Military Junta Completes 5 Months, 800 Killed and 6000 Detained in Myanmar

THE CITIZEN
P.K.BALACHANDRAN 
5 JULY, 2021

On July 1, Myanmar’s military junta completed five months as the ruler of the country after the overthrow of the democratically-elected Aung San Suu Kyi government on February 1.

Over 800 were killed and 6000 detained in crackdowns targeting pro-democracy agitators from February 1 to June 30.

Military action is continuing against ethnic non-Bamar communities and non-Buddhist religious minorities in the North East and North West of the country.

The United Nations and the Western powers led by the United States continue to condemn the forcible take over. The US has imposed a series of new sanctions against the regime, including freezing US$ 1 billion in reserves that Myanmar’s Central Bank was holding at the New York Fed.

Myanmar: Roads to a Federal Army Are Twisted

modern diplomacy
M.D. Amin
July 2, 2021

The idea of a Federal Army for Myanmar is as old as the country’s struggle for democracy. The vision is a part of the larger picture of decentralization and democratization of the multiethnic nation of 54 million and was first seriously floated in 1988 as a counterweight to Tatmadaw and to rally the support of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) during 8888 Uprising. The idea has recently received unprecedented momentum following the ousting of NLD-led civilian government on February 1, 2021. The formation of an EAO-supported People’s Defense Force (PDF) that amalgamates the Bamar youth with anti-junta ethnic rebels has sparked new optimism in this regard. Spontaneous attacks from civilian resistance fighters and other similar groups, such as Taze People’s Comrades, Kalay Civil Army and Chinland Defence Force have also contributed significantly to this growing interest.

Danger Awaited in Myanmar. So He Made a Daring Bid to Stay in Japan.

The New York Times

By Ben Dooley and Hisako Ueno
July 3, 2021

After defying Myanmar’s military rulers at a soccer match, Ko Pyae Lyan Aung decided to seek asylum. But he was being watched.

Ko Pyae Lyan Aung at a practice field in Osaka, Japan.Credit...Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

OSAKA, Japan — The soccer player’s plane was at the gate. Ahead of him stood his last chance at safety.

The athlete, Ko Pyae Lyan Aung, had come to Japan with Myanmar’s national team. On the field, before the first match, he had flashed a gesture of defiance — the three-finger salute made famous by “The Hunger Games” — against the military junta that had ousted his country’s elected government. He was now afraid of what might happen if he returned home.

Norway's Telenor planning to exit Myanmar

TRT WORLD
02 July 2021


The telecom giant has booked massive financial losses in a country marred by a military coup and street protests.

Telenor is one of the largest telecom operators in Myanmar that has seen a flight foreign investment this year. (AP Archive)

Norway's Telenor, a major telecom operator in Myanmar, is weighing its future in the country after booking losses following a military coup and subsequent crackdown.

The company issued a statement on Friday it following reports that it was considering the sale of its unit in the country, Telenor Myanmar.

Telenor was pushed into deep losses in the first quarter after it was forced to write down all of its assets in Myanmar, taking their value from $769 million to zero.

India and Myanmar: A Chequered Relationship through History

MONEY LIFE

Saket Hishikar 

30 June 2021

Personal encounters, at times, have the power to draw one’s attention to events in far-flung lands. The news of a military coup in Myanmar in February this year reignited the memory of my personal encounters and an attempt to make sense of the event and its implications for India.

Anyone familiar with Mumbai suburbs knows about the magnificent Golden Pagoda at Gorai. The local tour guide at the centre informs visitors about the founder of the Vipassana Kendra and his promise to his guru in Myanmar to take back the technique of Vipassana to India as a mark of Myanmar’s gratitude towards India. But the Vipassana founder in his own style paid a tribute to Myanmar for preserving this Indian technique for over 2,000 year by constructing the golden pagodas in the traditional Myanmar interlocking style.

Myanmar jade industry becoming 'slush fund' for junta

THE STRAITS TIMES

Maria Siow
Published:  29 Jun, 2021

Myanmar is one of the world's biggest sources of jadeite and the industry is largely driven by insatiable demand for jade from neighbouring China.PHOTO: REUTERS

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's multibillion-dollar jade mines risk becoming a "slush fund" for military repression, international watchdog Global Witness said on Tuesday (June 29), urging consumers to boycott buying any jade and gemstones from the coup-racked nation.

The country has been in turmoil since the military toppled the government of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with more than 880 people killed in a junta crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

Rohingya genocide case at ICJ: Myanmar military regime organises new legal team

The Daily Star

Digital Report
June 26, 2021

Armed police confront protesters on the streets of Naypyitaw, Myanmar’s capital, on Monday, February 8. Photo: AP

The Myanmar military regime has organised a new legal team led by its foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, to present the defense in the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The regime's order restructuring the committee, which was previously led by detained State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, was announced in a bulletin published by the Myanmar Gazette on Thursday.

One on One - Myanmar's UN Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun

TRT WORLD
Jun 26, 2021

The United Nations General Assembly has called for an arms embargo on Myanmar in response to the February coup by the military junta. In a rare act of defiance, Myanmar's UN ambassador also condemned the coup. TRT World's Frank Ucciardo sat down with Kyaw Moe Tun to talk about Myanmar's future and whether his county will ever return to democracy.

#Myanmar #UN #KyawMoeTun

Link : Here

Could Japan draw Myanmar's military junta chief to a UN peace initiative?

THE HILL

BY CHARLES CRABTREE,
OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
06/24/21

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

© Getty Images

What should the Japanese government do about Myanmar? Since the military junta under commander in chief Min Aung Hlaing ousted democratically-elected government leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, violence has erupted across the Southeast Asian nation. The new Tatmadaw regime has killed over 800 people, reportedly arrested more than 80 journalists, and detained thousands more politicians, pro-democracy protesters and human rights defenders without due process. In response to this and other abuses, mass protests have erupted across the country, often inciting further violence by state security forces.

Armed rebels have declared war on the Myanmar junta, and the country is gearing up for all-out urban warfare

INSIDER

Cheryl Teh
Jun 23, 2021,

A man holds a torch as he stands behind a barricade during a protest against the military coup, in Yangon, Myanmar March 28, 2021. Stringer/Reuters

• A Myanmar militia declared war on the military junta, pushing the country closer to war.
• Firefights between junta soldiers and the People's Defense Force broke out on the streets of Mandalay.
• This is the first time gunfights between rebels and troops broke out in Myanmar's cities since the February 1 coup.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A formal declaration of war has been made on Myanmar's military junta by an armed militia group.

United Nations calls for halt of weapons to Myanmar

ABS-CBN NEWS
Michelle Nichols, Reuters
Jun 23 2021

Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Myanmar's Commander in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing walk past the honor guard prior to their talks in Moscow, Russia on June 22, 2021. Vadim Savitskiy/Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation/Handout via Reuters

NEW YORK - The United Nations General Assembly on Friday called for a stop to the flow of arms to Myanmar and urged the military to respect November election results and release political detainees, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The General Assembly adopted a resolution with the support of 119 countries several months after the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government in a Feb. 1 coup. Belarus requested the text be put to a vote and was the only country to oppose it, while 36 abstained, including China and Russia.

Russia and Myanmar junta leader commit to boosting ties at Moscow meeting

REUTERS
June 21, 2021

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev attends a World War Two Victory Day anniversary parade in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, June 24, 2020. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

MOSCOW, June 21 (Reuters) - Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, and Myanmar's junta leader committed to further strengthening security and other ties between the two countries at a Moscow meeting on Monday.

Myanmar's junta leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, flew to the Russian capital on Sunday to attend a security conference this week. read more Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Monday said President Vladimir Putin would not be meeting Min Aung Hlaing, Interfax reported.

Rights activists have accused Moscow of legitimising Myanmar’s military junta, which came to power in a Feb. 1 coup. by continuing bilateral visits and arms deals.

Russia says it has a long-standing relationship with Myanmar and said in March it was deeply concerned by the rising number of civilian deaths in Myanmar.

Commentary: Potential civil war in Myanmar - stakes are very high for Bangladesh

Dhaka Tribune

Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan

June 22nd, 2021

File photo: Demonstrators block a road during an anti-coup protest in Yangon on March 4, 2021 Reuters

Bangladesh will have to make sure that its border is strongly protected to stop insurgents and any Myanmar nationals from entering

On April 13, about two and half months after the military coup ousting the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned that Myanmar was heading towards a full-blown civil war like in Syria.

Army clashes with anti-junta militia in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-biggest city

CNN

Story by Reuters
June 22, 2021

In Myanmar's jungles, protesters are training to fight the junta 02:30

Myanmar security forces backed by armored vehicles on Tuesday clashed with a newly formed militia group in Mandalay, the country's second-biggest city, according to social media posts from the group and media reports.

Since the army seized power on February 1 and removed the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the security forces have quashed protests opposing military rule. In response, groups of opponents of the coup known as people's defense forces have sprung up across Myanmar.

Bangladesh abstains from voting against Myanmar

Prothom Alo 

Prothom Alo English Desk

Published: 20 Jun 2021, 

The United Nations logo is seen on a window in an empty hallway at United Nations headquarters during the 75th annual UN General Assembly high-level debate in New York, US, on 21 September 2020Reuters

The UN General Assembly on Friday took a rare step of calling on member states to “prevent the flow of arms” into Myanmar, which is a part of a non-binding resolution condemning the military coup in the violence-wracked country.

The resolution -- which did not go so far as to call for a global arms embargo -- also demands that the military “immediately stop all violence against peaceful demonstrators,” reports Reuters.

It was approved by 119 countries, with 36 abstaining including China, Myanmar’s main ally. Only one country, Belarus, voted against it. Bangladesh also abstained from voting.

Myanmar: Challenging Rakhine And Military Narratives About Rohingyas – Analysis

eurasiareview

Dr. Habib Siddiqui
June 21, 2021

Displaced Rohingya people in Rakhine State, Burma. Photo Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Wikipedia Commons.

Oppression, marginalization, violence, propaganda – none of it is new. What is new, however, is the mere scale, frequency and omnipresence of disinformation, especially when it is propagated by a powerful group that runs at the state level with the goal to eliminate a small minority that is different than the dominant group’s identity by race, ethnicity, language, religion, customs and culture. Nowhere in our time is this issue perhaps more acute than in Myanmar where the Rohingyas are victims of a carefully crafted genocidal program that has become a national project there, enjoying full support from top to bottom of every rung and corner of the Buddhist society – from a military man in uniform to a monk in a saffron robe, from a peasant in the paddy field to a politician wearing a longyi.

Why did India abstain from voting on the Myanmar resolution at the UN General Assembly?

Scroll.in

Angshuman Choudhury
Yesterday 

The resolution calls on the country’s military to end the state of emergency and to reopen the ‘democratically elected parliament’, among other things.

A demonstration against the military coup in Dooplaya district in Myanmar's Karen state. | Handout / KNU Dooplaya District / AFP

On June 18, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution on the “situation in Myanmar” with a vote of 119-1. Although not legally binding on member states, the document carries significant political heft.

UN General Assembly calls for halt of weapons to Myanmar

France24

Text by:NEWS WIRES
Issued on: 18/06/2021

The United Nations logo is seen on a window in an empty hallway at United Nations headquarters during the 75th annual UN General Assembly high-level debate in New York on September 21, 2020. © Mike Segar, Reuters/File Photo

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday called for a stop to the flow of arms to Myanmar and urged the military to respect November election results and release political detainees, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

ASEAN’s Future Will Be Decided in Myanmar

FP

By Evan A. Laksmana,
JUNE 21, 2021,

The prospect of an open-ended mission to restore democracy in Myanmar is making the Southeast Asian bloc's leaders uneasy.

Protesters holding signs with the image of detained Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi take part in a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on Feb. 12. SAI AUNG MAIN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Can the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) thrive amid worsening regional flash points, from the South China Sea to the crisis in Myanmar? Set up in 1967 to promote regional stability and economic growth, ASEAN has never coalesced into a powerful, integrated community like the European Union, nor does it seek to become one. But the bloc has nonetheless been useful: It has largely kept the peace in the region, mainly through slow-burning dialogues and confidence building among its members, which, in turn, has allowed Southeast Asian countries to focus on domestic stability and economic development.

United Nations calls for halt of weapons to Myanmar

REUTERS

Michelle Nichols
June 19, 2021

NEW YORK, June 18 (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly on Friday called for a stop to the flow of arms to Myanmar and urged the military to respect November election results and release political detainees, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi.