The junta overthrew the government they represented. What happens next for Myanmar's diplomats in limbo?

CNN
Caitlin Hu, Julia Hollingsworth, Eliza Mackintosh and Helen Regan,
June 29, 2021

New York (CNN)In a beige stone townhouse on a leafy New York street, a political coup thousands of miles away has split an office in two.

Downstairs in the dimly lit building, staffers at Myanmar's Permanent Mission to the United Nations receive orders from the military junta, which overthrew the country's elected government on February 1.

Upstairs, charismatic ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun is leading what is effectively an underground diplomatic corps, part of an attempt to wrestle back control of the country. His conference room is decorated with portraits of a long line of his military-aligned predecessors, reminders of what he's up against.

Confident in Its Impunity, the Myanmar Junta Ignores Diplomacy

The New York Times
By Richard C. Paddock and Rick Gladstone
June 24, 2021

The generals who seized power five months ago have shown no inclination to heed international pleas to reverse themselves, even as Myanmar slides into a failed state.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of Myanmar’s military, during a parade on Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw, the capital, in March.Credit...EPA, via Shutterstock

Western powers have imposed sanctions. Neighboring countries have implored the military to restore democracy. More than 200 human rights groups have called for an arms embargo. And last week, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a blunt rebuke aimed at isolating the generals.

The diplomatic pressure has done little to change the situation in Myanmar.

With Aung San Suu Kyi facing prison, Myanmar’s opposition is leaderless, desperate and ready to fight

THE CONVERSATION
Adam Simpson,Senior Lecturer, University of South Australia
Nicholas Farrelly,Professor and Head of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania
Laura Hood,Politics Editor, Assistant Edito

June 23, 2021

Soldiers from the People’s Defence Force taking part in training at an undisclosed location in Myanmar. National Unity Government handout/EPA

As Aung San Suu Kyi finally faced court last week to defend herself against a litany of politically motivated charges, Myanmar is continuing its downward spiral into state failure.

Suu Kyi was arrested following the February 1 coup by the military and charged with alleged corruption, inciting public unrest and other offences. If she is found guilty, which is a near certainty, she may well be imprisoned for the rest of her life.

The popularity of Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party have been consistently underestimated by a range of domestic and international analysts, and even by the Myanmar military itself. But her role will now change as her case takes a stop-start journey through the tightly held and persistently manipulated judicial process.

United Nations set to call for halt of arms to Myanmar: diplomats

WHBL

Michelle Nichols

Syndicated Content
Jun 17, 2021 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United Nations General Assembly is set on Friday to call for a stop to the flow of arms to Myanmar and urge the military to respect November election results and release political detainees, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomats said.

Western states have been pushing the 193-member body to consider a draft resolution, but it was postponed at the last minute in a bid to win more support, including from nine Southeast Asian nations.

ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်အတွက် နားဝင်မချိုသည့်အမှန်တ ရား နှင့် မြန်မာ့အာဏာသိမ်းမှု၏ မူလရင်းမြစ်

Nikkei Asia
ဇွန် ၇
(ဘာသာပြန်ဆောင်းပါး)

 
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ သြဇာကြီးမားသည့် ခေါင်းဆောင်ဖြစ်သူ ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည် မည်သည့်နေရာ၌ ရှိနေသည် ကို လေးလအတွင်း ပထမဆုံးအဖြစ် ယခုတစ်ကြိမ်သာ အတည်ပြုနိုင်သည်။

ဤဖြစ်ရပ်သည် နေပြည်တော်ရှိ တရားခွင်တစ်ခုတွင် ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်အား ပထမဆုံး မြင်တွေ့ရသည့် မေ လ ၂၄ ရက်နေ့တွင် စတင်ခဲ့သည်။ နိုင်ငံတော်ပိုင် မီဒီယာက ထုတ်ပြန်သည့် ဓာတ်ပုံ၌ သူမကို နှားခေါင်း စည်း တပ်ပြီး ခါးမတ်မတ်ထားလျှက် ထိုင်နေသည်ကို မြင်ရသည်။ နိုင်ငံတော်အတိုင်ပင်ခံအဖြစ် သူမ ဦးဆောင် ခဲ့စဉ်က အစိုးရအဖွဲ့၌ သမ္မတတာဝန် ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့သူ ဦးဝင်မြင့်နှင့်အတူ အခြားသူများလည်း သူမဘေးတွင် ရှိ သည်။

“မြတ္စလင္လူဦးေရဆက္လက္တိုးပြားလာမႈဟာ အႀကီးမား ဆံုးစိန္ေခၚမႈျဖစ္တယ္”လို႔ ေဒၚစုနဲ႔ဟန္ေဂရီ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္တို႔ ဘံုသေဘာထားတူ

Myanmar Muslim Media

ဇြန္ ၇၊ ၂၀၁၉

 
ရွားပါးတဲ့ဥေရာပခရီးစဥ္အတြင္း ျမန္မာေခါင္းေဆာင္နဲ႔ ဟန္ေဂရီ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္တို႔ မြတ္စလင္လူဦးေရ တိုးပြား လာမႈအေၾကာင္း ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကတယ္လို႔ ဂါဒီးယန္းသတင္းဌာနကေဖာ္ျပလိုက္ပါတယ္။

လူမ်ဳိးတံုးသုတ္သင္မႈေတြကေန သတင္းေထာက္ေတြကိုေထာင္ခ်မႈေတြထိ ဆန္႔က်င္ေၾကာင္းထုတ္ေဖာ္ေၿပာ ဆို ဖို႔ ပ်က္ကြက္မႈေတြကေန ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ရဲ႕ ဂုဏ္သတင္းဟာ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြမွာ ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့လေ တြ အတြင္း လႈပ္ခတ္မႈေတြရွိခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ျမန္မာေခါင္းေဆာင္က လက္ယာ၀ါဒီ နဲ႔ ေရႊ႕ေျပာင္းသူမ်ား ကိုဆန္႔က်င္တဲ့ ဟန္ေဂရီ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ ဗစ္တာေအာ္ဘန္နဲ႔ မဟာမိတ္အသစ္ ရွာေတြ႔ခဲ့ၿပီျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

Australia faces fresh call for action on Myanmar with Turnell still in jail

brisbane times

Chris Barrett
May 31, 2021

Singapore: Australia is facing a renewed call to introduce fresh sanctions on Myanmar’s military government with Sydney economist Sean Turnell still languishing in prison nearly four months after he was detained in the days after a coup.

The Australian Council for International Development has illustrated contrasting responses of different countries to the bloody takeover in a document delivered to Foreign Minister Marise Payne.

Sean Turnell with Aung San Suu Kyi

The analysis chart spells out how the United States, UK, Canada and the European Union have sanctioned junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and a combined 38 senior figures in the aftermath of the February 1 coup. All but Canada have also black-listed military conglomerates Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited.

OP-ED: A wake-up call for Bangladesh?

Dhaka Tribune

Nisath Salsabil Rob
April 25th, 2021

In handling the Rohingya crisis, it is time Bangladesh prepared for the long haul

In the wee hours of February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military -- the Tatmadaw -- declared a one-year state of emergency and arrested democratically elected leaders of the ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), including Myanmar’s former de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, thereby putting a nail on the coffin of Myanmar’s fledgling democracy.

Pan-Southeast Asian Agreement Aims to Stop Spillover of Myanmar Violence

VOA

By Ralph Jennings
April 24, 2021

President Joko Widodo, center, accompanied by other Indonesian officials, delivers a press statement following a meeting of ASEAN leaders at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 24, 2021. (Courtesy Indonesian Presidential Palace)

TAIPEI - Saturday's strongly worded call from a bloc of 10 Southeast Asian nations for an end to post-coup violence in Myanmar moves the region a step away from unrest infecting other countries and a step toward peacemaking, analysts say.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) issued a five-point consensus calling for “immediate cessation” of violence in Myanmar, “utmost restraint” by all actors there and the start of peace talks. An ASEAN envoy will help mediate dialogue in Myanmar, the consensus said, and the group will offer humanitarian aid. Myanmar is a group member.

OPINION - Political calculations to settle Myanmar crisis

AA

Ramdhan Muhaimin
JAKARTA, Indonesia
06.04.2021

Myanmar’s military coup has put Association of Southeast Asian Nation at crossroads

The writer teaches at the Center for Peace and Defense Studies (PSPP), University of Al-Azhar Indonesia.

Since the military forcibly seized control and forced the exit of the National League for Democracy (NLD) from the government on Feb. 1, the socio-political conditions in Southeast Asian nation Myanmar have again moved towards uncertainty.

The coup, led by the head of Tatmadaw -- the national armed forces – Gen. Min Aung Hlaing shortly after Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won the election, has become a nightmare for people in the country.

Burma is at a crossroads

NEWAGE 

Dmitry Mosyakov
Apr 01,2021

— New Eastern Outlook

THE events occurring in Burma, where numerous street demonstrations have not subsided against the military, which took power into its own hands on February 1, 2021, continue to attract intense attention. The fact is that although a change from civilian to military power has taken place, it is absolutely unclear how events will further develop: whether the military will be able to retain power or, under the pressure of mass demonstrations and a split in its own ranks, Aung San Suu Kyi and her party members will return to power.

Disgraceful generals are turning Myanmar into a pariah state

The Telegraph

TELEGRAPH VIEW

29 March 2021 

The sight of senior military officers in Myanmar celebrating the country’s Armed Forces Day at the weekend with a lavish party after troops had earlier shot dead more than 100 protesters was sickening. As the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, it represented a new low in the country’s recent lurch back to despotism after a brief flirtation with democracy. Children were among those gunned down and the security forces even intervened in funerals to arrest those who had taken part in the demonstrations.

It is only six years since the first democratic elections in Myanmar seemed to presage its admission into the comity of nations after decades of military rule. They marked a personal triumph for Aung San Suu Kyi, for years held under house arrest before international pressure secured her release. Suu Kyi, while spurning formal office, was the power behind the new government and consequently blotted her reputation as a human rights champion when she failed to stand up for the persecuted Muslim Rohingyas.

Suu Kyi ally wants equal rights for persecuted Rohingya Muslims

THESTRAITSTIMES

MAR 29, 2021,

A Rohingya refugee family rests in a temporary shelter in Ukhia, Bangladesh, on March 25, 2021.PHOTO: AFP

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in refugee camps in Bangladesh should be reintegrated into Myanmar society and afforded "full rights" including citizenship, according to a key ally of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Speaking in an interview last week, Dr Sasa, who uses just one name and describes himself as the envoy representing Myanmar's Parliament to the United Nations, said it was time for the country's 55 million people to set aside their differences and face down a military that seized power last month.

Up close: Applause for Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi turned to criticism

USA TODAY

George Petras, USA TODAY
Mar. 20, 2021

Under arrest since Feb. 1, "The Lady" is Myanmar's most popular leader

Aung San Suu Kyi, at the center of the Myanmar military coup, is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and human rights champion who has fallen from favor with the international community.

Suu Kyi, 75, is the de facto civilian leader of Myanmar who has spent years under government house arrest. She's often been compared to Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who ended apartheid in the early 1990s after being imprisoned for 27 years.

FACTBOX-Sanctions imposed against Myanmar’s generals since they seized power

REUTERS
Simon Lewis

公司新闻(英文)
MARCH 19, 2021

March 19 (Reuters) - World leaders from Washington to Singapore have condemned a military coup in Myanmar, urging generals to halt a deadly crackdown on demonstrators, release detainees including civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and restore the elected government.

Some countries have followed up with targeted financial sanctions in hopes of putting the squeeze on the generals who staged the Feb. 1 coup and convince them to change course.

With the European Union set to approve sanctions on Myanmar next week, here is a snapshot of other actions around the globe.

Military tightens grip in Myanmar as more international sanctions loom

THE Star
ASEANPLUS NEWS
Friday, 19 Mar 2021

YANGON (Reuters):Thousands of opponents of military rule in Myanmar marched in the town of Natmauk, the birthplace of revered national hero Aung San, on Thursday (March 18) in defiance of a crackdown by security forces, local media reported.

Demonstrations also took place in other towns and cities, with security forces killing three people, an activist group said. The authorities placed further restrictions on internet services, hampering protesters' ability to organise.

Give peace a chance, Malaysia tells Myanmar

THE Star  

By ALLISON LAI
Friday, 19 Mar 2021

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has called on Myanmar's ruling junta to change its course and choose a peaceful solution instead of violence against unarmed civilians.

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (pic) said all concerned parties should work together towards a peaceful settlement of this crisis.

"Violence begets violence, and the nation's future may be plunged into irreversible destruction.

"The military leadership in Myanmar is strongly urged to change its course, and choose a path towards peaceful solutions.

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.

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.