US urges UN Security Council to press Myanmar to return to democracy

Business Standard

AP | United Nations
July 30, 2021 

A senior US diplomat urged the UN Security Council on Thursday to press Myanmar's military to stop violence and restore democracy

A senior US diplomat urged the U. Security Council on Thursday to press Myanmar's military to stop violence and restore democracy, warning that with COVID-19 surging and hunger increasing, the longer we delay, the more people die.

Deputy US Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis said Myanmar is reeling from a surge in COVID-19 cases and faces a burgeoning health catastrophe as a direct result of the military's brutality and administrative failures since its coup six months ago.

Myanmar: If independent media dies, democracy dies

Asia Pacific Report

Pacific Media Watch -
May 8, 2021

Molotov, one of the emerging new media outlets in Myanmar. Image: Phil Thornton/IFJ

ANALYSIS: By Phil Thornton

As chaos flows in Burma, journalists are being forced to hide in plain sight by the Burmese military, writes senior journalist and Myanmar expert Phil Thornton.

Journalists in Myanmar are being hunted and arrested by the country’s military for trying to do their job. Independent media outlets have been raided, licences revoked and offices closed.

To avoid arrest, independent journalists have gone into deep hiding, taken refuge in ethnic controlled regions or fled to neighboring countries. The military and its paid informers trawl through neighborhoods, coffee shops and scan social media for evidence to justify arresting journalists.

UN calls for return to democracy in Myanmar, end to violence

AP

EDITH M. LEDERER

May 1'2021

Anti-coup protesters run after seeing police and soldiers arrive to disperse their demonstration in Y

angon, Myanmar, Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Demonstrations have continued in many parts of the country since Saturday's meeting of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as have arrests and beatings by security forces despite an apparent agreement by junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to end the violence. (AP Photo)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Friday again demanded the restoration of democracy in Myanmar and the release of all detainees including Aung San Suu Kyi and strongly backed calls by Southeast Asian nations for an immediate cessation of violence and talks as a first step toward a solution following the Feb. 1 military coup.

The council’s press statement followed a briefing by the top U.N. envoy that the strong, united demand for democracy by the people of Myanmar who have been protesting since the coup has created “unexpected difficulties” for military leaders in consolidating power and risks bringing the administration of the nation to a standstill.

30 years on, Myanmar crisis puts Asian-style democracy to test

NIKKEI ASIA

TORU TAKAHASHI, Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Headquarters for Asia
April 30, 2021 

Big ASEAN players modify noninterference policy as times change at home

Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, center, and ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi, right, make their way to the ASEAN leaders meeting in the secretariat building in Jakarta on April 24. © Reuters

BANGKOK -- The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in Jakarta on April 24 to grapple with the aftermath of the coup in Myanmar. After the meeting, Brunei issued a chairman's statement, saying the leaders had reached "consensus" on such matters as an immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, the sending of the ASEAN chairman's special envoy and the start of constructive dialogue among all parties concerned to seek a peaceful solution in the interests of the people.

The leaders meeting was extraordinary in every way.

The battle for democracy in Myanmar

EUROPEAN UNION
EXTERNAL ACTION SERVICE
11/04/2021

11/04/2021 - HR/VP Blog – The world is horrified by the bloody military coup in Myanmar, with reports of more than 80 people killed in Bago last Friday. We are pursuing a robust diplomatic initiative in close coordination with like-minded partners. However, geopolitical competition in Myanmar makes it difficult to find common ground, to halt the violence and ensure a return to democracy.

Democracy is increasingly challenged these days, but in few places in such a dramatic and brutal fashion as in Myanmar. In the early morning of 1 February, the clock on Myanmar’s democratic transition was turned back many years with a 1970s-style military coup. The army claimed that the November 2020 elections, which the National League for Democracy (NLD) had won with a landslide, had somehow been ‘fraudulent’, without offering any evidence. It declared a state of emergency and put State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint under arrest, together with other democratic leaders.

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.”

In Myanmar’s uprising, some fight for more than just 'democracy'

The World
Patrick Winn
February 17, 2021

The generals, most of whom are ethnically Burmese, have immense power but little public support. Their coup has enraged much of the population, from the mountains to the sea.

Demonstrators gather in an intersection close to Sule Pagoda to protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 17, 2021. Demonstrators in Myanmar gathered Wednesday in their largest numbers so far to protest the military’s seizure of power, even after a UN human rights expert warned that troops being brought to Yangon and elsewhere could signal the prospect of major violence.Credit:AP

When Stella Naw was a schoolgirl in Myanmar’s hilly upcountry, her textbooks had plenty to say about the Burmese — the country’s predominant ethnicity.

The Rohingya crisis and Myanmar's dark road to democracy

TheNewArab

Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), is set to form a civilian government for the second time in a row following the end of Myanmar's 50-year military rule.

The NLD won by a huge margin of 396 parliamentary seats in the 8 November election against the military-aligned main opposition party the Union Solidarity of Development Party (USDP), securing a second five-year term.

In-depth: Excluded from voting and long denied citizenship, Rohingya Muslims face a precarious future in post-election Myanmar. 

OP-ED: Democracy without rights

Dhaka Tribune 

Md Jahid Hashan
Published : October 26th, 2020 

A call for postponing the elections was confidently dismissed by the ruling NLD REUTERS

The 2020 Myanmar general election is already shaping up to be fundamentally flawed.

The 2020 Myanmar general election is scheduled to be held on November 8. This election is a significant landmark, as Myanmar’s second general election is based on a multi-party democracy. It is also a crucial litmus test of the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) ability to rule properly.

In Myanmar, Democracy’s Dead End

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

 

 

 

Shayna Bauchner

Assistant Researcher, Asia Division

Constitutional Vote Spotlights Transition’s Failed Reforms 

Military and civilian members of parliament vote on proposed amendments to the 2008 Constitution, Naypyidaw, March 10, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo

On Tuesday, Myanmar’s parliament rejected efforts by Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party to reform the country’s deeply undemocratic 2008 Constitution. It marked the first day of voting on a slew of amendments to the military-drafted charter that will continue through March 20, drawing to a close the push by the National League for Democracy (NLD) to realize one of its core campaign promises from five years ago.

419- Building Democracy In Burma

Wp2 Democracy Burma