Resistance Fighters Battle Myanmar’s Military in Mandalay

New York Times

Hannah Beech
June 22, 2021

A shootout in Myanmar’s second-biggest city was the first time the military and a group of armed civilians known as the People’s Defense Force clashed in a major urban area.

The military government of Myanmar released this photograph on Tuesday, saying it showed soldiers and police officers making arrests at a house raid in Mandalay.Credit...Commander in Chief Office

The gunfire in the city of Mandalay began shortly after 7 a.m. on Tuesday, as Buddhist monks paced the streets for alms and residents lined up for breakfasts of milk tea or noodle soup.

Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar, has been a center of anti-military resistance since the junta staged a coup on Feb. 1. Dozens have been shot dead by security forces there. But the boom of heavy artillery so early in the morning was unusual.

Three Months After Coup, Myanmar Returns to the ‘Bad Old Days’

The New York Times

By Hannah Beech
May 6, 2021
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Police are now stopping random people on the streets. A group of secret informers has reappeared. The killings continue, but so does the resistance.

Protesters running as security forces arrive during a crackdown, in Ahlone township, in April.Credit...The New York Times

Every night at 8, the stern-faced newscaster on Myanmar military TV announces the day’s hunted. The mug shots of those charged with political crimes appear onscreen. Among them are doctors, students, beauty queens, actors, reporters, even a pair of makeup bloggers.

Some of the faces look puffy and bruised, the likely result of interrogations. They are a warning not to oppose the military junta that seized power in a Feb. 1 coup and imprisoned the country’s civilian leaders.

As the midnight insects trill, the hunt intensifies. Military censors sever the internet across most of Myanmar, matching the darkness outside with an information blackout. Soldiers sweep through the cities, arresting, abducting and assaulting with slingshots and rifles.

‘Now We Are United’: Myanmar’s Ethnic Divisions Soften After Coup

The New York Times

By Hannah Beech
May 3, 2021

Amid the resistance to military rule, some are saying that democracy can’t flourish without respecting the minorities that have been persecuted for decades.

A student protest against military rule in Yangon, Myanmar, earlier this month.Credit...The New York Times

The Myanmar military’s disinformation was crude but effective.

Army propagandists claimed an ethnic group called the Rohingya was burning down its own villages and wanted to swamp Buddhist-majority Myanmar with Islamic hordes. The Rohingya were spinning tall tales, the military said in 2017, about soldiers committing mass rape and murder.

The truth — that troops were waging genocidal operations against Myanmar’s ethnic minorities — was perhaps too shocking for some members of the country’s Bamar ethnic majority to contemplate.

But as Myanmar’s military seized power this year and killed more than 750 civilians, Daw Sandar Myo, an elementary-school teacher, realized that the decades of persecution suffered by the Rohingya and other minorities was real, after all.

Myanmar Coup Puts the Seal on Autocracy’s Rise in Southeast Asia

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Hannah Beech
April 13, 2021, 
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A protest this month in Yangon, Myanmar, against the military’s ouster of the civilian government.Credit...The New York Times

Not long ago, democracy seemed to be surging in the region. But in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and elsewhere, it is in trouble.

Late last month, foreign officials in army regalia toasted their hosts in Naypyidaw, the bunkered capital built by Myanmar’s military. Ice clinked in frosted glasses. A lavish spread had been laid out for the foreign dignitaries in honor of Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day.

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.

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. 

‘She Is a Hero’: In Myanmar’s Protests, Women Are on the Front Lines

The New York Times

Hannah Beech
March 5, 2021
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A protester offered roses to the police in Yangon, Myanmar, last month.Credit...The New York Times

Despite the danger, women have been at the forefront of the movement, rebuking the generals who ousted a female civilian leader.

A protester offered roses to the police in Yangon, Myanmar, last month.Credit...The New York Times


Ma Kyal Sin loved taekwondo, spicy food and a good red lipstick. She adopted the English name Angel, and her father hugged her goodbye when she went out on the streets of Mandalay, in central Myanmar, to join the crowds peacefully protesting the recent seizure of power by the military.

Myanmar’s Protests Are Growing, Defying Threats and Snipers

The New York Times
Hannah Beech
Published Feb. 22, 2021

A general strike on Monday made clear that the fatal shooting of two protesters over the weekend, and the fear of a further bloody crackdown, would not halt opposition to the return of military rule.

Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, on Monday. A general strike proceeded peacefully in hundreds of cities and towns.Credit...The New York Times

The strikers poured onto the streets of Myanmar on Monday knowing that they might die. But they gathered by the millions anyway, in the largest rallies since a military coup three weeks ago. Their only protection came from hard hats, holy amulets and the collective power of a newly called general strike.

The generals had tried to halt Monday’s dissent with barricades and fleets of vehicles parked in strategic urban locations. Armored vehicles patrolled, while snipers took their stations on rooftops. An ominous warning had been issued hours before on state television: “Protesters are now inciting people, especially emotional teenagers and youth, toward a path of confrontation where they will suffer a loss of life.”

Trial for Aung San Suu Kyi Begins in Secret

The New York Times

Hannah Beech
Feb. 16, 2021

Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader appeared in court via video conference without her lawyer’s
knowledge. She faces an additional charge that had not been previously made public.

Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, on Tuesday called for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the ousted civilian leader. In Naypidaw, the capital, her trial began in secret.Credit...The New York Times

The closed-door trial began in secret, with the two defendants appearing by video. The defense attorney wasn’t even aware what was happening. By the time he rushed to the court on Tuesday afternoon, it was all over, in less than an hour.

The trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader who was ousted in a military coup two weeks ago, and U Win Myint, the deposed president, began on Tuesday. They face obscure charges that could land them in prison for six years and three years respectively.

‘R’ is for Rohingya: Sesame Street Creates New Muppets for Refugees

The New York Times 

By Hannah Beech
Dec. 19, 2020

A child in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Grover the Muppet in 2018.Credit...Ryan Donnell/Sesame Workshop

BANGKOK — Six-year-old twins Noor and Aziz live in the largest refugee camp in the world. They are Rohingya Muslims who escaped ethnic cleansing in their native Myanmar for refuge in neighboring Bangladesh. They are also Muppets.

On Thursday, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that runs the early education TV show “Sesame Street” and operates in more than 150 countries, unveiled Aziz and Noor as the latest Muppets in their cast of characters.

From Crowded Camps to a Remote Island: Rohingya Refugees Move Again

TheNew York Times

By Hannah Beech
Published Dec. 4, 2020

 

More than a million Rohingya Muslims have fled atrocities in Myanmar for tent cities in Bangladesh. Some are now being taken to a low-slung landmass in the Bay of Bengal.

 

Rohingya refugees en route to the Bangladeshi island of Bhasan Char on Friday. The Bangladeshi government hopes to move up to 100,000 Rohingya to the island from overcrowded camps.Credit...Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters 

 

The clump of silt in the Bay of Bengal could be inundated by a single strike from a cyclone. Before this year, no one lived there.

But on Friday afternoon, seven Bangladeshi naval boats carrying more than 1,640 Rohingya Muslims landed on the low-slung island of Bhasan Char, as part of the Bangladeshi government’s plan to ease crowding in refugee camps where more than a million Rohingya have lived since fleeing systemic persecution and violence in Myanmar.

Rights groups have decried the resettlement, saying that the Rohingya, yet again, were being forced to move against their will.

“The relocation of so many Rohingya refugees to a remote island, which is still off limits to everyone including rights groups and journalists without prior permission, poses grave concerns about independent human rights monitoring,” Saad Hammadi, a South Asia campaigner for Amnesty International, said on Twitter.

Myanmar Election Delivers Another Decisive Win for Aung San Suu Kyi

The New York Times 

By Hannah Beech and Saw Nang

Nov. 11, 2020

The civilian leader’s reputation overseas has been stained by her defense of a military accused of genocide. But in voting on Sunday, her party easily secured a parliamentary majority.

Supporters of the National League for Democracy in Yangon, Myanmar, on Monday with portraits of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whom many in the country still regard as a bulwark against military rule.Credit...Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

The political party led by Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is poised to stay in power after winning what is only the second truly contested election the country has held in decades, though one in which many voters from ethnic minority groups were prevented from casting their ballots.

For Young Rohingya Brides, Marriage Means a Perilous, Deadly Crossing

The New York Times 

By Hannah Beech
Oct. 17, 2020

Girls and young women from refugee camps in Bangladesh, promised to men they have never met, are undertaking the dangerous journey to Malaysia to join them.

After months at sea, hundreds of ethnic Rohingya refugees, most of them women and girls, landed in the Indonesian province of Aceh in September.Credit...Zik Maulana/Associated Press

BANGKOK — Haresa counted the days by the moon, waxing and waning over the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Her days on the trawler, crammed into a space so tight that she could not even stretch her legs, bled into weeks, the weeks into months.

“People struggled like they were fish flopping around,” Ms. Haresa, 18, said of the other refugees on the boat. “Then they stopped moving.”

'Kill All You See': In a First, Myanmar Soldiers Tell of Rohingya Slaughter

The New York Times
By Hannah Beech, Saw Nang and Marlise Simons

Sept. 8, 2020

Video testimony from two soldiers supports widespread accusations that Myanmar's milatray tried to eradicate the ethnic minority in genocidal campaign.

The remains of a Rohingya school in Rakhine State in western Myanmar last year.Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times

The two soldiers confess their crimes in a monotone, a few blinks of the eye their only betrayal of emotion: executions, mass burials, village obliterations and rape.

The August 2017 order from his commanding officer was clear, Pvt. Myo Win Tun said in video testimony. “Shoot all you see and all you hear.”

Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims Stuck at Sea in Refugee Crisis With ‘Zero Hope’

The New York Times
By Hannah Beech
May 1, 2020


At least three boats carrying Rohingya refugees have been adrift for more than two months. As of this week, rights groups that had been tracking the boats lost sight of them.

The belongings of Rohingya refugees lying on the shore last month as their boat remained anchored nearby in Teknaf, Bangladesh.Credit...Suzauddin Rubel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BANGKOK — Somewhere in turquoise waters, perhaps where the Bay of Bengal meets the Andaman Sea, wooden boats filled with Rohingya refugees are listing, adrift now for more than 10 weeks.

They were prevented from docking in Malaysia, their preferred destination, and Bangladesh, their port of origin. As of this week, rights groups that had been trying to track the boats by satellite lost sight of them. Each boat — there were at least three — carried hundreds of Rohingya Muslims desperate for sanctuary and at the mercy of human traffickers.

‘None of Us Have a Fear of Corona’: The Faithful at an Outbreak’s Center

The New York Times

By Hannah Beech
March 20, 2020

A gathering of 16,000 at a Malaysian mosque became the pandemic’s largest known vector in Southeast Asia, spreading the coronavirus to half a dozen countries. 

A mosque in the Philippines run by Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic missionary movement. A Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Malaysia has been linked to hundreds of coronavirus infections.Credit...Jes Aznar for The New York Times

 

BANGKOK — The faithful prayed by the thousands, hands and faces washed at communal taps to signify their purity. They crowded around platters on the floor, scooping up coconut rice with their right hands in the traditional way. And they slept in the mosque or in tents set up in the religious compound, rows of pilgrims from nearly 30 countries, gathered in Malaysia for spiritual renewal.

Myanmar Unrolls a Welcome Mat for China, but Not All the Way

The New York Times
By Hannah Beech and Saw Nang
Jan. 16, 2020

As Xi Jinping visits Myanmar, fighting in ethnic borderlands threatens China’s ambitious investment plans.

President Xi Jinping of China and his counterpart in Myanmar, Win Myint, during a welcome ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, on Friday.Credit...Ann Wang/Reuters

BANGKOK — As the leader of China, Xi Jinping, touched down in Myanmar on Friday, his two-day visit is designed to celebrate Beijing’s expanding presence in the region, both as an economic and political role model.

But relations between the two neighbors have never been so simple.

China is by far the largest foreign investor in Myanmar, which boasts a trove of natural resources. And China also provides a road map for how one of Asia’s poorest nations might lift its citizens out of hand-to-mouth existences.