

Azeezah Kanji
Legal academic and writer based in Toronto.
12 Mar 2021

From India and the US to Israel and Myanmar, the ‘non-profit industrial complex’ is serving to enforce deeply-rooted structures of domination.

Signage is seen during the Jewish National Fund Los Angeles Tree Of Life Dinner at Loews Hollywood Hotel on October 29, 2017, in Hollywood, California [Michael Kovac/Getty Images]

In the name of “charity”, the Jewish National Fund of Israel is buying up Palestinian land in the West Bank for colonial settlements and calling it “environmentalism”; far-right Hindutva nationalist organisations are propagating their fascist-inspired ideology across the world and calling it “decolonisation” and “anti-racism”; and monks who justify genocide in Myanmar are running tax-exempt centres across the United States for the practice of “religion for peace” Buddhism.

Myanmar’s Defiant Garment Workers Demand That Fashion Pay Attention

The New York Times

By Elizabeth Paton
March 12, 2021

Female garment industry union leaders are emerging at the forefront of the deadly anti-military protests, and asking global brands to take their side.

Members of the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar — most of them women — have been prominent in the protest movement since the country’s military coup on Feb. 1.Credit...FGWM

Ma Moe Sandar Myint is the leader of one of Myanmar’s largest garment worker unions. Until recently, the 37-year-old mother of three and former sewing machine operator would spend her days representing workers with labor complaints and helping members of the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar unionize their factories.

U.S. Offers Protected Status For People From Myanmar As Coup Leaders Crack Down

npr

MICHELE KELEMEN

March 12, 2021

Security forces stand guard on a road as people are arrested, next to dismantled barricades that were set up by protesters demonstrating against the military coup, in Yangon, Myanmar, on Friday.AFP via Getty Images

Updated at 6:20 p.m.

The United States will offer temporary protected status to people from Myanmar who fear returning home, the Biden administration said Friday, as it tries to ratchet up pressure on military coup leaders in the Southeast Asian country, and provide protection to some of those criticizing it.

U.S. trying to contact Aung San Suu Kyi, detainees after civilian officials die in Myanmar military custody

CNBC

Christian Nunley@CNUNLEY7
FRI, MAR 12 2021

KEY POINTS

• The U.S. is still trying to contact Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted from power as Myanmar’s de facto head of government in a Feb. 1 coup.
• Two members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy have died after Myanmar security forces detained them.
• “We’re working through appropriate channels to make contact with those detained,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
• The U.S. and China have a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18 to discuss a wide range of topics. Myanmar may be on the docket.

Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi looks on before the UN’s International Court of Justice on December 11, 2019 in the Peace Palace of The Hague, on the second day of her hearing on the Rohingya genocide case.

Koen Van Weel | AFP | Getty Images

The U.S. is still working to contact Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian detainees in Myanmar, the State Department said Friday, after two officials with her National League for Democracy party died in military custody over the past week.

Brazil Should Call Out the Myanmar Junta in No Uncertain Terms

Human Rights Watch

Maria Laura Canineu
Brazil Director, Americas Division

@mlcanineu
Renata Escudero
Brazil office coordinator

Police use a water cannon on a crowd of protesters in Naypyitaw, Myanmar on Monday, February 8, 2021. ©2021 AP Photo

The death toll keeps rising in Myanmar as security forces open fire on peaceful protesters. Yet the demonstrations across the country continue.

Masses of people in Myanmar have made it clear that they reject the military’s February 1 coup that overthrew the democratically elected government. Despite the increasing violence by the security forces, the people are showing that they will not be intimidated.

The generals seized power after Myanmar’s electoral commission dismissed their allegations of fraud in last November’s election in which Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy party to win re-election in a landslide, and swept both houses of parliament.

The United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously adopted a resolution on February 12, expressing deep concern over the situation in Myanmar, calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all those arbitrarily detained, and for the junta to cooperate with international rights entities.

A Small Town and a Spray of Bullets in Myanmar

The New York Times
By Hannah Beech
March 13, 2021,

Police officers shot into a cluster of unarmed civilians in a tiny town on Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 20.

Protesters during confrontations with security forces in Yangon, Myanmar, on Tuesday.Credit...The New York Times

Until Thursday, Myaing, a small town in central Myanmar, was best known for its production of thanaka, a bark that is ground for use as a cooling cosmetic.

But in the late morning of March 11, the town, which can be traversed in 10 minutes, became synonymous with the brutality of the military that seized power last month. Myaing’s rain-slicked streets were mottled with blood as police officers shot into a cluster of unarmed civilians, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 20, according to witnesses and hospital officials.

U Myint Zaw Win was among the crowd that scattered with the bursts of live ammunition in the late morning, outside Myaing’s police station. When he looked back, he saw a body with half its head blown apart, on a street that he has walked all his life. He did not know whose body it was, but he said a mason and a bus driver were among the dead.

Myanmar Coup: Asean, once again, don’t look away

The Daily Star

Raudah Yunus , Gideon Lasco

March 11, 2021

Anti-coup demonstrators spray fire extinguishers over a barricade during a protest in Yangon, Myanmar, on March 9, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Stringer

The military coup in Myanmar that overturned its election results and put the country's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in house arrest is a shocking, if unsurprising, reminder that even as the Covid-19 pandemic rages, political strife continues around the world and the pandemic itself is used to enact and perpetuate authoritarianism. As the harrowing scenes unfold, we can only express outrage over this turn of events: No country deserves to be ruled by force, and no country deserves to be deprived of their elected leaders.

Myanmar’s military on ‘killing spree’ against protesters: Amnesty

Aljazeera
11 Mar 2021

New report finds evidence the military is using battlefield weapons and conflict-hardened troops against peaceful protesters.

Riot police hold their firearms as they face-off with protesters in the capital, Naypyidaw on Monday [Stringer/AFP]

The Myanmar military is using lethal tactics and an arsenal of battlefield weapons to carry out a “killing spree” against peaceful protesters who oppose the February 1 coup, Amnesty International said on Thursday after analysing video and photographic evidence from the past few weeks of mass protests.

The cache of 55 video clips offer visual proof of the “systematic and premeditated killings”, Amnesty said in a report on Thursday, as it called on the UN Security Council and the international community to take action to halt the violence.

After Coup in Myanmar, a Career Diplomat Takes a Stand

The New York Times

By Hannah Beech 

March 6, 2021 

At the United Nations, U Kyaw Moe Tun declared his new military masters illegitimate. They fired him, but he has no intention of leaving.

“I wanted to do something with maximum impact,” U Kyaw Moe Tun said of his Feb. 26 speech at the United Nations, where he denounced the generals now ruling Myanmar.Credit...Celeste Sloman for The New York Times

He knew his voice was quavering. But U Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s top envoy at the United Nations, kept going. The military rulers who had overthrown Myanmar’s elected government and gunned down peaceful protesters were illegitimate, he said. 

The words stumbled out, both a bit too high and a bit too low. “We will continue to fight,” he said, “for a government which is of the people, by the people, for the people.” 

Mr. Kyaw Moe Tun, a 51-year-old diplomat in a somber suit and tie, raised his hand in the three-finger salute of defiance from the “Hunger Games” films, which has come to symbolize Myanmar’s millions-strong protest movement against the coup-makers. The United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York resounded with applause. 

Myanmar: 38 Died on Deadliest Day Yet for Military Coup Opposition, Says UN

LATEST LY

Agency News PTI

Mar 04, 2021

Myanmar security forces were seen firing slingshots at protesters, chasing them down and even brutally beating an ambulance crew in video showing a dramatic escalation of violence against opponents of last month's military coup.

Yangon, March 4: Myanmar security forces were seen firing slingshots at protesters, chasing them down and even brutally beating an ambulance crew in video showing a dramatic escalation of violence against opponents of last month's military coup.

A UN official speaking from Switzerland said 38 people had been killed Wednesday, a figure consistent with other reports though accounts are difficult to confirm inside the country. The increasingly deadly violence could galvanise the international community, which has responded fitfully so far. 

Myanmar Shuts Down All Passenger Flights in Country Amid Political Crisis. 

“Today it was the bloodiest day since the coup happened on February 1. We have today — only today — 38 people died. We have now more than over 50 people died since the coup started" and more have been wounded, the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, told reporters at UN headquarters on Wednesday.