Military History

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Title: Myanmar's Military Council Supports Russia's Invasion 0f Ukraine
Description: " Myanmar's military junta expressed Thursday its support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, placing itself at odds with most of the world community which has condemned the military action and moved to introduce crushing sanctions on Moscow. In an interview with VOA Burmese, General Zaw Min Tun, a spokesperson for Myanmar's military council, cited the reasons for the military government’s support of the action by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "No. 1 is that Russia has worked to consolidate its sovereignty," he said. "I think this is the right thing to do. No. 2 is to show the world that Russia is a world power." Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing visited Russia in June last year and there are strong ties between the Burmese and Russian militaries. Russia is one of the few countries to have defended the military council that seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup, overthrowing the civilian government and detaining de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-ranking officials. Since then, U.N. and Burmese experts have repeatedly called for a ban on arms sales to the military council, but Russia has ignored the call. As justification for the February takeover, military officials claimed widespread fraud in a November 2020 general election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide. The international and local election observers verified that the 2020 vote was mostly free and fair except for negligible discrepancies. Suu Kyi has faced a raft of charges since she was taken into custody when the military seized power. She has already been sentenced to six years' imprisonment after being convicted of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions. She is also being tried on the charge of violating the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years. Australian economist Sean Turnell, who was her adviser, is a codefendant. On the first anniversary of the coup, the United States announced more sanctions on individuals and entities associated with the regime. Among those sanctioned were Union Attorney General Thida Oo, Supreme Court Chief Justice Tun Tun Oo and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission Tin Oo. Two entities sanctioned are KT Services & Logistics Company Limited and the Directorate of Procurement of the Commander-In-Chief of Defense Services, which the U.S. says support the military regime. The country gained independence from Britain in 1948. It was ruled by the armed forces from 1962-2011, when a new government began returning to civilian rule..."
Source/publisher: "VOA" (Washington, D.C)
Date of publication: 2022-02-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Tatmadaw fighting a losing war in Myanmar
Sub-title: Myanmar military’s resort to bombing civilian populations as a counterinsurgency strategy is certain to backfire
Description: "Myanmar’s army has unleashed yet another wave of aerial bombings in the country’s spiraling post-coup civil war, a change in traditional counterinsurgency tactics that points more to military weakness than strength. Russian-made Hind-type attack helicopters fired rockets and machine guns once again this month while jet fighters dropped bombs on what appeared to be mainly civilian targets in eastern Kayah state where resistance to the coup has been particularly robust. One of the helicopters reportedly carried General Soe Win, number two in the junta and considered even more hardline than his boss, coup-maker Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. As many as 170,000 villagers have fled their homes and are seeking shelter in remote parts of the state that abuts the Thai border in a situation that threatens to tilt towards a new-era refugee crisis. Recent attacks by local resistance forces are believed to have motivated the Tatmadaw’s bombing campaign, which at the same time has raised hard new questions about the fighting ability of its increasingly stretched ground forces. Ground attacks with air support are common in counterinsurgency campaigns elsewhere in the world, but until now have not been used much by the Tatmadaw in Myanmar’s decades-long ethnic wars. In Kayah state, as in other parts of the country including Sagaing Division and Chin state, the military’s infantry was deployed first but was quickly withdrawn when it suffered heavy casualties. Then came random Tatmadaw bombings on villages and other population centers. To be sure, Myanmar military atrocities committed during campaigns in ethnic minority areas are nothing new. At the same time, the Tatmadaw was actually quite poorly armed despite having a battle-hardened and largely effective light infantry force. Its troops were constantly on the move during past conflicts against the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in the northeast, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the north, and the Karen National Union (KNU) and other rebel groups along the Thai border. All that changed after a nationwide uprising for democracy in 1988. The main fear at the time was that disgruntled soldiers might join the pro-democracy activists. Consequently, in order to prevent a split in the ranks, Myanmar’s top military leaders did everything in their power to keep at least the officer corps satisfied and loyal. Beginning in 1989, the then-ruling junta, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC, spent more than a billion dollars procuring new, more sophisticated military hardware. It came primarily from China but also from Pakistan, Singapore and Israel. Most of it was materiel that would be of little use in counterinsurgency operations in remote and mountainous ethnic areas such as missile systems, huge tanks, armored vehicles, naval patrol boats, frigates and various kinds of radar equipment. Equally important was a decision to scrap the previous, unpopular system of constant rotations of regional commanders, a move implemented to ensure that no officer would build up his own power base in a certain part of the country. Myanmar’s military leaders also had to make sure that the urban dissidents did not link up with the ethnic rebels. Thousands of them did, but the KIA and KNU did not have enough weapons to share with the urban newcomers. But then came a mutiny in the CPB and the old mostly Burman, orthodox communists were driven into exile in China. The mutineers formed new ethnic armies, the strongest being the United Wa State Army, and the possibility of the kind of alliance that the Myanmar military feared became a reality. Talks between the ex-CPB mutineers and other ethnic groups did happen, but the Myanmar military moved faster and with more determination. Ceasefire deals were struck with the UWSA and other former CPB forces according to which they could retain their arms, remain in control of their respective areas and engage in all kinds of business as long as they did not attack the Myanmar military or share their weapons with other groups. By the mid-1990s, about 20 major and smaller ethnic armies that had depended on the CPB for arms supplies also made peace with the military government. The threat from the border areas had been neutralized. Those ceasefire agreements lasted for more than 20 years, meaning that an entire generation of Myanmar soldiers has no real combat experience. They are, as one in-the-know source said, better at parades showing off their new uniforms and guns than at actual combat. The officer corps was also given ample opportunities to earn money where they often accepted bribes and entered into dealerships with the country’s newly-rich businessmen who became infamously known as “the cronies.” That changed again when, in June 2011, the ceasefire with the KIA broke down. For the first time in more than a decade, major battles were fought in ethnic minority areas. Casualties were extremely heavy as the advancing infantry soldiers, who were poorly trained and had zero combat experience, were mowed down by KIA guerrillas. It became so bad that the Myanmar military had to withdraw its infantry and rely instead on helicopter gunships, attack aircraft and heavy artillery fired from a safe distance. That is what is happening again in Kayah state and other war zones that have mushroomed across the country since the military’s disastrous February 1, 2021, coup. As old and new conflicts spread and rage, old questions about the actual manpower strength of the Myanmar military are taking on new relevance. Australian Myanmar watcher and specialist on military matters Andrew Selth examined the issue in a piece published by the Sydney-based think tank the Lowy Institute on February 17. He quotes figures as high as 500,000 and even 600,000 that appeared in post-1988 think tank reports, but argues that they “were mistakenly based on theoretical projections by ambitious Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] planners.” It is beyond doubt that the Myanmar military embarked on an expansion and modernization campaign after 1988, when the total strength of the Myanmar military was believed to be around 186,000. By 2021, however, more realistic estimates were at around 300,000-350,000 — or perhaps as low as 250,000, or even 200,000. But according to Selth: “The key element here is not the total number of men and women in uniform, but the number of combat soldiers that the junta can put into the field. Most estimates cite 100,000-120,000.” In addition to that are 80,000 or so members of the national police, which, Selth writes, “has about 39 paramilitary security battalions, many of them made up of former soldiers.” By any measure, however, the Myanmar military now finds itself stretched thin on many fronts, including areas in the country’s central region that have not seen any serious combat since the 1970s. It is clear by now that the Tatmadaw cannot decisively defeat the scores, if not hundreds, of small and not-so-small resistance armies that have sprung up across the country since the coup. The possibility of a battlefield victory for those fervent but often rag-tag armies is also remote. They may have widespread popular support but are poorly armed and don’t seem to have a common, well-planned strategy beyond inflicting as many casualties on the Myanmar military and its junta officials as possible. For its part, the Myanmar military appears to be waging a war of attrition against resistance forces that aims ultimately to wear down their inexperienced and outgunned fighters. But given the grit and determination of the resistance, that is unlikely to be a winning strategy. What is more likely is that the wars will rage on for the foreseeable future, with the Myanmar military increasingly resorting to haphazard air power that will only cause more human suffering and dislocation among an already angry and disenfranchised population. The aerial bombardments in Kayah state will likely be replicated in other inflamed parts of the country in a counterinsurgency strategy that underscores the Tatmadaw’s underlying weakness and ensures more popular support for fast-rising anti-coup forces..."
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Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication: 2022-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-24
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Title: From ‘8888’ to ‘2121’: A New Generation of Resistance in Myanmar
Description: "This article is the latest in a Just Security series on the Feb. 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar, which brought together expert local and international voices on the coup and its broader context. The series is a collaboration between Just Security and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School). Today, Feb. 1, 2022, marks the one-year anniversary of the Myanmar military’s attempt to wrest political control of the country away from its elected officials. Not every military attempt to impose its will on a country is a generational moment, but this one was. The actions of the military (known as the Tatmadaw) last year sparked an unprecedented series of events that are still rippling across the nation. The resistance to the military’s attempt[1] to take control started with the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a mass movement led by youth and joined by workers who stayed home and consumers who boycotted military-owned businesses to protest the takeover. A movement on this scale has not been seen in a generation. Other developments over the past year are entirely unprecedented in Myanmar. This past year thus marks the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. The shape of that new era is still being determined by the people of Burma, who are writing their next chapter with each passing day. To understand the importance of Feb. 1, 2021 (“1221” or “2121,” depending on which date convention is used), we first must look back. For Burma followers, the start of the era proceeding 2021 can be traced to the 8888 Uprising (named for another significant date, Aug. 8, 1988, when that mobilization began), which saw a military crackdown against mass street protests across the country. The 8888 Uprising was the beginning of the end of the Ne Win era, a period of military rule which began decades earlier. Yet in the wake of 1988, the military dictatorship continued — first as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), a name which aptly captured the mass human rights abuses perpetrated by this military junta, and then, with a 1997 rebrand, as the State Peace and Development Council. Despite these cosmetic tweaks, little else changed. The consolidation of power by Than Shwe as the main military strongman in the early 2000s only demonstrated the continued military dominance. Even after the 2008 constitution and three subsequent national elections, including 2010 which featured a boycott by the National League for Democracy (NLD), the military was ever present, and the hopes of a full transition to democracy and peace failed to materialize. (For a fuller discussion of the history of democracy movements in Myanmar, see here). Yet this post-1988 era was never really defined by the military leader as it had been during Ne Win’s time. Instead, the 1988 to 2021 period was defined by its opposition leader. When history is written in the years to come, it will be known as the era of Aung San Suu Kyi. From her “non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights” while under house arrest and her leadership of the NLD as it earned landslide national victories in 1991, 2015, and 2020, to her silence on the ongoing persecution and coordinated campaigns of violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority, Aung San Suu Kyi shaped this era of Burma in a way no other figure did. The lead up to the military’s attempted takeover on Feb. 1, 2021 did not presage how seminal a moment it would become for Myanmar. After the NLD won an overwhelming majority of the parliamentary seats in the November 2020 general election (396 out of 476 seats, a margin of victory even greater than in 2015 and reminiscent of a 1990 landslide victory for the party), the Tatmadaw laid the foundation to dispute the results. Just like after the 1990 election, which it never recognized, the military was intent on preventing the duly elected officials from taking their seats as representatives of the people. Throughout late 2020 and early 2021, the Tatmadaw alleged irregularities and poll fraud. Several nations, including the United States, warned that the Tatmadaw might attempt to seize power in the days leading up to Feb. 1. Despite these warnings, the military was able to successfully detain Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other NLD leadership on the morning of Feb. 1 (many of whom have since been criminally charged and sentenced in thinly veiled political persecutions). The Tatmadaw ordered an unconstitutional one-year state of emergency, and state television broadcasts announced that political authority had been transferred to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and the State Administration Council. Looking back on the past year, it has been filled with familiar hallmarks of the Tatmadaw’s oppression: horrendous loss of life (conservatively at least 1,400 killed), countless arrests (estimates now run at nearly 8,800), and mass displacement. And as in eras past, the Tatmadaw has adopted these practices to retain power by whatever means necessary — including suppressing freedoms, curtailing rights, and terrorizing the population — and to fend off a burgeoning non-violent movement comprised of a new generation of leaders who have glimpsed the potential of democracy in Myanmar over the past decade. But the past year has also been different – and remarkably so – for it has signaled not only the end of an era but the emergence of a new one. A New Era The CDM The story of 2021 must start with the CDM — and the sea change that this movement represents among a generation that had not been born in 1988. Led by youth and women, the movement has used civil disruptions, work stoppages, and boycotts to hamper the Tatmadaw’s attempts to consolidate their power. In the process, the movement has signified not only a generational shift but a change in the representation and make up of political activity in Myanmar. For many Burmans (the major ethnic group), participating in the movement has also prompted a sort of revelation, causing them, for instance, to question the misinformation espoused for years by the military that historically marginalized ethnic nationality groups were a threat to Burma. For so long, the country has been defined by its divisions — but the CDM has represented something new and distinctive as it has embraced and celebrated Burma’s diversity as a strength instead of a weakness. The National Unity Government The National Unity Government (NUG), which was announced in April 2021 as a “shadow” or interim government, represents the country’s first unity Comprised of members of the NLD, ethnic nationality groups, and other minority parties, the creation of the NUG parallels, in governmental structures, the bridge created between Burman communities and ethnic nationalities by the grassroots organizing of the CDM. What stands out about the NUG is that it is not a government comprised wholly of the Burman-led NLD but one that at least symbolically bridges ethnic divides in new ways. Yes, there are legitimate questions on the depth of the unity, but this development nevertheless marks a first in Burma, and if it holds, it will define the new era in profoundly different terms from the previous one. During the 1990s through the first two decades of this century, there were calls for tripartite dialogue between the military, the NLD, and the ethnic nationalities, but never did the NLD unite with the ethnic groups in a government or other formal alliance. The NLD’s treatment of the Rohingya crisis — ignoring or exacerbating severe human rights violations — has left deep distrust. Even here, however, there have been signs of change over the past year. One of the NUG’s interim cabinet ministers issued a public apology to the Rohingya for the government’s role in oppressing the group, and the NUG announced a new policy in June promising to end human rights abuses against the Rohingya and grant them citizenship. Given past experience, caution is still warranted as to whether there will be follow through on these pronouncements, but this much is clear: the NUG represents a potentially new political era. The End of an Era The emergence of the CDM and the NUG as well as the simultaneous generational shift has also signaled the beginning of the end of the era of Aung San Suu Kyi and others from her generation. From a towering symbol for human rights and democracy as a Nobel Peace Prize winner to a defender, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), of the military’s genocidal actions and now returning to house detention once again, feelings towards Aung San Suu Kyi have grown more complicated over the past few years to say the least. And while she and the NLD remain beloved by many in Burma, this last year has brought into stark relief the aging leadership of the party. While criminal sentences against the Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior NLD leaders still make the news, the base of power has begun to move beyond these elders. Transitions take time, but this one is underway. The End of the 2008 Constitution The 2008 Constitution enshrined military impunity and placed the Tatmadaw permanently beyond the reach of either civilian political control or judicial oversight. The February 2021 actions of the military ironically have caused a break with the Constitution that it wrote. Though the military allegedly attempted to force NLD President Win Myint to step down so they could take power under the veneer of legitimacy, his refusal and their subsequent attempt to seize power through force undermined the 2008 Constitution.In April, the predecessor to the NUG announced that the 2008 Constitution was no longer valid and promised a system with equal protections for all. A proposed replacement constitution, called the Federal Democracy Charter, was published with the announcement. Recently, a revised draft of the Charter was approved in a People’s Assembly held by a broad coalition (the National Unity Consultative Council or NUCC), confirming that the diverse membership of the NUCC considers the Charter to be the country’s interim constitutional document. While some have expressed skepticism, fearing that the lofty promises of equal protection are rhetoric without substantive, feasible strategies for improving the lives of ethnic and religious minorities, it is almost impossible to imagine a return to the 2008 Constitution. The End of a Failed Peace Process For the past decade, the Tatmadaw (and the NLD) consistently suggested to the world that efforts were ongoing to achieve lasting peace to conflicts in various border areas where ethnic nationalities tend to comprise the majority of the population and which have been in conflict with the Tatmadaw for decades. For example, in 2016 the Tatmadaw announced a “national” “ceasefire” agreement, a misnomer both because it did not involve all the major armed groups and because fighting has persisted and even intensified over the past decade. This past year has refuted the existence of any credible peace process, paving the way going forward for either ongoing conflict or, more hopefully, some entirely new peace initiative. ASEAN Slights Min Aung Hlaing The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been rightly criticized for failing to adequately respond to the military’s actions in Myanmar; none of the points in its five-point consensus plan from April 2021 to address the situation have seen significant progress. Yet during its October summit, ASEAN boldly excluded the Tatmadaw, and several countries at the summit directly criticized the military leadership. The issue of attendance remains unresolved, and expecting much more from ASEAN may be unrealistic with Cambodia — itself an autocracy — as the chair during the next year. Yet the fact that the group directly confronted the Tatmadaw in the way it did in October 2021 is unprecedented. It signals that ASEAN is keeping its options open as to where to place its allegiance in the new era and no longer blindly supporting the military. International Recognition In September of last year, the United States and China reached an informal agreement barring the Tatmadaw from being seated at the United Nations, undermining its attempts to gain international legitimacy. The General Assembly recently agreed to defer action on who would represent Myanmar at the United Nations, meaning that the current ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, who is loyal to the NUG and has in fact been “fired” by the Tatmadaw, will remain in place until the issue is resolved. While not a definitive win for either the NUG or the military, as with ASEAN keeping its options open, the recognition stalemate means that the military can no longer assume that its power grabs will lead to a place at the table internationally. Businesses Exit The old era included an opening up of the country to foreign direct investment, including to vast natural gas deposits in the early 1990s. The Tatmadaw benefited immensely from international investments, enjoying both material profits from partnering with international corporations to extract natural resources and gains in legitimacy that came with these partnerships. But in response to the deteriorating political and human rights situation over the past few months, Chevron (which bought Unocal, the original investor in Burma) and TotalEnergies (Total) announced earlier this year that they were withdrawing from Myanmar after 30 years. Woodside Petroleum followed Chevron and Total shortly thereafter, and other companies have pulled out as well. While this is not the only time businesses have exited the country, it is a dramatic reversal from the last ten years. Moreover, the inclusion of giants Chevron and Total in the exodus is a telling indication that even the most stalwart of holdouts from the previous era have broken with the military. The International Criminal Court and International Accountability While there has been significant progress around international accountability in Myanmar in recent years — from the Gambia’s case at the ICJ, to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation, to the creation of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), to the acceptance by an Argentinian court of jurisdiction over crimes committed against the Rohingya — the NUG’s deposit of a letter with the ICC accepting jurisdiction by the Court for international crimes dating back to 2002 anywhere in the country is a major development. This letter signals the NUG’s commitment to join the international community, adhere to the rule of law, and address grave crimes throughout the country. The ICC should recognize the letter and authorize additional investigations beyond the Rohingya into international crimes, both historical and ongoing. Prospects for Conflict or Peace Despite these major developments and potential promise of this new era, many see a grim immediate prognosis defined by an escalation in violence as the conflict expands geographically and intensifies militarily. Predictably, civilians are likely to pay the largest price. The dominant view is also that for the foreseeable future, neither the military nor the NUG and Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) can achieve outright military victory, raising the specter of a protracted and messy conflict. Nonetheless, as Myanmar enters this new era, a crucial question remains: what is the recipe that will change the balance of power to permanently end the Tatmadaw’s continuous destabilizing effects? After all, the destabilizing force in Burmese politics over the last 75 years has been the Burmese military. Despite three elections over the past decade, never have civilians been given genuine power to guide the country forward and never has there been a concerted effort to achieve a lasting peace across ethnic lines. With this in mind, possible paths toward such peace and stability will require the following elements. First, the CDM has the capacity to transform into a durable generational political movement that can continue to learn from its membership, evolve, and persist. The momentum behind this grassroots movement is reminiscent of the long-term political impacts of the civil rights movement in the United States and the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa. In order to move Myanmar further forward (and away from military hegemony), the CDM’s core values of civilian power and celebration of the diversity of Burma must also persist, heralded by the youth leaders who see the opportunity for fundamental change. Second, as the NUG continues to gain legitimacy and implement initiatives like the National Unity Consultative Council, a body designed to expand the alliance against the junta and establish a roadmap for a federal democratic system, there is an open question about whether this new governing body will live up to its name. In one possible version of the future, the NUG’s eventual composition would reflect the leadership of the CDM, developing a new generation of political leaders who are committed to the “Unity” element of the NUG. The NUG has already taken certain steps in this direction, making an unprecedented public statement acknowledging the injustices suffered by Rohingya Muslims and promising that it will seek “justice and accountability” for the military’s crimes against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups. This move toward cross-ethnic solidarity in the highest levels of government will be key to establishing a new kind of durable peace in Myanmar. However, many NUG members come straight from the NLD, and traditional fissures of distrust between the NLD and ethnic nationality leadership could easily reemerge if the NUG does not commit seriously to the equality and unity of all peoples in Myanmar. The third critical factor in this equation is whether and how long the Tatmadaw can sustain its campaign of terror without cracking under the pressure. Desertions are reported by some as being at an all-time high, including both rank-and-file soldiers and officers. The Tatmadaw’s strategy to maintain nationwide control in the decades preceding the coup included a cycle of temporary ceasefires with certain ethnic groups, allowing the military to rotate its resources from suppression of one group to another. But because the military alienated nearly every group over the past year, ending many already tentative ceasefires, the Tatmadaw is now stretched thin trying to gain control in areas where it faces combined opposition from EAOs and representatives of the NUG’s Peoples Defense Force. With soldiers leaving the Tatmadaw to join the opposition and with additional collaboration between opposition forces, an increasingly desperate but still well-armed military has the potential to do enormous damage. The fighting is likely to get worse before it gets better, especially for civilians. However, this trend toward desertion combined with a unified civilian population sheds light on the cracks in the military’s grip. Finally, China, ASEAN, the West, and the international community writ large must align against the destabilizing force that is the Tatmadaw. China may speak more in terms of avoiding civil war (given its interest in stability). ASEAN may speak more in terms of political solutions and dialogue amongst all the parties (given its practice of non-interference). The West may speak more in terms of rights and sanctions. But the common interest of these players should be a permanent and durable solution with civilian rule in Burma. Such a solution would meet the interests of the key regional and international players to end the conflict, find a politically satisfying outcome, and uphold human rights and the rule of law. Like 8888, February 1, 2021, will be a date for the history books. Whether this next chapter of Myanmar’s history will bring an end to continued military rule and violent conflict and lead to a transition to democracy and peace is yet to be determined. As we mark the first anniversary of “1221” (or “2121”), however, one thing is clear: the events of the past year have reshaped Burma in fundamental ways, ushering in a new era with flickers of hope for true national unity at last..."
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Source/publisher: Just Security (New York)
Date of publication: 2022-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: People’s Defence Force – Kalay ၏ ပြည်သူ့ခုခံတွန်းလှန်စစ် တိုးတက်မှုအစီရင်ခံစာ (ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁) ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်)
Description: " ပြည်သူ့ခုခံတွန်းလှန်စစ် တိုးတက်မှုအစီရင်ခံစာ..."
Source/publisher: People's Defence Force - Kalay
Date of publication: 2022-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-01
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Title: INTERNATIONAL AUDIT INSTITUTIONS ARE LEGITIMISING THE ILLEGAL MYANMAR MILITARY JUNTA
Description: "Regional and international audit institutions, as well as the auditors general of Sweden and Norway, are providing legitimacy to the illegal Myanmar military junta through recognition, engagement and support. In November, the Myanmar military junta’s auditor general, Dr Kan Zaw, became the Chairperson of the intergovernmental organisation, ASEAN Supreme Audit Institutions (ASEANSAI), placing the group under the military junta’s leadership. Dr Kan Zaw was appointed auditor general by the illegitimate military junta on February 2 in an order signed by Lt Gen Aung Lin Dwe, following the brutal attempted coup in which the former auditor general, Maw Than, was deposed. Dr Kan Zaw had proven his loyalty to the military, having served as a deputy minister under the military’s former proxy government, led by the Union Solidarity and Development Party. The Myanmar military junta took over the rotating ASEANSAI chair from Malaysia during the ASEANSAI Summit, hosted by the junta’s Office of the Auditor General (OAG) on November 2, 2021. The Summit featured Vice Senior General, Soe Win, as the “Guest of Honour”. Soe Win is a war criminal responsible for genocide in 2017 and ongoing atrocity crimes as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar military. As Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s deputy, he played a key leadership role in the military’s illegal and brutal attempted coup on February 1, 2021. In his opening video address at the ASEANSAI Summit, Soe Win told participants that the 2020 national election in Myanmar was marred by electoral fraud and that the National League for Democracy “were trying to grab power illegally”. He claimed that the Myanmar military “are doing our utmost to firmly build a disciplined and genuine multi-party democratic system.” Also present at the meeting were representatives of the Swedish auditor general’s office and a Norway-based intergovernmental organisation that provides development assistance. The meeting took place after a year of international engagement with Dr Kan Zaw and the junta’s OAG through ASEANSAI, which included meetings and training sessions attended by staff of the junta’s OAG. The European Union is a notable exception to this engagement. Pierre Destexhe of the EU Mission to ASEAN told Justice For Myanmar that “in conformity with its strong condemnation of the military coup, its unequivocal non-recognition of the military leadership and its sustained calls for an immediate and unconditional return of democracy in Myanmar, the EU did not engage in any form of dialogue with the military junta, including with the office of the auditor general since February 1, 2021… Therefore the EU does not plan participation in ASEANSAI events or support to ASEANSAI while the Myanmar military junta is included.” Justice For Myanmar has investigated international engagement with the junta’s auditor general, which has taken place in a vacuum of international recognition for the illegal military junta, including the UN rejection of a junta-appointed ambassador. As part of this investigation, Justice For Myanmar reviewed internal organisational documents received through freedom of information requests to organisations in Sweden and Norway. ‍ INTOSAI awards early recognition to the Myanmar military junta The International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), based in the Austrian Court of Audit, is an intergovernmental organisation of auditors general. Myanmar is a member and, in a shocking betrayal of democratic principles, INTOSAI formally recognised the Myanmar military junta shortly after the February coup attempt, listing Dr Kan Zaw as the INTOSAI member for Myanmar on their website and in its official media (after questions from Justice For Myanmar, INTOSAI removed the names of auditors general from their member listings). Justice For Myanmar asked INTOSAI when and how the decision was made to recognise the illegal Myanmar military junta. INTOSAI did not respond to these questions, providing only a short statement that INTOSAI “is an autonomous, independent, professional and non-political organization”. On March 18, Dr Kan Zaw sent a letter to INTOSAI notifying that a new auditor general had been appointed. The letter, disclosed to Justice For Myanmar, explained that “since this post entails acting independently in carrying out all powers and duties of the Auditor General, we have to discharge responsibility and uphold the virtues”. INTOSAI and the Austrian Court of Audit did not respond to a freedom of information request regarding their recognition of, and engagement with, the illegal military junta. The INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) is an INTOSAI organ chaired by the Auditor General of Norway. IDI aims to support the capacity development of audit institutions in the developing world. IDI told Justice For Myanmar that INTOSAI administers membership and IDI “works with all its members”. After the Office of the Auditor General of Norway wrote to IDI recommending advocacy in response to the illegal coup, IDI released a statement expressing concern about the independence of the junta’s OAG. IDI claimed that the military coup may breach Principle 2 of the Mexico Declaration on SAI Independence, which requires security of tenure for supreme audit institutions (SAIs). Yet, INTOSAI and IDI also continued business as usual with the junta’s OAG. On March 26, IDI wrote to Dr Kan Zaw, inviting him to nominate up to 20 people for a ten-month, professional education pilot program for state auditors. The program required that the junta’s OAG also nominate a coach, with IDI bearing all costs for the development and delivery of the course. Some IDI engagement with the junta was related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The junta has weaponised COVID-19, restricting oxygen supplies, blocking aid, arresting doctors and medical personnel, denying vaccines to Rohingya and dismantling the healthcare system. Under the military junta, millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funds have disappeared. Yet, Dr Kan Zaw was invited to participate in cooperative audits related to COVID-19 funds and public health systems, involving training for members of his staff. Correspondence that IDI disclosed to Justice For Myanmar shows junta staff trying to continue business as usual amid mass anti-coup protests and the military’s campaign of terror. In one email, a staff member from the junta’s OAG informed IDI that they could not join a webinar because of “some riot near my house and it caused wifi line disconnected [sic]”. In another, the junta’s OAG informed IDI of an internet shutdown that would prevent webinar attendance. In a third email, the junta’s OAG informed IDI of the “resignation” of a training participant, which may allude to OAG staff participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement. As the junta’s terror campaign intensified with mass killings, torture, rape and indiscriminate airstrikes, INTOSAI continued to recognise and legitimise the junta through communication, training and participation in events. In October, IDI facilitated an ASEANSAI “lessons learned” session, inviting Dr Kan Zaw. IDI also invited Dr Kan Zaw to its Global Summit in November, asking the junta’s OAG and other invitees to share their “success stories”. In addition, IDI participated in an ASEANSAI development partners meeting in October with Dr Kan Zaw. Further, a representative of IDI attended the November ASEANSAI Summit hosted by the Myanmar military junta where Vice Senior General, Soe Win, gave the opening address. In response to questions from Justice For Myanmar of reputation laundering for the Myanmar military junta, IDI stated, “IDI’s cooperation with ASEANSAI is at a technical level through the ASEANSAI Secretariat hosted by the SAI of Indonesia. We are aware of the risks of reputation laundering and continue to monitor the situation closely and will respond accordingly.” When asked why they attended the Summit, IDI stated, “The agenda for the meeting did not include attendance by Soe Win. As ASEANSAI is a non-political organisation, the attendance by Soe Win was inappropriate and should not have happened. IDI is now discussing the implications of this event for its future engagement. We have discussed with the European Commission, who support our continued engagement with ASEANSAI.” ‍ Norway’s engagement with the junta’s OAG In addition to engagement with the Myanmar military junta through IDI, Norway’s Office of the Auditor General has direct engagement with ASEANSAI. While Norway’s Office of the Auditor General wrote to the junta’s auditor general on February 4, seeking clarification on "changes of higher management" and again on February 23 to put bilateral cooperation on hold, they have continued to engage with the junta through ASEANSAI. In August, this included the training of junta staff in performance auditing on modern fisheries through ASEANSAI. Norway’s Office of the Auditor General also participated in an ASEANSAI development partners meeting in October, with Dr Kan Zaw, to discuss support for ASEANSAI under the junta’s leadership. During the meeting, a representative of Norway’s Office of the Auditor General stated that Norway can provide assistance and advice as a “technical donor”, funded by the Norwegian parliament. He offered Norway’s support on a “large scale”. In response to questions from Justice For Myanmar, Norway’s Office of the Auditor General described their collaboration with ASEANSAI as “informal” and involving “technical assistance.” Justice For Myanmar asked Norway’s Office of the Auditor General if their cooperation with the military junta through ASEANSAI is consistent with the Norwegian government’s policy of freezing bilateral aid to Myanmar in response to the coup attempt. Øivind Berg Larsen, Head of the International Division, replied that “the engagement of OAG Norway with ASEANSAI on a technical level is in line with Norwegian foreign policy. No specific instructions or approval is needed for the OAG as an independent body.” When asked how Norway’s OAG has assessed the human rights and reputational laundering risk of engaging with the illegal junta through ASEANSAI, Øivind Berg Larsen responded, “Our analysis has been that the nature of the support we give is not of such a nature that it can cause human rights violations. We acknowledge the fact that engaging with ASEANSAI while OAG Myanmar has the Chairmanship involves a risk of reputational laundering. We consider this risk as low related to a technical collaboration. Our collaboration with ASEANSAI is at a technical and not political level.” ‍ Sweden’s engagement with the junta’s OAG The Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO) has engaged with the junta’s OAG throughout 2021 and has a memorandum of understating in place with ASEANSAI until the end of 2022, regarding the provision of technical support and training. Swedish engagement has included attendance at the ASEANSAI Summit in which Soe Win was “guest of honour” in November, participation in the ASEANSAI development partners coordination meeting and were involved in training to members of the junta’s OAG on performance audits in October, and on compliance audits in June. In July, SNAO supported a workshop on financial audits in which one session was facilitated by a member of the junta’s OAG. Notably, the SNAO provided technical support for ASEANSAI’s strategic plan for 2022-2025, which covers the period when ASEANSAI is under the junta’s leadership. As part of this, SNAO was involved in ASEANSAI's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. A report on the ASEANSAI members’ demands and SWOT analysis states that most members suggested deleting the goal “to promote safeguarding the independence of members SAIs” due to “different legal and political profiles of each member SAI”. The document made no mention of the Myanmar military’s attempted coup and the illegitimacy of the junta’s OAG as a threat to ASEANSAI. In October, a member of the SNAO participated in ASEANSAI’s development partners meeting. During the meeting, the Swedish participant offered to work with ASEANSAI to develop international partners and donors during the period when ASEANSAI is under the junta leadership. Justice For Myanmar asked the SNAO about their engagement with the junta’s OAG. They replied, “Through our international capacity development work, the Swedish NAO works with several SAIs operating in challenging contexts, including non-democratic and authoritarian regimes. In our view, an effective SAI is a vital part of any democracy. We believe that by supporting SAIs, also in very complex contexts, we can – in the long run – contribute to strengthening democracy through transparency and accountability of government institutions.” When asked about their attendance at the ASEANSAI Summit, in which Soe Win was "Guest of Honour", SNAO told Justice For Myanmar that Soe Win's participation was not announced beforehand and "thus we had no chance to reconsider our attendance." A copy of the Summit agenda provided to Justice For Myanmar shows "xxxx" in place of Soe Win. The SNAO since demands that speakers are announced in advance, Dagens Nyheter reported, a response that ignores the serious human rights impact of engaging with the terrorist military junta. In December, Auditor General Helena Lindberg told Dagens Nyheter, "We are obviously concerned about developments in Myanmar, and see a threat to the independence of the audit authority, but we see our participation in ASEANSAI as a way to resist evil forces, and make the assessment that we want to continue to fulfill our commitment." SNAO's engagement with ASEANSAI is inconsistent with Sweden's strategy on development cooperation with Myanmar. In April last year, the Swedish government issued changes specifying that "development cooperation shall neither resource nor legitimise the setback for democracy that the military takeover has entailed." SNAO's legitimisation of the military junta is also inconsistent with its own international development cooperation strategy, which specifies that cooperation "is based on and characterised by a rights and poverty perspective" with an overall purpose to promote "democratic development". ‍ ASEAN complicity Since the Myanmar military’s illegal attempted coup, ASEAN has failed to take effective action against the junta’s criminal conduct. ASEAN has been unable to achieve any progress towards their five-point consensus, agreed to in an ASEAN Leaders' Meeting held in Indonesia in April, in which Senior General Min Aung Hlaing participated. The first of the five points is for an "immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar". Not only has the military junta ignored this but they have intensified their terror campaign since April, with murders, mass arrests, torture, indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling. ASEANSAI is an official ASEAN entity. The ASEAN Secretary General participates in ASEANSAI events. For instance, the former Secretary General, Dato Lim Jock Hoi, gave an address at the ASEANSAI Summit hosted by the Myanmar military junta. This occurred in contrast to ASEAN’s decision to only invite a “non-political” representative of Myanmar to its annual summit. Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, recently stated that ASEAN should continue to not include political representatives from Myanmar at meetings. Through ASEANSAI, the supreme audit institutions of member states have continued business as usual with the junta’s OAG, culminating in the transfer of chairpersonship from Malaysia to Myanmar in December. The activities of ASEANSAI throughout the year have been supported by the Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (BPK), which provides the organisation’s secretariat. BPK is now serving the Myanmar military junta’s chairpersonship. ‍ Stop legitimising the terrorist junta! The National Unity Government, which was democratically elected shortly before the attempted coup in February 2021, has designated the Myanmar military as a terrorist organisation, a classification supported by international legal experts under international law. INTOSAI and the Norwegian and Swedish auditors general are legitimising the illegal military junta through their continued engagement with, and support for, ASEANSAI. Since the junta’s auditor general has taken up the role of Chair of ASEANSAI, any engagement with the organisation legitimises the military junta and can amount to reputation laundering. Since the ASEANSAI Summit, the junta has continued to commit horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity in its attempt to gain full control of Myanmar. After the Myanmar military's killing of at least 35 people on Christmas Eve in Karenni State, the UN Security Council issued a statement demanding an immediate cessation of violence and accountability, yet the junta's campaign of terror continues with total impunity. The junta is desperately seeking international legitimacy. The acceptance of the junta and its auditor general by INTOSAI, ASEAN and audit institutions in Norway and Sweden has only emboldened its illegitimate coup. Continued engagement disregards the will of the Myanmar people, who are represented by the National Unity Government and overwhelmingly oppose the illegal attempted coup. The Myanmar military’s illegal coup attempt breaches the Lima Declaration of Guidelines on Auditing Precepts, which states independence as an essential prerequisite, and the Mexico Declaration on SAI Independence. Justice For Myanmar welcomes the European Union’s clear stance to not support ASEANSAI while the military junta is included. Other international organisations must follow suit. Justice For Myanmar calls on international organisations including ASEANSAI and INTOSAI to immediately stop recognising the Myanmar military junta and bar the junta’s OAG from participation in all international fora. ASEANSAI must revoke the junta’s chairpersonship. The auditors general of Norway and Sweden must stop all engagement with ASEANSAI while the Myanmar military junta is included, following the lead of the European Union..." ‍
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
Date of publication: 2022-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Justice For Myanmar calls on international audit institutions to end all engagement with the military junta’s auditor general
Description: "January 19, 2022, Myanmar: The illegal Myanmar military junta is being awarded legitimacy and support from regional and international organisations of supreme audit institutions, and the auditors general of Norway and Sweden, a Justice For Myanmar investigation has found. Despite the Myanmar people’s overwhelming rejection of the military’s illegal attempted coup on February 1 last year, ASEAN Supreme Audit Institutions (ASEANSAI) and the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) have recognised and engaged with the junta’s auditor general throughout 2021. In November, the junta’s Office of the Auditor General became chair of ASEANSAI for a two-year term, placing the junta in the leadership of an international organisation, likely for the first time. Following the attempted coup, the Myanmar military deposed Myanmar’s previous auditor general and appointed Dr Kan Zaw, a former deputy minister during the military’s previous proxy government led by the Union Solidarity and Development Party. The military’s appointment of Dr Kan Zaw breaches the Lima Declaration of Guidelines on Auditing Precepts and the Mexico Declaration on SAI Independence. ASEANSAI’s development partners, the Office of the Auditor General of Norway and the Swedish National Audit Office, have continued to engage with the Myanmar military’s auditor general through ASEANSAI, by providing training and technical support. The Swedish National Audit Office and a representative of a Norway-based INTOSAI program even attended the ASEANSAI Summit that was convened by the terrorist military junta on November 2. At the Summit, war criminal Vice Senior General of the Myanmar military, Soe Win, was “Guest of Honour”. Norwegian and Swedish recognition of the junta’s auditor general contrasts with the position of the European Union, which has told Justice For Myanmar that “the EU does not engage in any form of dialogue with the military junta. Therefore the EU does not plan participation in ASEANSAI events or support to ASEANSAI while the Myanmar military junta is included.” Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: “The Myanmar military junta is a terrorist organisation that is carrying out mass killings, rape and torture with total impunity. “Engagement and support for the junta’s auditor general has emboldened the junta’s terror campaign and provided legitimacy that the junta is desperately seeking. “ASEANSAI and its member states have failed to uphold human rights and respect the will of Myanmar people by recognising the junta’s auditor general and allowing him to assume leadership. “INTOSAI has also deplorably failed to respect human rights and the principle of independence of supreme audit institutions by formally recognising the junta. “We call on ASEANSAI and INTOSAI to immediately cease recognition of the Myanmar military junta and bar its representatives from participation in all events. “We welcome the EU’s position to not participate in, or support, ASEANSAI while it is under the leadership of the Myanmar military junta. Norway and Sweden must follow the EU’s lead and end all contact with the illegal junta, including its auditor general.”..." ‍
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
Date of publication: 2022-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Sacking of Myanmar Air Force Chief Fuels Personal Rift Rumors
Description: "The news that Myanmar’s air force chief has been forced to step down has prompted speculation about the role as the military regime is relying increasingly on airstrikes when fighting resistance groups across the country. General Maung Maung Kyaw, who has overseen deadly airstrikes on villagers and displaced civilians, was forced to retire on Jan. 10 and replaced by air force chief of staff, Lieutenant General Tun Aung. Some say his departure followed the military’s retirement policy while others speculate that the move was because of animosity from regime leader Min Aung Hlaing. Maung Maung Kyaw was appointed in January 2018 and his retirement was due this month under the policy that limits full generals’ terms to four years. Retirement is not, however, mandatory, with two-year extensions available. Some generals close to Min Aung Hlaing have served six years in the three roles that carry the rank of full general: chief of the general staff of the army, navy and air force – the third-highest military rank – and the naval and air force chiefs. General Khin Aung Myint was air force chief for more than five years from 2013 to 2018. He was concurrently chief of the general staff for more than a year and was the first general to hold both positions at the same time. Admiral Tin Aung San was naval chief for six years from 2015 to August 2021 when he was appointed transport and communications minister by the regime. The two generals stayed on for more than four years because both served the interests of Min Aung Hlaing, said a retired lieutenant general. General Mya Tun Oo, who was once tipped to be the next senior general, was chief of the general staff from August 2016 to January 2021 and appointed defense minister after the coup. General Hla Htay Win, who allegedly had a poor relationship with Min Aung Hlaing, was moved on after four years as the chief of the general staff after four years from April 2011 to August 2015. Admiral Thura Thet Swe, 60, retired as naval chief after three years from 2012 to August 2015 before he reached retirement age. According to military sources at the time, he was sacked because Min Aung Hlaing did not like his wife who was a doctor who often failed to attend military events and show him enough respect. The fate of former generals supports rumors of animosity between Min Aung Hlaing and Maung Maung Kyaw. Major General Lwin Oo, the deputy air force chief, retired before retirement age over his allegedly poor performance during the conflict in Kokang near the Chinese border in early 2015. He was dismissed after most of the missiles landed in Chinese territory, said a retired lieutenant general. Min Aung Hlaing has often ignored military policies on promotion and retirement when organizing his staff. He promoted the head of a non-combat unit to lieutenant general, which is unprecedented in the military’s recent history. The rank has previously only been awarded to regional commanders. Lieutenant General Aung Lin Dwe was sacked as judge advocate general and transferred to the reserve force. He, however, remains the secretary of the State Administration Council, the regime’s governing body. He was replaced by Major General Myo Thant Naing, who was promoted to lieutenant general and was previously the recruitment chief. To conclude, generals’ retirement date does appear to be linked to their relationship with Min Aung Hlaing..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2022-01-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Health Announcement No.1/2022 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအဖွဲ့ ကျန်းမာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁/၂၀၂၂)
Description: "၁။ (၁၂-၁-၂၀၂၂) ရက်နေ့၊ နံနက် (၁) နာရီအချိန်ခန့်က KNU - ကရင်အမျိုးသားအစည်းအရုံး၊ မူတြော် ခရိုင်၊ ဒွယ်လိုးမြို့နယ်တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက လေကြောင်းဖြင့် ဗုံးကြဲတိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့ရာ ဒွယ်လိုးမြို့နယ်အတွင်းရှိ ဝါးခါဒဲနှင့် လယ်ထူဖိုး ဆေးရုံ/ဆေးပေးခန်းများ ဗုံးထိမှန်ပျက်စီးခဲ့ ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။ ၂။ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းသည့် (၁-၂-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့မှ (၃၀-၁၁-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့အထိ (၁၀) လတာ ကာလအတွင်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှု လုပ်ငန်းစုစုပေါင်း (၃၅၅) ခုကို တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်း၊ ကျန်းမာရေးလုပ်သား (၂၈၄) ဦးကို ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း၊ ဆေးရုံ/ဆေးခန်း (၁၁၃) ခုကို ဝင်ရောက်စီးနင်းလုယက်ခြင်းနှင့် ကျန်းမာရေးလုပ်သား (၃၁) ဦးကို သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းတို့အား ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့ကြောင်း Insecurity Insight အဖွဲ့၊ Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) အဖွဲ့နှင့် the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health and Human Rights (CPHHR) အဖွဲ့တို့က (၂၃-၁၂-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် ပူးတွဲထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ (https://tinyurl.com/violenceagainsthealthcare) ၃။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းများနှင့် ကျန်းမာရေးလုပ်သား များအပေါ် အထက်ပါအတိုင်း ကျူးလွန်ရက်စက်နေသည်သာမက ကချင်၊ ကယား/ကရင်နီ၊ ကရင်၊ ချင်း၊ မွန်၊ ရှမ်း၊ စစ်ကိုင်း၊ မကွေး၊ ပဲခူး၊ တနင်္သာရီ အစရှိသည့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဒေသအနှံ့အပြား တွင် အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများကို အစုလိုက်အပြုံလိုက် မီးရှို့သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ လေကြောင်းနှင့် လက်နက်ကြီးများ အသုံးပြု၍ အရပ်သားပြည်သူများကို ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ ပစ်ခတ်တိုက်ခိုက် ခြင်း၊ အိုးအိမ်ပစ္စည်းများကို မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးလုယက်ခြင်း စသော အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များကို လူစိတ်မဲ့စွာ ဆက်တိုက်ကျူးလွန်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များကြောင့် (၁-၂-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့မှ (၃-၁-၂၀၂၂) ရက်နေ့အတွင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဒေသ အသီးသီးရှိ ပြည်သူ (၄) သိန်းနီးပါးခန့်မှာ မိမိတို့၏ နေရပ်အသီးသီးကိုစွန့်ခွာ၍ စစ်ဘေးရှောင် နေရလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ (https://tinyurl.com/unhcridpmyanmar) ၄။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ကျန်းမာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အဆိုပါအကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များအပေါ် ပြင်းထန်စွာကန့်ကွက်ရှုတ်ချလိုက်ပြီး ဂျီနီဗာကွန်ဗန်းရှင်း (Geneva Conventions) နှင့် ကမ္ဘာ့ကုလသမဂ္ဂလုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီ၏ ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက်များ အပါအဝင် ပြည်တွင်းဥပဒေများ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေများကို ပျက်ရယ်ပြု၊ ချိုးဖောက်နေသည့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီကို နိုင်ငံတကာအနေဖြင့် အချိန်မီထိရောက်စွာ တားဆီးအရေးယူကြ ပါရန် တောင်းဆိုထုတ်ပြန်အပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication: 2022-01-13
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar Air Force Chief Forced to Retire
Description: "Myanmar’s air force chief General Maung Maung Kyaw, who oversaw airstrikes that killed dozens of civilians while businesses owned by his family enriched themselves, has been forced to retire. The military regime did not give a reason for its unexpected decision to replace him with Chief of Staff (Air Force) Lieutenant General Tun Aung. General Maung Maung Kyaw, who was once regarded as being close to coup leader Senior General Ming Aung Hlaing, is 58 and still two years short of the official retirement age in Myanmar. But junta sources said that the decision was in accordance with military retirement policy because General Maung Maung Kyaw had already served as head of the air force for four years. Striking military captain Nyi Thuta said: “There have been previous cases in which the military extended the retirement age for people it wanted to keep. Perhaps the coup leader thinks the general does not listen to him, and therefore he doesn’t want to keep him.” But General Maung Maung Kyaw will remain a member of the State Administration Council (SAC), the military regime’s governing body. The general was sanctioned by the United States in February 2021, for being a senior member of the military and the SAC responsible for lethal crackdowns on peaceful anti-coup protestors. General Maung Maung Kyaw is the youngest son of General Thura Kyaw Htin, who served as the air force chief during the military dictatorship of the 1980s. The general was rapidly promoted through the ranks before becoming head of the air force in January 2018. At that time, General Maung Maung Kyaw was seen as close to Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and was widely tipped by Myanmar defense analysts as likely to move into a more senior role eventually. His promotion to air force chief saw his relatives establishing companies which were later involved in deals to supply the armed forces and the country’s aviation sector, according to an investigation by Reuters last year. The junta has also recently forced Lieutenant General Aung Lin Dwe to step down as Judge Advocate General and transferred him to the reserve force. He did, however, retain his position as the SAC’s secretary. Since last year’s coup, Myanmar’s air force has launched airstrikes against resistance groups and ethnic armed groups fighting the military regime. Dozens of civilians were killed and thousands displaced by junta airstrikes in 2021. The Karen National Union said that at least 31 civilians were killed by airstrikes in its territory in Karen State last year, while more than 50,000 people were displaced by the fighting. Many more are feared to have been affected in Sagaing Region and, most recently, thousands of civilians were displaced by airstrikes in Loikaw, the Kayah State capital. Myanmar’s military has stepped up its use of aerial attacks, despite demands from ethnic armed groups that it ceases using them because they do more harm to the civilian population than resistance fighters..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2022-01-12
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: National Unity Government Announcement No.2/2022 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၂/၂၀၂၂)
Sub-title: ကရင်နီပြည်နယ်တွင်ဖြစ်ပေါ်နေသည့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များနှင့် ပတ်သက်သည့် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်
Description: "၁။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်ဖွဲ့သည် ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ (၇) ရက်နေ့မှစတင်ပြီး ယမန်နေ့အထိ ကရင်နီပြည်နယ်၊ လွိုင်ကော်မြို့ကိုလေကြောင်းမှလည်းကောင်း၊ မြို့တွင်း၌တင့်ကားများအသုံးပြု၍လည်း ကောင်း သာလွန်အင်အားများဖြင့်ပစ်ခတ်တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့သည်။ ယင်းသို့ ပစ်ခတ်တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်းကြောင့် အရပ်သား ပြည်သူများကိုထိမှန်ခြင်း၊ အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများ၏နေအိမ်များ မီးလောင်ကျွမ်းခြင်းအပါအဝင် ထိခိုက်ပျက်စီးမှု များစွာဖြစ်ပေါ်ခဲ့သည့်ပြင် အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများထောင်နှင့်ချီ၍ ဘေးလွတ်ရာ အရပ်ဒေသများ သို့ တိမ်းရှောင် ထွက်ပြေးနေကြရလျက်ရှိသည်။ ၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအဖွဲ့သည် ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ (၉) ရက်နေ့ညနေပိုင်းတွင် ပြည်ထောင်စု ဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ဦးဆောင်၍ ကရင်နီပြည်အတိုင်ပင်ခံကောင်စီမှ တာဝန်ရှိခေါင်းဆောင်များနှင့် အရေးပေါ် တွေ့ဆုံပြီး လက်ရှိ ကရင်နီပြည်နယ်တွင်ဖြစ်ပေါ်နေသည့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များနှင့် အရပ်သားပြည်သူများရင်ဆိုင်ကြုံတွေ့နေရသည့်အခက်အခဲများကို အတူတကွဖြေရှင်း ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ရန်အတွက် နှစ်ဖက်ရင်းနှီးပွင့်လင်းစွာဆွေးနွေးညှိနှိုင်းခဲ့ကြသည်။ ၃။ ကရင်နီပြည်နယ်၊ လွိုင်ကော်မြို့တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်ဖွဲ့များမှ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သော လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုများအပါအဝင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအနှံ့အပြား၌ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီကပြုမူလျက် ရှိသော အကြမ်းဖက် မှုများအတွက် ပြင်းထန်စွာရှုတ်ချကြောင်းနှင့် စစ်ကောင်စီကြောင့်ဒုက္ခဆင်းရဲမှု မျိုးစုံကြုံတွေ့နေရသည့် တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူများအား မိမိတို့အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအဖွဲ့အနေဖြင့် ပြည်သူအတွက် ပြည်သူက ရပ်တည်ကြမည်ဟူသောဆောင်ပုဒ်နှင့်အညီ တတ်နိုင်သမျှ ကူညီထောက်ပံ့မှုများ ဆက်လက်ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း အသိပေးထုတ်ပြန်အပ်ပါသည်။ ၄။ ကုလသမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့ကြီးနှင့် အာဆီယံတို့အပါအဝင် လူသားချင်းစာနာထောက်ထားမှုနှင့် လူသားဂုဏ်သိက္ခာကို အလေးအမြတ်ပြုတန်ဖိုးထားကြသည့် နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းများအနေဖြင့်လည်း အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုနှင့် စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုများကို မျက်ခြေမပြတ်စောင့်ကြည့်သိရှိပြီး၊ ကရင်နီပြည်နယ်၊ ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းနှင့် မကွေးတိုင်းတို့အပါအဝင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတဝှမ်းတွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီကြောင့် အရပ်သားပြည်သူများ ဒုက္ခမျိုးစုံရင်ဆိုင်ကြုံတွေ့ခံစားနေရမှုကို အမြန်ဆုံး ရပ်တန့်နိုင်ရေးအတွက် ထိရောက် သောအရေးယူဆောင်ရွက်မှုများအလျင်အမြန်ပြုလုပ်နိုင်ရန် အလေးအနက် ထပ်မံတိုက်တွန်းပန်ကြားပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication: 2022-01-11
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-11
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Title: Over 7,000 people flee homes around Done Taw village
Sub-title: Many had already fled the area after 11 people were massacred and burned in the village last month
Description: "More than 7,000 people have fled their homes in Sagaing Region’s Yinmabin and Salingyi townships since Saturday in fear of attacks from junta soldiers, a local relief group has told Myanmar Now. Residents of about 10 villages along the road connecting the regional capital Monywa to Pathein in southern Myanmar are now sheltering in schools and monasteries in other villages or in surrounding forests, said a member of the Pyithu Hma Pyithu group. They have fled villages including Aung Moe, Mya Pin Si, Mya Shwe Si, Bein Nwe Chaung, and Done Taw, where 11 unarmed men and boys were apparently burned to death by junta soldiers last month. Many villagers from around Done Taw had already fled their homes following last month’s massacre, local aid groups said. The presence of soldiers in the area, as well as recent clashes with resistance fighters in nearby Pale township, led villagers to fear further attacks over the weekend and flee their homes. A day after residents fled Kyay Sar Kya, junta soldiers attacked the village with artillery and looted and burned houses, a local who fled told Myanmar Now. “Around five houses were torched, the roofs of some houses were destroyed during the shelling,” the villager said. “The houses on the side of the road had their furniture stolen as well. They lost so much valuable furniture and appliances including televisions, refrigerators and rice cookers.” There were no casualties as the village had been abandoned the day before, he said. Pyithu Hma Pyithu, or From the People to the People, has sent food supplies to the displaced villagers. “Some are facing a lot of hardship as they have to stay in the forests,” said the member of the group. “It can’t be good for their health if they have to stay there for a long time.” Several Kyay Sar Kya locals said that on Monday morning they saw three helicopters above the area where they were sheltering and the aircraft hovered around for several hours..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2022-01-11
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-11
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Title: Aung San Suu Kyi: Ousted Myanmar leader jailed for another four years
Description: "A court in Myanmar has sentenced ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four more years in prison, in the latest of a series of trials. She was convicted for the illegal possession and import of walkie-talkies and breaking Covid-19 rules. Ms Suu Kyi was first convicted in December, and given a reduced jail sentence of two years. She has been detained since a military coup last February and faces about a dozen charges, all of which she denies. Her trials have been widely condemned as unfair. The charges in the latest case stem from when soldiers searched her house on the day of the coup by forces led by army chief General Min Aung Hlaing. The devices they say they discovered are presumed to have been used by her security guards, resulting in a conviction widely viewed as no more than a tactic to justify detaining her. Monday's trial in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, was closed to the media and Ms Suu Kyi's lawyers have been barred from communicating with the media and public. Last month the Nobel laureate was found guilty of incitement of dissent and breaking Covid-19 rules, in what was condemned as a "sham trial" by UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet. BACKGROUND: The general who returned Myanmar to military rule AS IT HAPPENED: Myanmar coup: What happened and why? PROFILE: Democracy icon who fell from grace In response to Monday's sentencing, Human Rights Watch called the legal proceedings a "courtroom circus of secret proceedings on bogus charges... so that (Aung San Suu Kyi) will remain in prison indefinitely". The statement by the group's deputy Asia director Phil Robertson also accused the military of securing convictions "in a kangaroo court on the flimsiest, politically motivated charges", and said it was "running roughshod over the human rights of everyone, ranging from Suu Kyi... to the Civil Disobedience Movements activists on the street". The military's seizure of power in Myanmar (also called Burma) last February came months after Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won November 2020 general elections by a landslide. The military alleged voter fraud in the victory, however independent election observers have said the elections were largely free and fair. The coup triggered widespread demonstrations and Myanmar's military has cracked down on pro-democracy protesters, activists and journalists. Ms Suu Kyi is one of more than 10,600 people to have been arrested by the junta since February, with at least 1,303 others killed in the demonstrations, according to the monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The latest sentence brings her total prison term so far to six years, but were she convicted of all the charges she faces, she could spend the rest of her life in detention. The 76-year-old, who has not been seen in public since her house arrest, still faces several more serious charges - of corruption, election fraud and breaking the official secrets act. Whether she actually spends any time in jail depends on what the military wants to do with its most famous prisoner, the BBC's Jonathan Head says. The ruling junta still faces widespread opposition; parts of the country are now engulfed in armed conflict, and the economy is near collapse. Neighbouring countries are seeking a negotiated end to the conflict. So far they have made little progress, but if they do, our correspondent says it is likely such talks would at some point have to involve Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains very popular. An icon who fell from grace Aung San Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years in detention at the hands of the military between 1989 and 2010, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to bring democracy to Myanmar. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in 2015, but she was prevented from becoming president herself by rules excluding those with foreign national children from holding that office. She was widely regarded as the de facto ruler of the country. However her reputation abroad was severely damaged by the way she handled the Rohingya crisis, which started in 2017. EXPLAINED:What you need to know about the Rohingya crisis In 2019 Ms Suu Kyi appeared at the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) to defend her country against accusations of genocide..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
Date of publication: 2022-01-10
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-10
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Title: Myanmar: 20 civilians reported killed in latest military attack in rebel hotspot
Description: "Around 20 civilians have been killed and nearly 40 homes destroyed in a Myanmar village, according to local media, the latest in a series of massacres allegedly committed by the military. The victims of the attack in late December were found in the north-eastern Sagaing region, and included four men 60 or older, online news outlet Myanmar Now reported. The military seized power in a coup in February last year, creating a political crisis that has developed into a civil war marked by extreme brutality by security forces. Sagaing was one of the first areas where civilians rose up in armed rebellion after the military slaughtered hundreds of peaceful protesters. The region has seen armed clashes, multiple massacres and military airstrikes. According to Myanmar Now, the military occupied Natchaung village in late December, with resistance groups compiling a list of victims on 31 December. The year ended with a number of other violent incidents. The military allegedly massacred more than 30 civilians in Kayah State on Christmas Eve, near the border with Thailand, including women, children and two members of international humanitarian organisation Save the Children. While the United Nations called for a “thorough and transparent investigation into the incident”, state media dismissed the reports as a “plot … drawn up based on their whims and fancies”. A spokesperson for the Kayah state police, a revolutionary force formed by officers who defected after the coup, said during a press conference that they had received missing person reports of 42 people, but have confirmed 31 deaths. A doctor said many of the bodies bore signs of torture. Fighting also broke out in Karen state in December after military forces entered territory controlled by an ethnic armed group sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement, arresting political dissidents in hiding. Thousands fled as fighting spread throughout the state, with many seeking refuge in Thailand, where an estimated 6,000 still remain with limited access to basic necessities..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Dozens of homes reported destroyed in junta attack in north-eastern Sagaing region, one of the first areas where civilians rose up
Date of publication: 2022-01-05
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-06
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Title: ၉၁ နှစ်ပြည့် တောင်သူလယ်သမားနေ့ အထိမ်းအမှတ်အဖြစ် တောင်သူလယ်သမားထုထံသို့ပေးပို့သော သဝဏ်လွှာ
Source/publisher: University of Yangon Students’ Union
Date of publication: 2021-12-22
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: A Month of Fires in Thantlang, Myanmar
Sub-title: Satellite Imagery, Thermal Anomalies Data Show Numerous Burnings
Description: "Since October 29, numerous fires have severely damaged Thantlang, a remote town in Myanmar’s northwestern Chin State. The evidence from space is undeniable: residential homes, places of worship, commercial buildings, and more have been reduced to ash. To monitor the situation, Human Rights Watch used data provided by the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), which distributes Near Real-Time (NRT) thermal anomalies and active fire data within three hours of satellite observation from MODIS and VIIRS instruments. These environmental satellites have detected several thermal anomalies over Thantlang town on at least 10 different dates in the past month, during the day and at night. Human Rights Watch also reviewed dozens of satellite images collected by PlanetScope, a constellation of satellites operated by the company Planet, that capture the entire world every day at three meters resolution. Human Rights Watch was not able to estimate the total number of destroyed buildings, due to the images’ spatial resolution, but before and after satellite imagery helped to confirm the locations of the most severely damaged areas as indicated in the thermal anomaly data. The satellite imagery and thermal anomalies data corroborated multiple reports of burning in Thantlang, including aerial photos and videos of fires and damaged buildings that appeared on social media over the past month, plus reports from local media and human rights groups. The evidence shows the damage did not result from one large fire that spread through the town but from numerous fires that originated in different parts of the town over several days, suggesting they were deliberately set. How exactly these fires started remains unclear. Both the Myanmar military and the anti-junta militia fighting the military have blamed each other for the burnings. Over the past month, local media have reported brief clashes between the Myanmar military and anti-junta militia groups in the area. The town has been largely uninhabited since September when most of its population fled due to earlier fighting. Independent monitors are needed to determine what’s happening in Chin State. Concerned governments and the United Nations should press for humanitarian agencies to get unhindered access. Coordinated sanctions are needed against those responsible for the abuses..."
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Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication: "2021-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-02
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Title: RECONCILIATION: A WAY OF DOING MISSION IN MYANMAR
Description: "The dissertation argues reconciliation as a way of doing mission in Myanmar. The see-discern-act method of research is used. The study has three parts. First, the study critically reflects on the context of reconciliation by diagnosing the present reality and situation of the country. Related information and data are collected from different fields of study. The research identifies the main obstacles to peace, harmony, and reconciliation as civil war, socio-ethnic conflict, religious violence, militarism, political unrest, fragmentation, poverty and corruption. Second, the research discerns and evaluates the challenge of reconciliation. It accesses the research problem from interreligious and multicultural perspectives in search of the possible solutions. If Myanmar will not have a future without reconciliation, the Church must be part of working on reconciliation in order to build that future. The research finds out that mission as reconciliation is possible by upholding spiritual ideals, which are found in Myanmar, such as harmony, nonviolence, peace, truth, justice, forgiveness, and healing. Mission is promotion of the spiritual ideals for reconciliation. Third, the dissertation proposes reconciliation as mission. Apart from the traditional scope of human-God-nature reconciliation this study extends a new frontier of spirits-ancestors-cultures-religions reconciliation. The research proves that reconciliation is more a mission, a religious act, and a spiritual virtue than a strategy, a political program, a secular concern, and a civic project. Therefore, the Church must do mission as ministry of reconciliation in many areas, at various levels, and according to its capacity. When reconciliation is adopted as a way of doing and being in mission the Church walks the path to a new way of being Church as communion through reconciliation.....ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: To pay homage to God, Dharma, Sangha, Teachers, and Parents is the fivefold Burmese socio-religious teaching (annandaw annanda nga pa) which the researcher is deeply obliged to fulfill for the accomplishment of his research. Fr. Edgar G. Javier, SVD his professor and advisor, first and foremost, fully deserves this homage in a special way for his great enlightenment and accompaniment. Gratefulness goes to Dr. Mike Lambino for editing this dissertation and for his kind corrections to the text. Professors who teach the student in the doctoral class deserve the greatest gratitude for all their noble gift of Dharma of intellectual support which surpasses all other gifts. Archbishop Paul Zinghtung Grawng (Archbishop emeritus of Mandalay), Bishop Philip Lasap Za Hawng (Bishop of Lashio), and Cardinal Charles Maung Bo (Archbishop of Yangon) deserve this homage for their various helps in conducting this research. Colleagues and friends of the student are given “a big thanks” for their critiques, suggestions, and insights in the process of this research writing. All the personnel of Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia (ICLA), and the librarians of Loyola School of Theology (LST), St. Vincent School of Theology (SVST), Myanmar Council of Churches (MCC), Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT) and St. Joseph Major Seminary (SMS) are fully acknowledged for the academic support in this research. Special gratitude is due to the Institute of Missiology Missio e.V. (MWI) for the scholarship for this study. Likewise, the anonymous supporters are graciously thanked for their generosity..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Maung John
Date of publication: 2016-03-18
Date of entry/update: 2021-11-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: COP26 PARTNER JAGUAR/LAND ROVER LINKED TO BURMESE MILITARY
Description: "Jaguar/Land Rover are not a suitable partner for the COP26 climate change conference because their owner, Tata, supplies vehicles to the genocidal Burmese military. The UK Presidency of COP26 has made Jaguar Land Rover an official partner of the conference: https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/partnerships-and-support/ Tata, which also owns Tetley Tea, have supplied troop carriers and military staff cars to the Burmese military. They feature on the Burma Campaign UK ‘Dirty List’: https://burmacampaign.org.uk/take-action/dirty-list/ which names and shames companies linked to the Burmese military. Tata also boast of their plans to increase their role in the coal industry, one of the dirtiest and most polluting fossil fuels. The Tata International website states: “Having established ourselves as one of India’s leading private coal importers in the last few years, our aim is to grow into one of the largest coal trading companies in the country. Our short term goal is to grow our traded volume of thermal coal to 10 million tons per annum in the coming years with focus on India.” https://tatainternational.com/minerals/coal-coke-and-anthracite/ Burma is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. The Burmese military have been documented by the United Nations as committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. They are currently being investigated for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, and face charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. In February the military held a coup, and since then have killed more than 1,000 people, jailed more than 7,000, and forced more than a quarter of a million people to flee their homes. “Jaguar/Land Rover are part of a company which equips a military responsible for genocide,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK. “Tata should not be allowed to use the COP26 conference to promote its companies and brands at the same time as it equips a military which tortures critics and rapes children.”..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of publication: 2021-11-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-11-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: KPICT Statement on Bombardment of Thantlang No. (3/P-1/KPICT/2021) - ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့အား ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ အကြမ်းဖက်တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်းအပေါ် Kachin PKPICT၏ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက် စာအမှတ် (၃/P-1/KPICT/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "1. The terrorist State Administration Council (SAC) is ruthlessly attempting to install military rule through nationwide military offensives which purposefully target civilians and their properties. This signifies utmost violation of international human rights conventions. 2. It is heartbreaking to see several churches and civilian homes in Thantlang, Chin State, destroyed by indiscriminate artillery shelling of the military junta on October 29, 2021. 3. These incidents are irrefutable evidence of purposeful violation of international humanitarian laws and crimes against humanity. 4. We urge international communities to closely monitor SAC’s violation of international humanitarian laws and Geneva Convention, to urge SAC to end its inhumane crime against the civilians, and to stand by the SAC-victimized people. 5. We express our deepest sympathies with grieving people of Thantland, and affirm that, in solidarity with the oppressed people of the country, we will continue fighting against the fascist dictatorship..."
Source/publisher: Kachin Political Interim Coordination Team - KPICT
Date of publication: 2021-11-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-11-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf
Size: 20.45 KB 200.56 KB
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Title: Joint Statement from Student Unions
Description: "Throughout the ages to this day, the fascist military has been oppressing the people by means of weapons. To this day, for the prosperity of the generals and their kins, they have been terrorizing ethnic regions, including homelands of minorities, by robbing their properties and committing genocides. Even more recently, on 29.10.2021, they set fire to the town of Htantalan in Chin State, burning down 164 houses, including churches. The military has been leeching upon the people by forcibly taking lands, farms and businesses, belonging to civilians, and converting to military-owned businesses. Thus, the main income-generating enterprises of the nation are owned by generals and their kins, and now the military has unlawfully seized power to exploit the economy of the entire nation. Even before the unlawful military coup, the people, who do not wish to be oppressed, have strived to refrain from using products of military-owned businesses and, accordingly, to stop the income of the military. And now, after the coup of the fascist military, the movements have become more rigorous, boycotting not only military-owned businesses but also those associated with the fascist State Administrative Council and those providing income for the illegitimate government. Every civilian is appalled by the fact that their money will fund bullets to murder another civilian. Yet, we have learned that the fascist military is going to have bullets funded by billions of dollars provided by international oil enterprises. Providing taxes to the fascist military, who are actively committing genocides, equates to funding for, and thus, committing the genocides ourselves. Therefore, we, the Student Unions, call for the following actions from respective international oil enterprises and governments: 1. To absolutely stop the flow of income from international companies to the illegitimate terrorist military. 2. To temporarily reserve taxes, that are to be paid to Myanmar’s government, in a bank until democracy is restored and the people’s government is in power. (To keep in an Escrow Account.) 3. For international governments to impose targeted sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) which is now under control of the military regime. Right now in Myanmar, the oppressed people are being confronted by the fascist military who have been oppressing us for the sake of the generals and their associates. Even now the people’s resistance has not died down. Therefore, we, the Student Unions, urge international governments and companies not to stand against the people of Myanmar and to respect and support the wills of the people..."
Source/publisher: 236 Myanmar Student Unions
Date of publication: 2021-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf
Size: 172.7 KB 1.43 MB
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Title: More than 160 homes burn down in junta shelling of Chin State town
Sub-title: Two of Thantlang’s churches also caught fire, and some 20 children are feared to be trapped in an orphanage in the besieged town
Description: "Amid an escalation of both armed resistance to military rule and reprisals from the junta forces, Myanmar army troops shelled the largely deserted western Chin State town of Thantlang on Friday, causing fires that destroyed more than 160 of the town’s 2,000 homes. The attack came after a junta soldier was shot dead at 9:30am by the Chinland Defence Force (CDF)—which has been monitoring the situation in Thantlang—after members of the local resistance group said they saw him looting a shop. In retaliation for the killing, the junta’s armed forces occupying the area shot at least 10 rounds of artillery into the town, which started fires upon exploding. Within an hour, several troops had arrived at the location at which the soldier was killed and also began torching houses “for no reason,” a CDF spokesperson said. “They walked into the town at around 10:30am and torched the houses at random,” the spokesperson from the CDF’s Thantlang chapter told Myanmar Now. By 5pm, at least 40 houses had burnt down, with the fires continuing to burn throughout the night, he said. A man who lives near Thantlang told Myanmar Now that there was “still smoke coming out” of the town on Friday evening. By 9am Saturday morning, the fire had died down but homes were still smoldering, according to the Zalen news outlet. The Thantlang CDF took note of the estimated 160 houses that were destroyed and at the time of reporting were still notifying the homeowners, the group’s spokesperson said. The Church on the Rock, the Presbyterian church, and a building attached to the Thantlang Baptist Church—the town’s largest congregation—also caught fire in the shelling, the Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO) said in a statement on Friday night. International non-profit organisation Save the Children also reported that their local office in Thantlang was destroyed in the fire. Nearly all of Thantlang’s 8,000 residents fled following military assaults that destroyed 18 homes and a government building in September. This too was seen as a retaliation against the public and the resistance after an attack by the CDF and the Chin National Army on a junta base reportedly killed some 30 soldiers. Thousands of the civilians displaced from Thantlang have been taking shelter in villages along the India-Myanmar border, with others crossing into India’s Mizoram State. At least three people, including two elderly women, were known to have stayed behind in Thantlang after others had fled. Myanmar Now was unable to contact them on Friday after the military shelling. In their Friday statement, CHRO reported that more than 20 children and their teachers had stayed behind in an orphanage located at the entrance to Thantlang and remained trapped. “The extensive destruction of civilian property, carried out wantonly and not justified by any military necessity, represent war crimes and grave breaches of international humanitarian law,” CHRO’s Salai Za Uk Ling said in the statement. . Salai Issac Khen, a former municipal minister of Chin State under the National League for Democracy administration ousted in Myanmar’s February 1 coup, condemned the shelling on Friday in a Facebook post blaming the military for the destruction after rumours circulated that the residents of Thantlang were somehow responsible for the blaze. “It is not easy to build a house in the Chin hills. The Chin people do not have any reason to torch their own homes,” he wrote. On Sunday, junta mouthpiece the Global New Light of Myanmar accused the PDF burning the homes in Thantlang and committing “terrorist acts.” Military council spokesperson Gen Zaw Min Tun also said in a statement on Sunday that the local PDF—encouraged by the shadow National Unity Government and living “under the cover of [the] people”—had started the fire and that the military was unable to extinguish it. In September 2017, following a scorched earth military campaign against the Rohingya population of Rakhine State—south of Chin State—the Myanmar army and government infamously accused the fleeing Rohingya of burning down their own homes. The claim was widely dismissed by the refugees themselves, human rights groups and the international community, and later submitted to a UN court as evidence of genocide. “The military council will go down in history as responsible for this fire in Thantlang today,” Salai Issac Khen wrote, and urged all ethnic Chin members of the military council to “immediately resign.” Around 200 troops from the military’s Light Infantry Division 11 and Light Infantry Battalion 269 based in the Chin State capital of Hakha have been stationed on a hill overlooking Thantlang, according to the CDF. “We will take our town back,” the Thantlang CDF spokesperson said. The Myanmar military deployed thousands of troops to northwestern Myanmar, including Chin State and Sagaing and Magway regions, earlier this month. The move appears to be preparation for a concerted push to crush the resistance movement that has inflicted heavy casualties on the junta’s army. Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun said on Friday in an address to the Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly’s 76th session that “decisive timely action” by the UN on the country’s situation was “well overdue,” and highlighted the most recent military assault on Thantlang as evidence of the deteriorating conditions in Myanmar. “All people, I repeat all people in Myanmar, are suffering every day, every hour, every minute from atrocities, crimes against humanity committed by the military and some even brutally killed,” Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun said. “Your serious attention to basic rights of all people and your action to prevent all people from such atrocities is seriously needed,” he said. Editor’s Note: This article was updated on October 31 to include reference to the junta’s report and their spokesperson’s statement on the fire..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2021-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Statement on Terrorist Acts by Forces of Terrorist Military Junta in Thantlang, Chin State
Description: "1. On October 29, 2021, the terrorist coup military’s forces intentionally attacked and burned people’s houses with heavy artilleries, and about 300 houses of Thantlang residents and religious buildings were destroyed. 2. Moreover, since February 1st coup, the terrorist SAC’s forces have been committing numerous atrocities in Chin State such as burning people’s homes, robbery and destroying public properties, unlawfully arresting, killing innocent civilians, and sexual assaults against women. 3. This is a serious warning to the terrorist military’s forces to immediately stop all fascist and violent campaign against people of Chin State – such as air strikes, heavy artilleries on civilians’ homes, targeting innocent civilians, using civilians as porters for the military purposes, and all genocidal acts. 4. Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration stands committed to ensuring all those responsible in the fascist military to be held accountable for such atrocities under the Law, and will collaborate with the international community to take actions against the fascist military. 5. We urge that international community as well as both domestic and international organizations provide support to humanitarian needs of conflict-affected people of Chin State..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration - Myanmar
Date of publication: 2021-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 31.56 KB
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Title: ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့၌ အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များ၏ အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်း၍ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက်
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ ရက်စွဲ။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ (၃၀) ရက် ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့၌ အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များ၏ အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်း၍ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက် ၁။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၉ ရက်နေ့မှစ၍ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များ၏ လက်နက်ကြီးများဖြင့် ပစ်ခတ်မှုများ၊ မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးမှုများကြောင့် ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့ရှိ အရပ်သားပြည်သူများ၏ နေအိမ် ၁၅၀ ကျော်နှင့် ဘာသာရေးအဆောက်အအုံများ မီးလောင် ပျက်စီး သွားကြောင်း သိရှိပါသည်။ ၂။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များသည် အရပ်သားပြည်သူများ၏ နေအိမ်များကို မီးရှို့ ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း၊ ငွေကြေးနှင့် အဖိုးတန်ပစ္စည်းများကို ခိုးယူလုယက်ခြင်း၊ အပြစ်မဲ့ အရပ်သားများကို ဖမ်းဆီးနှိပ်စက်သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းများကို ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ ကျူးလွန်လုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ၃။ ချင်းပြည်နယ်အတွင်းရှိ အရပ်သားပြည်သူများ၊ အမျိုးသမီးနှင့် ကလေးသူများသည် စစ်ဘေး ဒဏ်ပြင်းထန်စွာခံစားရလျက်ရှိပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များ၏ အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များ နှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုများကို ပြင်းပြင်းထန်ထန် ရှုံ့ချပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များကို ချက်ချင်းရပ်တန့်ရန် အသိပေးအပ်သည်။ ၄။ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီအနေဖြင့် လိုအပ်သည့် အရေးယူဆောင် ရွက်မှုများ ပြုလုပ်နိုင်ရေး ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပအဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် ပူးပေါင်းလုပ်ဆောင်သွားမည် ဖြစ်ပြီး နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝှမ်းနှင့် ချင်းပြည်နယ်ရှိ စစ်ဘေးသင့် ပြည်သူများအတွက် ဝိုင်းဝန်းကူညီပေးကြပါရန် တိုက်တွန်းအပ်ပါသည်။.."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
Date of publication: 2021-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 235.13 KB
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Title: ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့၌ အာဏာသိမ်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်တပ်များ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်း၍ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက်
Description: "ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့၌ အာဏာသိမ်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်တပ်များ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်း၍ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက် ၃၀ ရက်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ၁။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၉ ရက်နေ့တွင် အာဏာသိမ်းအကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီဖက်ဆစ်စစ်တပ်၏ လက်နက်ကြီးများဖြင့် ပစ်ခတ်မှုများ၊ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ လူနေအိမ်များကို မီးလောင်တိုက်သွင်းမှုများကြောင့် ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့၌ အရပ်သား ပြည်သူများ၏ နေအိမ် (၃၀၀) ခန့် နှင့် ဘာသာရေးအဆောက်အအုံများ မီးလောင်ပျက်စီးသွားပါသည်။ ၂။ ထို့အပြင် အာဏာသိမ်းအကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်တပ် တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များသည် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့နောက်ပိုင်းမှစ၍ ချင်းပြည်နယ်ရှိ အရပ်သားပြည်သူများ၏ နေအိမ်များကို မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း၊ ငွေကြေးဥစ္စာပစ္စည်းများ ခိုးယူခြင်း နှင့် ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း၊ အပြစ်မဲ့ အရပ်သားများကို ဖမ်းဆီးနှိပ်စက်ညှဉ်းပမ်း သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းများ၊ အမျိုးသမီးများအား အဓမ္မပြုကျင့်မှုများကို တရားလက်လွန် အကြမ်းဖက်မှု ကျူးလွန်လုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ၃။ ချင်းပြည်နယ်အတွင်း အာဏာသိမ်းအကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်တပ်၏ လေကြောင်း စစ်ဆင်ရေးများ၊ လက်နက်ကြီးများဖြင့် လူနေအိမ်များကို ပစ်ခတ်မှုများ၊ ပြည်သူလူထုကို ပစ်မှတ်ထားတိုက်ခိုက်မှုများ၊ စစ်ဆင်ရေးများတွင် အရပ်သားပြည်သူများအား လူသားဒိုင်းအသုံးပြု နေမှုများ၊ လူမျိုးနွယ်စုများကို ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ ပျက်သုဉ်းအောင်တိုက်ခိုက်နေမှုများ စသည့် ဖက်ဆစ်ဆန်ဆန် အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များကို ချက်ချင်း ရပ်တန်းက ရပ်ရန် သတိပေးလိုက်သည်။ ၄။ ပြည်ထဲရေးနှင့်လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်တပ်၏ အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များကို အပြည့်အဝ တာဝန်မှုရှိစေရေး၊ တရားဥပ‌ဒေအောက် အရောက်ခေါ်ယူ၍ ပြည်သူ့တရားစီရင်နိုင်ရေးတို့ကို ဆက်လက်လုပ်ဆောင်သွားမည်ဖြစ်သည့်အပြင် နိုင်ငံတကာ အသိုင်းအဝိုင်းနှင့်လည်း ချိတ်တွဲလျက် ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်တပ်အပေါ် အရေးယူနိုင်ရေးကို ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင် ရွက်သွားမည်။ ၅။ နိုင်ငံတကာမိသားစုများ၊ ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပအဖွဲ့အစည်းများအနေဖြင့် ချင်းပြည်နယ်ရှိ စစ်ဘေးသင့် ပြည်သူများအတွက် လိုအပ်နေသည့် လူမှုဘဝဆင်းရဲဒုက္ခများကို ဝိုင်းဝန်းကူညီပေး ကြပါရန် တောင်းဆိုတိုက်တွန်းလိုက်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration - Myanmar
Date of publication: 2021-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Title: အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာန စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များ နှင့် စပ်လျဥ်းသော ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာန စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များ နှင့် စပ်လျဥ်းသော ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက် ၁၃၈၃ ခုနှစ်၊ သီတင်းကျွတ်လပြည့်ကျော် ၁၀ ရက် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အောက်တိုဘာလ ၃၀ ရက် ၁။ ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ထန်တလန်မြို့ရှိ ပြည်သူများ၏ နေအိမ်အဆောက်အဦးများ၊ ဘာသာရေး အဆောက်အအုံများ အား အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ ၏ တပ်များမှ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၉ ရက်နေ့တွင် မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခဲ့သဖြင့် ထန်တလန်မြို့ရှိ နေအိမ် ၁၅၀ ကျော်နှင့် ဘာသာရေး အဆောက်အအုံများ ပျက်စီးဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရသည် ဟုသိရှိရပါသည်။ ၂။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ယခုကဲ့သို့ မြို့လုံးကျွတ် မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း၊ ငွေကြေးနှင့် အဖိုးတန်ပစ္စည်းများကို ခိုးယူလုယက်ခြင်း၊ အပြစ်မဲ့ အရပ်သားများကို လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် ဖမ်းဆီးနှိပ်စက် သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းများ စသည့် လူမဆန်သော အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများအား ပြင်းထန်စွာ မိမိတို့ အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် ကန့်ကွက်ရှုတ်ချ ပါသည်။ ၃။ ယခုကဲ့သို့ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လူမဆန်သော ရက်စက် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများ နှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ အနေဖြင့် တာဝန်ယူရမည် ဖြစ်ပြီး မိမိတို့ အလုပ်သမား ဝန်ကြီးဌာနနှင့် အလုပ်သမားထု တစ်ရပ်လုံးက ချင်းပြည်နယ် ထန်တလန်မြို့၊ မြို့လုံးကျွတ် မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခံရခြင်းအတွက် များစွာ စိတ်မချမ်းမြေ့ဖြစ်ရပါကြောင်း နှင့် အချိန်နှင့် တစ်ပြေးညီ အပြစ်မဲ့ ပြည်သူများအား ဝိုင်းဝန်း ကူညီပေးကြပါရန် လေးစားစွာ တိုက်တွန်းအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Labour - National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication: 2021-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Title: A SITE FOR MINDFUL (RE)DEFINITION: THE INDEPENDENT CONTEMPORARY ART SCENE OF MYANMAR
Description: "“Under socialism, we were completely isolated. The Op Art [Optical Art] movement of the 1960s passed by without us even being aware of it.”1 The quote is from artist and writer Ma Thanegi: political activist in the 1980s, she served jail for three years after the people’s uprising of 1988 in Myanmar.2 Today, she is mostly known for her deep knowledge about Myanmar’s culture that she shares through her written contribution to it. What she finds the most surprising about Myanmar though, is that changes occurred so unexpectedly fast after 2010.3 The first political shift of 2010–2011 after decades of military regime was a few years later reaffirmed through free and fair elections at the end of 2015, generating a new, transitional era.4 Significant metamorphoses in a country’s life never leave impact on a single level. It is a disruptive period for society, and for the different communities within one society – for better or worse. Based in Yangon between 2014–2015, as an art historian and curator, it appeared that the so called independent (contemporary) art scene was conveying the visible and palpable signs of a new epoch. My fieldwork started with the simple aim to have a better understanding of the fine art / visual art scene, but with the lack of available material, I was soon interviewing gallerists, through them artists and other actors of the scene, to gain an overview of its activity. It was striking that one had to “investigate” in order to find those places and creators. It was an existing scene, active, vibrant and engaged, but hidden, modest and fragile. Having later directly cooperated with some of the actors of the scene, being involved in some projects as organizer and consultant, allowed me a further insight into the network of independent actors coordinating the scene. The origin of the present research and study ensued from a concern over what the delicate net built by the independent art scene would face when encountering the powerful international art market. Currently, in the sort of “void” generated by the gradual withdrawal of the Censorship Regime (officially since 2012) and the slow evaporation of an autocratic narrative in daily life, “culture” as one, insoluble whole – as it was defined for decades from “above” – began to grow small branches, as nuances come slowly into consideration.5 The contrast between Myanmar’s isolated self, prior to the political shift and the context brought by the early global twenty-first century, implicative of an increasing and accelerated experience with the international scene, forecasted a challenging stage. My approach at the beginning of the present research was to consider the simple facts, or the simple non-existent facts: the consequences of Myanmar not having an operating institutional visual art system or structure that could balance the impact of a greater international exposure that the art scene was to face. Advancing in the research, it became more obvious that the institutional system I was looking for, existed through the alternative infrastructure that the independent (contemporary) art scene has brought to life, and how crucial substance it represented within the cultural sphere in regard of a sustainable approach and a genuine voice in the upcoming period. Research questions, Hypothesis, Outcome In a later phase, the research questions were then reframed as follows: What are the values of the independent contemporary art scene’s art practices and infrastructure in relation to the official narrative in power? How and why a superimposed art historical and heritage approach allows a deeper understanding in this regard? What role can the independent contemporary art scene play within the cultural field and in a broader sense, in society, during this present period of transition? How can the independent art scene maintain its own perspective and why is the scene’s sustainability so important if improvements are made at a higher, governmental level in terms of institutionalization? The study reflects a hypothesis which understands the independent contemporary art scene as a mindful site for an alternative discourse within society and which contributes to the (re)definition and (re)access of absent artistic, and so cultural narratives, as well as to the maintaining of the art scene’s integrity and continuity. I argue that as a counterbalance of the encapsulated, immovable and still dominant official set, the independent scene, very much alive, represents a genuine agenda through its artistic practices and infrastructure, coherent with the intrinsic cultural frame and context of Myanmar. The alternative discourse enabled by the scene being a flexible, and inclusive site is crucial for free expression, for building curiosity, but also for creating an open dialogue within society’s diversity and allow the narratives that were consciously or unintentionally deleted by the official discourse to (re)surface. As an outcome, the research to offers a “written photograph,” 6 a mechanism of smart practices based on existing projects that can serve as a reading tool, a sort of map to the independent 6 “Observations enable the researcher to describe existing situations using the five senses, providing a ‘written photograph’ of the situation under study,” Expression mentioned in: Kawulich, “Participant Observation as a Data 4 contemporary art scene’s intrinsic site and its activity. It contains some further, specific suggestions that may complete the working frame and can be developed in the future as potential individual plans of action. The “written photograph” may also be a tool for completing the “spaces of original possibles”7 for additional research. Methodology Participant observation could be the best term to describe the quality of the conducted fieldwork which served as a basis for the research.8 I intentionally superimposed the discourses of art history and heritage to be able to provide a more holistic approach that shifts from a conventional analysis and perhaps brings more questions to the surface than answers. The reason is that except for few texts, the accessible literature in English about the independent contemporary art scene, if taken as a comprehensive attempt to address its activity, accentuates its dynamics in line of a pre-existing regional–global format strictly through a contemporary art terminology. 9 My belief is that to understand the scene’s role and potential in the current cultural, transitional arena, it needs to be detached from an external context and merits an attempt to be visualized in relation to the ground it is connected to. This ground has been shaped for centuries by social and religious order before the latter was disrupted by colonial rule, followed by decades of a dominant narrative imposed by a military regime. In the recent past, the artistic scene has also evolved in its own cultural, social context towards which it had an ambiguous standpoint not being an “authorized voice.” The hypothesis unfolding through the Collection Method.”, herself quoting: Erlandson, David A.; Harris, Edward L.; Skipper, Barbara L. & Allen, Steve D. (1993). Doing naturalistic inquiry: a guide to methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. 7 Referring to Pierre Bourdieu, “The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed.” 8 Methodology of Participant Observation, in: Kawulich, “Participant Observation as a Data Collection Method,” 2. 9 Nathalie Johnston’s close insight of the past almost one decade of the Myanmar art scene was a turning point in my fieldwork. Her text (Johnston, “Intuitive Acts: The Evolution of Myanmar Contemporary Performance Art.”) about contemporary performance art in Myanmar (accessed November 2016) is one of the few written texts in English that attempts to vindicate pre-conceptions about the Myanmar contemporary art scene and focus on its evolution within its own context. 5 research is supported by a one-year fieldwork, the constant monitoring of the scene through the media, individual discussions with the independent scene’s actors and the feedback of a recent survey; meanwhile the study relies on a personal assumption embedded in a Western academic approach and an undeniable art historical terrain. The research experience cannot level a fully insider approach, and language barrier is an aspect that prevents an access to some nuances enclosed between the layers of other disciplines’ research too. The awareness of not being able to probably capture all threads at once is maintained throughout the study, especially as most of the concepts, time-frames, processes have to be further investigated individually; having said that, the angle proposed by the study may contribute to an ongoing dialogue precisely by bringing forward a – potential – semi-external reading. Sources The primary source for the study, fieldwork conducted between Spring 2014–Spring 2015, mainly in Yangon but not exclusively, entailed a series of interviews with artists, gallerists, curators, art experts from the country or from the region – either recorded or annotated; some of them were processed in the forms of articles and publications on different media platforms.10 This is complemented by archival material collected through this period including photo documentation of events and spaces, along with fieldnotes. The secondary literature was partly processed in Yangon – mainly publications nowhere else available. The second phase of processing was undertaken during the research in Budapest. A quantitative survey analysis in a form of a questionnaire was included in the research – the study comprises a subchapter 10 Gallery guide / short articles regularly published between September 2014-April 2015: Kálmán, “Gallery Guide - Myanmore.”, regular articles on the independent art scene published locally in In Depth Magazine: Kálmán, “My Paintings Are Not Beautiful (San Minn).”; Kálmán, “Show Me Your Hands And I’ll Tell You Who You Were (Htein Lin).”, Kálmán, “A Road Paved by Solid Concepts Meeting Artist Po Po.”, Kálmán, “Red, Black and Back (Aung Myint).”, and on a Hungarian art portal, Kálmán, “Iola Lenzi Interjú I., II. : ‘A Kortárs Művészet a Társadalmi Változás alakítója’; ‘Ellenérzéseim Vannak a Művészeti Piaccal szemben’ (Iola Lenzi Interview I, II: ‘Contemporary Art Asthe Driver for Social Change’; ‘I Rather Keep Away from the Market.’” 6 dedicated to its details and methodology (II.D., App. 1). The outcome as a mechanism of smart practices framed by the last subchapter (III.B.) is embedded in a regional angle through the short cases provided in subchapter III.A.2. The terminology regarding the art scene needs in almost every case clarification as many concepts are being (re)defined now by the scene and remain debatable, hence the necessity of a separate glossary. The web-references are abundant besides academic sources as it is sometimes the only source for English reference. Theoretical framework The study’s theoretical framework can be attached to two main approaches: critical heritage studies and (contemporary) art history. There is also an additional layer provided by postcolonial and Southeast Asian studies. In respect for the critical heritage approach of the study, I would like to mention Rodney Harrison and Laurajane Smith. Rodney Harrison defines heritage as a “dynamic process which involves competition over whose version of the past, and the associated moral and legal rights which flow from this version of the past, will find official representation in the present.”11 Two inter-related dynamic forces enter the understanding of heritage according to Harrison, a top- down, official approach, and a bottom-up, unofficial one, constituted by a local level. Critical heritage studies investigate these two processes, the relation between them. The present study wishes to approach as a start the case of the independent contemporary art scene partly through this scheme by understanding these processes framed around the notion of culture, and more properly fine art / visual art in the context of Myanmar. Harrison’s suggestion for a new dialogical model aims a broader approach between heritage and the “overwhelming presence of the past”: it “implies an ethical stance in relation to others, and a belief in the importance of acknowledging and respecting alternative perspectives and worldviews as a condition of 11Harrison, Understanding the Politics of Heritage, 8. 7 dialogue, and provides a way to connect heritage with other pressing social, economic, political and environmental issues of our time.”12 Through this approach, Harrison expects to offer an alternative to the “troubled late-modern” relationship with memory and the modernist binaries of cultural and natural which he finds underlied by the tangible / intangible division. It is in order to complete this frame that the notion of Living Heritage Approach is added independently of Harrison’s approach in the aim of generating a nuanced view of the cultural context relating to the independent contemporary art scene of Myanmar. Laurajane Smith on her side, nearly a decade before Harrison’s critical approaches published her “uses of heritage.” “At one level heritage is about the promotion of a consensus version of history by state-sanctioned cultural institutions and elites to regulate cultural and social tensions in the present. On the other hand, heritage may also be a resource that is used to challenge and redefine received values and identities by a range of subaltern groups.” Smith interprets the notion of a hegemonic “Authorized Heritage Discourse” (AHD) dependent on the specialist bodies’ power and institutionalized “in state cultural agencies and amenity societies.” This discourse is a synthesis of nation-narratives and aesthetic judgment of the expert; it is a self-referential discourse.13 The major challenge of the AHD is that it marks out who is entitled to speak in the name of the past.14 Smith’s approach helps situating the official narrative in regard of the position the independent scene holds. From an art historical point of view, the study stays within the frames of contemporary..."
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Source/publisher: MA Thesis in Cultural Heritage Studies: Academic Research, Policy, Management.
Date of publication: 2017-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-16
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Title: Myanmar’s Detained President Exposes Illegality of Coup in Court Testimony
Description: "Court testimony from Myanmar’s ousted civilian President U Win Myint on Tuesday showed that commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing breached the military’s own 2008 Constitution when he seized power on Feb. 1. On multiple occasions over the past eight months, whether in meetings with members of the State Administration Council (SAC) he chairs, or at gatherings with his subordinates, the commander-in-chief has repeatedly claimed that there was no coup on Feb. 1 and that the military takeover was carried out “constitutionally”. However, on Tuesday, the 70-year-old detained President, testifying in his own defense, told a court in Naypyitaw that early on the morning of the takeover, two military generals entered his room at the Presidential Residence in Naypyitaw and tried to force him to resign from his post on the grounds of ill health. According to his lawyer, the President told the court that the officers threatened him, saying that if he did not do as they instructed he would come to “harm”. U Win Myint told the generals that he would rather die than consent to their proposal, the lawyer added. The President said he told the generals that he was not concerned about being harmed, and that things should be handled as per the law and not by staging a coup, his lawyer said. The first public revelation of the circumstances of President U Win Myint’s detention came as he personally defends himself against an incitement charge brought by the regime over statements released by his National League for Democracy (NLD) urging the public to resist the coup. The same charge has also been brought against detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD chairwoman, and detained Naypyitaw Mayor U Myo Aung. A lawyer told The Irrawaddy that Tuesday’s court testimony from the President has emerged as the strongest confirmation yet of assertions made by both local and international legal experts that the military takeover was unconstitutional. According to Article 417 and Article 418 of the 2008 Constitution, in the event that a state of emergency is to be declared in the country, the President must announce the order in coordination with the military-dominated National Defense and Security Council (NDSC). The President then transfers the government’s executive, legislative and judicial powers to the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Forces. However, a few hours after the country’s civilian leaders including President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi were arrested on Feb. 1, the military convened an NDSC meeting. Former general U Myint Swe, the military-appointed vice president, attended the meeting as “acting president” and declared the country to be under a nationwide state of emergency for one year. Then, he immediately transferred the country’s legislative, administrative and judicial powers to the commander-in-chief. Trying to force the sitting president to resign by using threats could be seen as coup maker Min Aung Hlaing’s desperate attempt to make his takeover constitutional. The charter’s Article 73 (a) states that one of the two vice presidents—the one who won the second-highest number of votes in the presidential election—shall serve as Acting President “if the office of the President falls vacant due to his resignation, death, permanent disability or any other reason.” In other words, the two senior military officers’ suggestion that U Win Myint quit his position for health reasons was nothing more than a pretext to make the coup legal. However, given the then president’s refusal to resign, it’s hard to say that Article 73 provides valid support for U Myint Swe’s acting presidency, let alone the coup. “The President has notified the entire nation as well as the world, through the court, that the takeover violates the Constitution,” the lawyer said. The President’s words clearly reveal the commander-in-chief and his fellow generals to be criminals who have committed high treason, he said. “It is the strongest evidence that they committed high treason as [it comes from] the head of state himself,” the lawyer said. Lawyers in Myanmar have called for the prosecution of the coup leaders for high treason, which carries the death sentence. Amid these calls, the SAC led by coup leader Min Aung Hlaing has amended the country’s high treason law in an attempt to guarantee impunity for the military leaders who seized power in February. While the original Article 121 of the Penal Code says anyone who “attempts or otherwise prepares by force of arms or other violent means to overthrow the organs of the Union or of its constituent units established by the Constitution” is guilty of high treason, the coup leader has amended it so that only unconstitutional use of force of arms constitutes high treason, meaning it is acceptable to use force of arms as long as it is done in line with the Constitution. However, lawyers said that because the takeover was carried out in breach of the Constitution, every order, every appointment and removal of an official, and all changes to the law made by the junta are illegal. Myanmar has been in political and social turmoil since the military overthrew the civilian government and seized control. Since the coup, the junta has killed at least 1,167 people including protesters, politicians, activists, bystanders and children, and arrested more than 8,890 in an effort to suppress opposition to the regime..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-10-13
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-13
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Title: Myanmar Under the Tatmadaw: Much Has Changed Since 1988
Description: "I and many other journalists who covered the 1988 pro-democracy uprising felt a sense of déjà vu when, once again, the Tatmadaw’s tanks rolled into major cities and cracked down brutally on protesters while some embittered activists took to the borders to fight and to form a government working mostly in exile. Is it happening again? Will there be another few decades of harsh military rule, resistance and suffering? Will the men in green ever come to their senses and realize that they are destroying the country, not “saving” it? On closer reflection, however, there are some fundamental differences between the situation today and that of 33 years ago. First of all, digital media has changed the world, and Myanmar is no exception. In 1988, the internet and smartphones did not exist and we who covered the uprising from Bangkok had to depend on shaky and often faulty landlines. It all began on Aug. 8,1988—hence “8888”—with massive demonstrations all over the country. The military was called out to suppress the uprising and did so brutally. Thousands of people—yes, thousands, not hundreds as some chroniclers claim—were gunned down in the then capital Yangon and elsewhere. When that failed to cow the public into submission, the Tatmadaw withdrew from the streets and public view, hoping that it would create the kind of chaos it would need to step in and “restore order”. And that was exactly what it did on Sept. 18, when a junta called the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) assumed power and another massacre of protesters took place. During that month, from mid-August to Sept. 18, Myanmar actually enjoyed its first month of intellectual freedom since the initial military takeover in 1962. After more than two decades of strict governmental control of the media, new lively papers emerged, some daily and others intermittent. By the end of August, Yangon alone had nearly 40 independent newspapers, magazines and journals full of political commentaries, biting satires and cartoons ridiculing the ruling elite. They had fanciful titles such as the Light of Dawn, Liberation Daily, Scoop, New Victory, the Newsletter and so on. Some were handwritten and photocopied or mimeographed, while others had access to professional printing presses, often free of charge because their owners wanted to show that they also supported the movement for democracy. Despite the use of English titles for many of the publications, they were in the Burmese language, published locally in Yangon, Mandalay, Mawlamyine, Pathein and elsewhere, and it was rare that the information they contained reached the outside world. The same was true of photographic images. Many Myanmar photographers took excellent pictures and those were also published locally. One of them is Htein Win, and thanks to him there is evidence of the events of 1988. An experienced photographer, in 1974 Htein Win had also photographed the student demonstrations triggered by the funeral of the Myanmar former secretary general of the United Nations, U Thant. But very few international press photographers were inside the country, among them Alain Evrard from Belgium and a Japanese photographer who used the name Ryo Takeda. Takeda photographed demonstrators kneeling before soldiers and urging them not to shoot, while Evrard took the most iconic picture of the suppression of the 1988 uprising: a shot of a Tatmadaw officer leading an attack on a group of demonstrators — and soldiers carrying guns with bayonets charging the crowd. Evrard had to hide his film rolls in his underpants and smuggle them out of Myanmar. Once in Bangkok, days after the event, he could have his film developed and prints made. A few videotapes, all on VHS, also reached Bangkok, but they were of very poor quality. Sporadic demonstrations continued for a while after the formation of the SLORC and the imposition of draconian martial law measures, but the Tatmadaw was soon in near-total control of cities and towns and even major villages. But an estimated 10,000 activists, most of them young, fled to areas along Myanmar’s borders which were under the control of various ethnic rebel armies. On November 1, they formed the All Burma Students Democratic Front and organized themselves along military lines and dressed up in uniforms with insignia. The hope was that they, together with their ethnic allies, would defeat the Tatmadaw militarily. Then came the May 1990 election, which, to the surprise of many, was free and fair. The National League for Democracy (NLD) scored a landslide victory, capturing 392 of the 485 seats that were up for grabs (of a total of 492; elections were not held in seven constituencies) while the Tatmadaw-supported National Unity Party scored a mere 10 seats. But that Pyithu Hluttaw, or National Assembly, was never convened. Instead, the SLORC eventually decided to form a constituent assembly consisting of about a hundred MPs-elect and 600 delegates handpicked by the Tatmadaw. When it became clear a couple of months after the May 1990 election that the SLORC was not going to honor the outcome and began arresting MPs-elect, some fled to the Thai border along with other NLD activists. In December 1990, they formed what they called the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s cousin U Sein Win, an elected MP, as prime minister. A loose alliance was formed with the ABSDF and some of the ethnic rebels. Internationally, there was widespread condemnation of the mass killings and arrests in 1988 as well as the SLORC’s decision to ignore the results of the 1990 election. But, at that time, there were almost no foreign investors in Myanmar. One of the few was Fritz Werner Industrie-Ausrüstungen, a German firm that was involved in arms production and had personal connections with the then dictator General Ne Win. There was, in other words, very little at stake economically for the outside world, including Myanmar’s immediate neighbors. Looking back at those events which took place three decades ago, it is evident that we are now dealing with an entirely new situation with different dynamics internally, regionally and internationally. After the 2010 election, the Tatmadaw decided to allow a high degree of freedom of expression, and that lasted until the Feb. 1 coup. But during those 10 years, tech-savvy young people known as Generation Z became masters at using the internet—and many of them are still active after the coup. Today, nothing happens in Myanmar without it being disseminated worldwide on Facebook and other social media. People also communicate with each other relatively safely via digital platforms, some of which are encrypted. In real, crude and brutal terms, more people were gunned down by the Tatmadaw in 1988 than today, but the documentary evidence was never there. Some, but not as many as in 1988, have resorted to armed struggle—but in a way that Myanmar has not seen in recent history. The military-structured ABSDF soon fell apart because of factional infighting, some resulting in activists killing other activists. There was an acute shortage of weapons and even medical supplies. Many fell sick with malaria and other diseases contracted in the jungle. The dream of an armed uprising from the borders never materialized. The erstwhile ABSDF militants trickled back to their old hometowns, or ended up in exile in the US, Australia and Europe. This time, there is armed resistance as well, but it includes urban guerrilla warfare of a kind not seen in Myanmar before. Bombs are exploding on an almost daily basis in cities and towns all over the country, even in the old capital Yangon and the new one, Naypyitaw. Suspected Tatmadaw informants are being assassinated and militants are blowing up military-owned property like Mytel communication towers. Local resistance forces, which are active also in the Burman-dominated heartland, have ambushed Tatmadaw convoys with guns and homemade bombs. And the Tatmadaw today is no longer the highly disciplined fighting force it was in the 1980s and before. Judging from reports from inside the country—and then not only from internet activists—the Tatmadaw has suffered heavy casualties with hundreds of dead and many more wounded. Furthermore, the old NCGUB never managed to attract anything that could be interpreted as recognition. It became redundant after 2010 and was dissolved two years later. The new National Unity Government (NUG) has the backing of several MPs who, unlike those in 1990, have actually served as MPs, and that of Myanmar’s representative to the United Nations, U Kyaw Moe Tun. Informal meetings have been held with representatives of foreign governments. On Oct. 5, the French Senate extended what can be seen as a recognition of the NUG, and the European Parliament passed a similar resolution a day later. And, as The Irrawaddy reported on Oct. 6, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah has issued a warning to the junta in Naypyitaw, the State Administration Council (SAC), that his country will hold talks with the NUG if the generals fail to cooperate with a recently appointed special envoy of ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a fellow member. But the deciding factors could be what certainly did not exist in 1988: a once thriving local business environment and foreign investors. Strikes and military crackdowns have been bad for business. The World Bank forecasts in its July report an 18 percent annual decline for Myanmar’s economy, nearly double what was predicted in March. Other estimates are even more dire; Global credit rating agency Fitch Solutions, for instance, expects a contraction of 20 percent or more. In short, the economy is on the verge of collapse, and the blame for that lies entirely with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s decision to oust the elected government and seize absolute power. Regional trading partners like ASEAN and China may not care about democracy and human rights, but they don’t want to see their investments go up in smoke over the Myanmar battlefield. China has invested heavily in Myanmar’s fledgling industry and in infrastructure projects such as a deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu, Rakhine State. High-speed railroads are on the drawing board, and so are plans to dredge the Irrawaddy River for trade. Chaos is the last thing the Chinese would want to see in Myanmar. Singapore exported US$2.7 billion worth of goods to Myanmar in 2020, mainly mineral fuels, oil, electronics and machinery. Trade with Vietnam was also booming before the coup and Vietnamese companies have invested in real estate and a huge new shopping mall in Yangon. Mytel is a joint venture between Tatmadaw-controlled Myanmar Economic Corporation and Viettel, which is owned by the Vietnamese military. Vietnam, hardly a democracy, would not normally have cared about a military takeover in a foreign country, but the Vietnamese can hardly be pleased to see their co-owned communication towers being blown up, and other investments being ruined because of the coup. So will the new junta survive? The old SLORC was never under the same pressure at home or internationally as the SAC. But, in the end, it depends on what will happen inside the Tatmadaw when—and it seems inevitable—Myanmar sinks even deeper into economic, social and political crisis. But what will come in place of SAC, if it falls, is impossible to predict. What can be said with certainty, though, is that Min Aung Hlaing and his henchmen had probably not anticipated any of this when they decided to launch their ill-fated coup on Feb. 1. What the generals could get away with in 1988 is not possible in 2021. Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist, author and strategic consultant who has been writing about Asia for nearly four decades..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-10-11
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-11
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Title: Re-thinking Myanmar’s Political Regime: Military rule in Myanmar and implications for current reforms
Description: "Since first coming to direct political power in 1958, Myanmar’s military (Tatmadaw) has dominated the country’s politics and controlled the state apparatus. 2 Despite a series of challenges to its rule, the Tatmadaw has been able to constantly reinvent itself and, ultimately, to reassert its dominance over Burmese society. Cycles of popular protests, economic and political crises, and dissatisfaction with military rule failed to overthrow or undermined the military’s organizational coherence. The most tangible outcome of the 1988 public protest movement and its suppression was the collapse of Ne Win’s Burmese Socialist Program Party (BSPP). For it was those events that permitted the Tatmadaw to return Myanmar to direct military rule under the ostensible leadership of the State Law and Order Council (SLORC), later renamed as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The SLORC/SPDC regime effectively crushed protests, arrested opposition leaders, and began a process of rebuilding the military to become the most competent and formidable institution in the country with uncontested control over the state apparatus (ICG 2001: 24; ICG 2011; Kyaw 2009: 272). Given its dominance, it is thus puzzling that the SPDC self-elected to dissolve itself and allow the formation of a nominally-civilian government in 2011. By 2012, this new government has declared its intention to liberalize Myanmar and has introduced a series of dramatic changes that permit expanded pluralism, economic freedoms, and freedom of the press. 3 This paper examines the historical development of the Tatmadaw as an organizational actor since its rise to power in 1962. It seeks to understand and clarify the significance of recent reforms in which the Tatmadaw appears to have ceded powers. In so doing, two prominent approaches to regime change are considered in turn. First, the game theoretic model that focuses on the personalities of reformers and challengers in explaining why authoritarian regimes reform. While such frameworks offer helpful insights in the dynamics of political change, they nevertheless fall short in explaining why changes are taking place at an institutional/regime-level. This paper will thus focus on a chronological path-dependent approach that traces the organizational evolution of the Tatmadaw and identifies how it sought to strategically reposition itself vis-à-vis society. By adopting regime typologies introduced in the works of Linz and Stepan (1996), this paper will argue that current developments should be seen as a diminished form of authoritarianism. The conclusion discusses the present situation and its implications for the country’s trajectory of political development. The paper’s main claim is that the ongoing dramatic reforms introduced since mid-2011 should not be understood simply as an exit strategy by the military to retreat from national politics. On the contrary, this paper suggests that ceding dominance is in fact an evolving strategy by the Tatmadaw to continue consolidating its organizational powers and to institutionalize its influence over government, though without the responsibility for the direct administration of the state. The Tatmadaw no longer governs directly and reforms have increased political competitiveness on the national stage. 4 Be that as it may, the Tatmadaw has designed various mechanisms to safeguard its interests. It has done so through the creation of what Linz and Stepan referred to as “reserve domains” (1996: 67). Hence, while there is no doubt that major changes in Myanmar are underway, it is premature to assume this entails a fundamental realignment of political power, let alone a transition to consolidated democracy. Game theoretic perspectives on Myanmar’s transition Much of the popular reports on current liberalization efforts in Myanmar have explained recent changes by essentially adopting a classical game theory model. Many Myanmar watchers and popular press for example have examined current political transition as a strategic game between regime softliners/reformers versus hardliners with a particular focus on the elite actors (Callahan 2012, Fuller 2012, Jagan 2012, Kyaw 2012, Tin 2012). For example Kyaw Yin Hlaing explains that in the absence of intervention from the retired Than Shwe, some officials within the new government have emerged labeling themselves as liberals while calling for further liberalization of the country’s political economy (Kyaw 2012: 209). Similarly, Callahan (2012: 122) argues that despite having hand-picked his successors, Than Shwe have now “lost the ability to control the [reform] process from behind the scenes.” She credited this as a long-held “pent-up pressure” from Than Shwe’s subordinates that are now well placed to “push the envelope” and essentially curb the “once-boundless policy-making powers” of the Tatmadaw. Under this model, game theorists argue that democratization is possible for authoritarian regimes when moderates from both the ruling elites and the opposition compromise and work together in other to prevent backlashes from their respective hardliners (Przeworski 1992: 105-53; Linz and Stepan 1996: 61). Additionally, according to Linz and Stepan (1996: 65), military authoritarian regimes that are hierarchical in nature are among the most likely regime types to allow this type of transitional path towards democratization, as the “military as institution” views the cost of maintaining the “military as government” as too high, thus would eventually compromise and allow liberalizing reforms as an exit strategy for the “military as institution.”5 Though the hardliner versus moderate argument certainly gives a plausible explanation of how a regime can democratize, it nevertheless falls short of articulating why a consolidated military regime, which is in a position of strength both as an institution and as government, would choose to liberalize. It is certainly important to understand the role of elite “reformers” such as President Thein Sein and Lower House Speaker Shwe Mann and how they have coordinated for a push for liberalization of Myanmar’s political economy, yet it is also vital to note that they were both key members of the preceding SPDC regime and the Tatmadaw, and neither individual previously demonstrated that they would push for further political reforms in a post-SPDC state.6 What then allowed these actors to change the “rules of the game” and thus effectively reposition themselves as liberals in a reforming regime? As O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986: 21) point out, in authoritarian regimes, “no transition can be forced purely by opponents against a regime which maintains the cohesion, capacity, and disposition to apply repression.” Additionally as Huntington (1991: 114) suggests one must examine the “continuum in terms of the relative importance of the governing and opposition groups as the source of democratization.” However, in the case of Myanmar, in the absence of any effective and unified political opposition that could realistically topple and replace the military regime (Mya 1992: 146- 59; Kyaw 2008: 128-9), current political reforms are led from the top-down by military elites as part of a “transformation” process (Huntington 1991: 114). Given the non- democratic credentials of the Tatmadaw’s long authoritarian rule over Myanmar, current attempts to “transform” the regime should not be understood as an attempt to introduce a top-down transition towards a Western-style liberal democracy per se, but rather as a strategy for the military to prolong its continued dominance over the state apparatus, as well as to ensure that the core interests of the military are preserved. 7 When the Tatmadaw first took direct control of the state apparatus in 1962, the Revolutionary Council (1962-1971) under the leadership of General Ne Win attempted to transform Myanmar by purging all forms of pluralism to ensure the primacy of the Tatmadaw as the only potent political force responsible for the affairs of the state. At the height of the Ne Win regime, the Tatmadaw attempted to regulate all aspects of social life but was unable to achieve absolute domination over its population and was constantly challenged by armed insurgencies on the peripheries suggesting that the regime was at best an “arrested totalitarian” regime. Additionally, the regime elites were disillusioned and lacked commitment to the proclaimed Burmese Way to Socialism ideology (Kyaw 2003: 35). Subsequently, in order for the Tatmadaw to regain control and support for the state, the arrested-totalitarian authoritarian regime began to co-opt traditional non-state actors that had “roots in society before the establishment of the regime” (Linz and Stepan 1996: 44). This led the regime to seek support from the very actors, for example private businesses and monastic organizations, that it had initially aimed to purge, thus modifying the character of the Tatmadaw as government. The result was the establishment of the de jure BSPP single-party state apparatus, whereby the party was theoretically leading the Tatmadaw (Taylor 2009a: 317). However, the inability of the authoritarian BSPP regime to further correct problems brought about by its grossly mismanaged economy finally led to the collapse of order thus paving way for the re-emergence of an authoritarian military SLORC/SPDC regime which was no longer committed to the socialist vision of its BSPP predecessors. Though the SPDC was able to preserve some sort of peace and stability for nearly two decades, the mass protests of 2007, popularly referred to as the “Saffron Revolution,” indicated that the SPDC’s rule had not fundamentally led to a sustainable state-societal relationship.8 The 2007 crackdown of the mainly urban protests saw the return of order and the re-silencing of the regime’s critics. However, it also signaled that a re-negotiation of the socio-political order between the state and its society was long overdue. In order to understand this evolutionary development of the shifting attitude between the state and its society, the evolution of the Tatmadaw as the state apparatus will be traced including why reforms in the current context came about as a calculated top-down process that was designed to preserve the interest of the Tatmadaw..."
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Source/publisher: Southeast Asia Research Centre and The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date of publication: 2012-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-11
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Title: ‘All Lies!’: Myanmar Junta’s Clumsy Propaganda Has a Disturbingly Familiar Ring
Description: "Six-and-a-half months after Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and his generals staged a coup and launched a brutal crackdown on popular resistance to the power grab, it is becoming increasingly clear that Myanmar is seeing a return to the dark old days of pre-2011 junta rule. It is particularly evident in the abolition of the freedom of expression and press freedom that the people of Myanmar were given a taste of for almost a decade. That also means that the military has killed the hopes and aspirations of millions, young and old—and that civil-military relations, a favorite subject of national and international studies, are beyond repair. The military has become the country’s most hated institution, and the political gobbledygook it produces in print and online to justify its actions would be laughable, if not for the tragedy that surrounds the bloody coup and its aftermath. The appointment of an ex-military officer who writes under the peculiar name Chit Naing (Sate Pyin Nyar), or Chit Naing (Psychology), as the Information Minister after the coup was a clear indication of what to expect. Mischievous people with a sense of humor usually refer to him as Chit Naing (Sate Yaw Ga), or Chit Naing (Mental Case). His literary credentials rest primarily on the quantity of books he has produced, rather than their quality. Vendors who used to sell his writings on pavements in the old capital Yangon stopped doing that after the coup, while pictures on social media show the books being torn apart both by booksellers and angry customers. Chit Naing (Psychology) was promoted to “Minister of the Union Government Office” when Min Aung Hlaing formed a “Caretaker Government” on Aug. 1, which may mean that we will see more of his writings being churned out by the military’s propaganda machine. The junta’s first lengthy attempt at disseminating its version of events to the outside world came in the form of a 118-page book that was produced in time for Min Aung Hlaing’s trip to Jakarta on April 24 to meet representatives of ASEAN. Titled “The Current Political Situation in Myanmar” and written in quaintly jumbled English, it contains accusations of protester violence including alleged attacks on the police, details of supposed fraud in the 2020 election, several references to the 2008 constitution to “prove” that the military, known as the Tatmadaw, had not broken any laws—and then an assertion and a pledge: “the Tatmadaw always keeps its promise” (sic) and “we can reassure all the member states that we will be fully cooperating with all of friendly member states including other countries across the world.” (sic) Then, the supposed author, Min Aung Hlaing, added a caveat: “We can vividly learn that the interesting issues have emerged in all respective ASEAN member states…I kindly remind all of you that we may possibly face with certain difficulties, it we miss something at the certain corner.” (sic) Before that, the military produced much shorter newsletters called “Information Sheet” with headlines such as “Containing Riotous Situations in Some Townships in Line with Rules and Regulations”, “The Rioters’ Conducting Anarchic Mob like Activities and Sabotage Activities”, and “Findings on the Announcement of UEC [Union Election Commission] regarding the Inspection of the Voter Lists and Withdrawal/Receipt/Use Remaining Ballot Papers.” An amnesty announcement from the military’s “information team” published in the official newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar on April 2 was headlined: “Re-invitation to Myanmar citizens who have arrived at various regions for many reasons.” While it may be easy to make fun of the military spokespersons’ lack of proficiency in English, their mumbo jumbo doesn’t make any more sense in Burmese, thus echoing the disinformation campaigns of old juntas, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which was set up after the 1988 massacres and in 1997 became the more palatably named State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). In the late 1980s, the military published collections of speeches by SLORC chairman General Saw Maung, and, at the same time, a book titled “A Skyful of Lies” (sic) accusing the BBC, the VOA and other foreign broadcasters of reporting falsehoods about the situation in Myanmar. But street vendors were soon forbidden to sell both books at the same time because crafty street vendors would first hold up one of the them, saying “General Saw Maung’s speeches!”, then lower their hand and raise the other holding the book about the broadcasters: “All lies!” So it became “General Saw Maung’s speeches! All lies!” It is unclear whether any vendors were arrested for making this rather humorous protest against military rule. In fact, the lies begin on the front page of The Global New Light of Myanmar and its Burmese edition, Myanmar Alin. “Founded in 1914” has at last been taken off the English edition but it remains on the Burmese version. While it is true that a vernacular newspaper called Myanma Alin with The New Light of Myanmar on the front page also in English was founded in 1914, it has nothing to do with today’s paper of the same name. The real New Light of Myanmar was very outspoken against colonial rule and, from 1920 to 1947, managed by U Tin, a well-respected newspaperman who became independent Myanmar’s first Minister of Finance and Revenue. But that paper was shut down by the military in 1969. After general Ne Win’s coup in 1962, his ruling Burma Socialist Program Party began publishing its own, tabloid-sized propaganda sheet called The Working People’s Daily in English and Loktha Pyithu Nezin in Burmese. That name was not in line with the new, ostensibly free-market oriented policies that were introduced after 1988, so the name of the state organ was changed to The New Light of Myanmar and Myanma Alin respectively. U Tin would turn in his grave if he knew about this theft of the name of his paper. Its website claims that it is “Myanmar’s oldest English daily” and the lie has even made it into Wikipedia, where it says that “the newspaper was founded in 1914.” How many others this has fooled is hard to say, but it can’t include many of those who are familiar with the history of the media in Myanmar. Successive attempts by the generals at presenting themselves in a more favorable light have been equally unsuccessful. After the February coup, the latest junta, the State Administration Council (SAC), hired Dickens & Madson, a firm headed by Israeli-Canadian lobbyist Ari Ben-Menashe, to help polish its image. According to documents filed with the US Justice Department, the contract Dickens & Madson signed with Myanmar’s military leadership is worth US$2 million and is designed to explain “the real situation in the country” and to communicate with the United States and other counties who had “misunderstood them.” Ben-Menashe’s own record is far from stellar. A former Israeli intelligence officer, he was arrested in the US in 1989 for violating the law by trying to sell three C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to Iran, but was later acquitted. After that, he worked as a PR agent for Zimbabwe’s strongman Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe-born drug trafficker Paul Le Roux (who after his arrest in the US agreed to cooperate with its Drug Enforcement Administration), and Sudanese warlord General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, whose forces committed crimes against humanity in Darfur in 2014-15. Ben-Menashe’s involvement in Myanmar goes back to the 1990s when he, according to internal documents in my possession, tried to sell sophisticated military equipment to the Tatmadaw, including missiles and attack helicopters. Nothing came of those attempts, but his standing with the Tatmadaw doesn’t seem to have been shaken by those shenanigans. Even so, his $2-million deal with the SAC appears to have come to nothing. In mid-July, Ben-Menashe announced that he had ceased working with the generals because sanctions prevented him from being paid. The track records of previously employed PR firms also leave little hope for Myanmar’s generals. Few, if any, of those efforts to gloss over Tatmadaw atrocities had any influence on US and other Western opinions. The first was also the worst of several ill-fated attempts at improving the image of the Tatmadaw. It involved Edward von Kloberg, whom many described as “a lobbyist from hell”. Prior to representing the Myanmar Embassy in Washington after the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, he had defended Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Liberian coup maker Samuel Doe, Romania’s tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu and Zaire’s dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein write in their book Washington Babylon about von Kloberg that “even within the amoral world of Washington lobbying, [he] stands out for handling clients that no one else would touch.” Sick and broke, von Kloberg committed suicide in 2005 by jumping from the walls of the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. Next in line was Jefferson Waterman International, then headed by Ann Wrobleski, who had served as assistant secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was instrumental in denying Myanmar US anti-narcotics aid following the 1988 massacres. At that time, she said Myanmar was unlikely to make progress in fighting narcotics “until a government enjoying greater credibility and support among the Burmese people than the current military regime [is] seated in Rangoon.” As a PR agent for the generals, Wrobleski advertised Myanmar as a “beautiful and exotic country” and repeated the generals’ claim that the US had engaged in terrorism by supporting pro-democracy groups outside the country. That did not help the military dictatorship burnish its reputation in the US or elsewhere; nor did endeavors by the Atlantic Group, a lobbying group that was working more directly to help overturn US sanctions, or the DCI Group, which was hired for the same purpose. The sad state of the media in Myanmar under military rule does not do justice to the country’s rich literary and intellectual traditions. Prior to the 1962 military takeover, the country had more than 30 daily newspapers. Apart from the leading ones in Burmese and English, there were also five in Chinese, two in Hindi, and one each in Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Gujarati, apart from magazines and journals in Shan, Kachin, Karen and other ethnic minority languages. The vitality of Myanmar’s press was effectively undermined at the beginning of 1964 when the Law to Protect National Solidarity was promulgated. All privately owned newspapers were to be banned and all their property and assets confiscated. Printing, the military stated, had to be done only in English or Burmese. Apart from The Working People’s Daily and the Loktha Pyithu Nezin, there were three papers—the Guardian, Kyemon and Botahtaung—that had been nationalized by the then junta, Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council, and ceased being independent publications. Nothing changed until the August-September 1988 uprising, when the traditional creativity of the Myanmar psyche flourished again after 26 years of silence. New privately produced publications appeared, some daily, some intermittent, with fanciful names such as The Light of Dawn, The Liberation Daily, Scoop, Victory and The Newsletter. But that brief period of freedom ended when the military stepped in on Sept. 18 to reassert power and announced the formation of the SLORC. People were gunned down in the streets of Yangon and elsewhere, thousands were arrested and former activists fled to Thailand and India, where new publications—first printed and later online—began to appear. One of them was The Irrawaddy, which first appeared as a newsletter in Bangkok in 1990, published by exiles from Myanmar. It was not until after the 2010 election and the appointment the following year of a quasi-civilian government headed by Thein Sein, a former general, that Myanmar experienced another rebirth of its proud media traditions. But that too has now come to an end, as the military is tightening its grip on the nation. Journalists especially have become targets of the SAC’s efforts to try to crush all opposition to its self-imposed rule. Many journalists, poets and other writers are languishing in jails all over the country. Many more are in hiding while a fortunate few have managed to flee to other countries. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated in a July report that Myanmar has become “one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists.” At the same, two things are evident: Myanmar’s generals don’t realize they have no credibility, and they have not learned from the past. They are yet again printing crude propaganda and wasting huge amounts of money on feeble and fruitless attempts at defending their violent repression of a population that does not want to live under yet another dictatorship. The independent press is back in exile, now using the internet to disseminate their work and, in that way, reaching many more people inside the country than the printed publications ever did after the 1988 crackdown, when there was no digital media. It is anybody’s guess how long it may take before the exiled journalists can return to Myanmar and continue the work they were doing before the coup. But the formation of a “caretaker government” with Min Aung Hlaing as its prime minister and characters like Chit Naing (Psychology) in charge of publicity is a clear sign that the military is determined to exercise absolute power for many years to come. “Free and fair” polls in 2023 and then a transfer of power to a popularly elected government, as the Tatmadaw has promised? Only fools, and perhaps the military’s ASEAN allies, would believe that is a likely scenario. It is, to quote what the street vendors in Yangon said in the late 1980s, “All Lies!”
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-08-16
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-16
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Title: "33rd Anniversary Message of Commemoration for the 8888 Revolution"
Description: "On this day thirty-three years ago, the entire nation of Myanmar, comprising of all ethnic communities and the whole swathe of the society from the religious leaders to students, intellectuals, workers and peasants, yearning for freedom and democracy, joined hands and took part in the ‘8888’ Revolution against military dictatorship. The people of Myanmar defied brutal and ruthless suppression by the military regime, which unleashed indiscriminate killings, torture and incarceration; their brave and selfless sacrifice earned the 8888 Revolution a hallowed place in the history of our nation’s democratic evolution. Even though the 8888 Revolution did not lead to immediate victory for the people, the movement was nonetheless crucial in putting our nation on the path to freedom and democracy. The people of Myanmar have consistently and resolutely demonstrated our rejection of one-party and military dictatorships. From the 7th July Yangon University protests of 1962, U Thant funeral crisis of 1974, workers’ strike of 1975, Thakhin Kodaw Hmaing centenary uprising of 1976, the ‘8888’ movement of 1988, students’ strike of 1996 to the Saffron Revolution of 2007, we have long proved by our actions that we will never bow before our oppressors in our struggle for freedom. Thirty-three years from the historic 8888 Revolution, the people of Myanmar are now waging ‘Spring Revolution’ to uproot the military dictatorship and to establish a fair and just society where equality and democratic rights are assured to all citizens and communities in our Union. Since 1958 in Myanmar, a dictatorship with its despotic rulers had not only repressed our citizenry throughout successive eras, but also reduced one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia to become one of the poorest and most backward in the world. From the beginning of 2015, under the leadership of the first civilian government in generations, the whole country had strived hard to place ourselves on a true path to democracy, yet the reckless seizure of state power in a coup d’état by a covetous, greedy military clique had reversed our gains and brought untold hardship and enormous challenges to the people. With firm belief in democracy and revulsion of military totalitarianism, which are both firmly rooted in the 8888 Revolution, the people of Myanmar are presently waging a historic and momentous revolution to rid ourselves of the military dictatorship that for many decades had been committing unspeakable crimes, and to uproot the evil system of military domination from our soil once and for all. With principles and conviction borne out of the 8888 Revolution and the determination to persevere in the 2021 Spring Revolution till our ultimate and inevitable success, we the National Unity Government wish to honour all those who share our ideals, be they individual citizens inside Myanmar, freedom-loving expatriates, or those friends and supporters from abroad who cherish democracy. We, the National Unity Government, in conveying this message of commemoration, do solemnly undertake to pay homage to our heroes who had given blood, sweat and tears, and our martyrs who had made the ultimate sacrifice, by toiling day and night to achieve victory that our people so justly deserve..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication: 2021-08-08
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-08
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Title: Statement by the Spring Revolution Interfaith Network – Statement No.1/2021 - နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး ဘာသာပေါင်းစုံကွန်ရက် သဘောထားကြေညာချက် – စာအမှတ် ၁/၂၀၂၁
Description: "The Spring Revolution Interfaith Network, was formed on 7th August 2021 by religious leaders and civil society leaders from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, who are actively opposing and fighting against the military dictatorship. The Spring Revolution Interfaith Network has the following objectives: 1. To end the military dictatorship 2. To establish a federal democratic union that holds values of freedom, justice, and equality by working together with different religious groups 3. To build a new society that guarantees the right to freedom of religion and practice, and eliminates discrimination among people of different ethnicities and between different religions Our network hereby issues the following statement in honour of the 33rd Anniversary of the 8.8.88 Revolution. 1. We pay tribute to the martyrs and people of all religions and ethnicities who have sacrificed their lives in various pro-democracy movements, including but not limited to, the Myanmar Spring Revolution. 2. The military junta must follow continuous calls for the unconditional release of all the unjustly detained political prisoners, including the President and the State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. 3. We do not recognize the military junta - who staged the coup to seize power from the elected civilian government - as a legitimate government. We only recognize the National Unity Government (NUG), which was formed under the Federal Charter, as a legitimate government. 4. We strongly urge the United Nations and the international community not to recognize and work with the military junta, but to recognize and cooperate with the NUG which has received the support of the majority of the people of Myanmar. 5. We strongly condemn the weaponization of the Covid-19 pandemic for political gains by the military junta, and we call for the United Nations and the international community to intervene as soon as possible to address this humanitarian crisis. 6. We will support and coordinate with other pro-democracy forces from different backgrounds in order to establish a federal democratic union in accordance with our values and objectives..."
Source/publisher: The Spring Revolution Interfaith Network
Date of publication: 2021-08-08
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-08
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Title: Embedding praetorianism - Soldiers, state, and constitutions in postcolonial Myanma
Description: "Non-democratic regimes often – but not always – seek to institutionalize their political domination and immunity through the enactment of a specifically designed constitutional document (Ginsburg and Simpser 2014). Military regimes, in particular, can use constitutional texts to strengthen the foundations of the political intervention of the armed forces (Feit 1972; Finer 1975; Stepan 1988). Likewise, when military juntas ultimately set in motion a transition from direct military rule to a civilian one, the armed forces are often tempted to control the constitution-drafting process and secure key legal prerogatives for the military institution under a new hybrid “post-junta” regime (Barros 2002, Croissant and Kamerling 2013; Chambers 2014; Negretto 2014). Myanmar2 offers a case of a dominant military institution using a constitutional drafting process and a new supreme law for its own corporate interests. Indeed, the constitution adopted in 2008 confers high levels of policy prerogatives upon the Burmese armed forces – or Tatmadaw – and embeds “praetorianism”3 in Myanmar’s polity in a way that the country’s two previous post-independence constitutions had not. Since it won its freedom from the British in 1948, Myanmar has produced three constitutions. The first postcolonial constitutional text was adopted in 1947, but its provisions were suspended after the coup d’état staged by General Ne Win in March 1962. A second constitution drafted by Ne Win’s military administration was passed in 1974, but was abrogated in September 1988 following a further coup d’état orchestrated by the Tatmadaw leadership. The third and latest constitutional document was promulgated in 2008 after a controversial drafting process that lasted 15 years. All three constitutional texts which Myanmar adopted in 1947, 1974, and 2008 were quite different in content and spirit. They were framed in different political contexts and under the supervision of different leaderships with divergent political agendas. Above all, they made very different references (if at all) to the role of the Tatmadaw as a major state institution and potential policy-maker. The texts adopted in 1947 and 1974 indeed aimed to neither entrench military rule nor institutionalize the political intervention of the armed forces. This chapter seeks to understand how and why the Tatmadaw has chosen to formulate its own constitutional vision in the early 1990s and thereafter establish a legal political system, which I define as “constitutional praetorianism.” Drawing on the extant literature on postcolonial Myanmar politics, this chapter first provides a comparative overview of the first two postcolonial constitutions of the country and examines why both documents bestowed a marginal role upon the Burmese military. The study then focuses on the country’s third constitution, which was adopted following a controversial referendum in 2008. It argues that the constitutional text embeds and institutionalizes praetorianism. As the literature on civil–military relations demonstrates, there are different levels of political intervention by the armed forces: they range from direct military rule to hybrid systems led by civilians, but in which the armed forces remain a powerful lobby (Egreteau and Jagan 2013; Bünte 2014). Building on this scholarship as well as on a series of interviews with Burmese parliamentarians and party leaders carried out in both Yangon and Naypyitaw (2013–2014), this chapter argues that the 2008 constitution serves three clear purposes for the Burmese armed forces. First, it manifests the Tatmadaw’s view of itself as a legitimate political and policy-making state actor following 60 years of regular and pervasive intrusion into Burmese postcolonial politics and public affairs. Second, it provides the military with legal instruments for a long-term policy intervention and influence. Third, it offers the armed forces and their personnel a form of self-insurance protecting soldiers from any form of prosecution and securing a much sought-after immunity for the leaders of the 1988 coup d’état. As long as this unhealthy policy influence of the army institution prevails, constitutionalism will not emerge in Myanmar. A thorough revision of the 2008 constitution remains highly unlikely. Despite the formation of a joint parliamentary committee tasked specifically to propose potential amendments, the first-ever attempt at reviewing the constitutional text was vetoed by the militaryappointed representatives in June 2015. Given the country’s historical and political legacies of military intervention, ethnic separatist insurgency, and political instability, I conclude this chapter with the bleak prospects for swift constitutional reform unless the Tatmadaw decides otherwise. Army and constitutions in Myanmar: a background A civilian supremacy in the 1947 constitution The 1947 constitution4 was designed to ensure a smooth – but quick – transfer of power from British colonial rule to an independent and, above all, legitimate Burmese civilian administration (Steinberg 2006: 199). Despite flaws, the constitution envisioned a federal state structure and a multi-party parliamentary system with competitive and regular elections to be held once independence was granted on January 4, 1948 (Inlow 1948; Maung Maung 1959). There were no nonmilitary functions assigned to the Burmese armed forces, nor any specific prerogative for the wider security forces enshrined in the document. The weakness of the Burmese military forces in the last months of colonial rule may explain this lack of involvement in constitutional drafting. Since the early 1940s, the Soldiers, state, and constitutions in Myanmar 119 driving force behind the Burmese independence struggle had been the Burma Independence (and, from 1943, National) Army (BIA/BNA) under the aegis of a young military officer, Aung San. Yet, despite the glory inherited from several years of anti-colonial and then anti-Japanese fighting, it was not the nascent Tatmadaw that was asked to frame the first charter of the country after the end of the war in 1945. Rather, the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) – a loose coalition of political parties, charismatic politicians, and pre-war student activists – took up the task. At that time, the Tatmadaw was a fragile body, illequipped to form a powerful policy lobby. It also had to face myriad rival private armies and ethnic militias operating throughout the country (Callahan 2003: 115–116). Therefore, its senior officers, themselves bogged down in inter-ethnic dissension, could not ensure a crucial role for the military in shaping the new state structures. A civilian committee of legal, political, and academic experts gathered in 1946 to draft a new constitution. A constituent assembly was elected in April 1947. It discussed several drafts prepared by the committee. The final one was eventually adopted on September 24, 1947 – two months after Aung San’s assassination. Despite shortcomings and flaws, the constitutional text provided legitimacy to the newly created state, but interestingly not to the actors who participated in the independence struggle – the Tatmadaw in particular. This underscored some initial efforts by the AFPFL to keep the military out of politics. Aung San himself had relinquished his own military positions early on. This was not without debate, though. As highlighted by Maung Maung (1959: 146–147), in one of the first constitutional drafts submitted to the Constituent Assembly in June 1947, one article proposed the creation of a special “Defence Council.” Through this non-elected body the President of the Union would have exercised “the supreme command of the armed forces.” But the proposal was dropped at Aung San’s own suggestion. Thus, in the final text, the Burmese armed forces were not granted any special place: they had to remain subordinate to the post-independence elected civilian authorities. Besides, to avoid the maintenance of competing private armies, the right to raise and maintain national military forces was then vested exclusively in the elected Parliament seated in Rangoon (Article 97 of the 1947 constitution). The first post-independence constitutional framework lasted less than 15 years. During the 1950s, the raging civil war between Myanmar’s central government and myriad ethnic and communist insurgencies propelled a more cohesive Tatmadaw into broader non-military policy roles. Under the charismatic leadership of General Ne Win, uncontested army chief from 1949, the Tatmadaw soon transformed itself into a disciplined and unified corporate institution, increasingly willing to discuss policy issues and civilian affairs (Callahan 2003). Above all, it started to openly highlight its legitimate role as guardian of the nation and its institutions against an array of centrifugal insurgencies, but also external threats – a common trend observed among coup-prone armed forces in the rapidly decolonizing world at that time. A mere decade after the country’s independence, Maung Maung indeed noted: “the role of the [Defense] Services 120 R. Egreteau as a guardian of the constitution and servant of the people has [now] been clearly defined and deeply impressed on all officers and men by General Ne Win” (Maung Maung 1959: 146). The 1974 constitution: drafted by, but not for, the Tatmadaw A first political intervention of the Tatmadaw was staged in September 1958. General Ne Win then formed a caretaker military administration at the invitation of U Nu, leader of the civilian government since February 1957. Sanctioned by Parliament a month later, this caretaker government – a perfect example of a short-lived praetorian intrusion into politics – lasted a year and a half. The military hierarchy kept its initial promises to hold national elections, and then withdrew to its barracks in April 1960 (Butwell 1961). However, a full-fledged military coup was ultimately staged by Ne Win on March 2, 1962. Less than two years after the caretaker administration was disbanded, the Tatmadaw clearly stepped in – this time without any invitation from the civilian authorities. The 1947 constitution was not abrogated per se, but gradually all its fundamentals were nullified. Unlike in 1958, Parliament was dissolved a day after the coup, and the Supreme Court and the High Courts of the country were disbanded. A socialist revolution was then imposed, one that could not be defined by a constitution, but rather by well-oiled propaganda and ad hoc legislation enacted by the military rulers (Badgley 1962; Cady 1965). The 17-member Revolutionary Council formed by Ne Win in March 1962 began to shape the new state institutions and ideology through the release of various official documents and policy statements.5 These included the “Burmese Way to Socialism” (April 1962) and the “The System of Correlation of Man and His Environment” (January 1963), which both outlined the official ideology of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). The core objective of this newly formed legitimate political party was to mobilize and educate the Burmese population about the revolution and to pave the way for a socialist democracy under the monitoring of the Revolutionary Council (BSPP 1963; Taylor 2009: 298–300). According to the original Revolutionary Council’s statements this had to be fulfilled during a “transitional period.” Once the socialist revolution was deemed secure, the civilianization of the regime, installed in 1962, could be initiated, and the disbanding of the Revolutionary Council prepared – but not before. For that, conditions were deemed more favorable by Ne Win – then Chair of the BSPP – in the late 1960s. An observer of the time, Jon A. Wiant, argued that the BSPP could not long remain the sole instrument of the Tatmadaw or of its core leadership gathered in the Revolutionary Council (Wiant 1973: 182). Progressively, the need for the institutionalization of a civilian power and the withdrawal of the armed forces from the front scene – and therefore a new constitution – appeared obvious to the military top brass and to Ne Win himself. During a BSPP party meeting in 1965, Ne Win made his first public speech about the need for transition to civilian rule (Nakanishi 2013: 112). Therefore, a constitution-making process which claimed to involve the Burmese people was Soldiers, state, and constitutions in Myanmar 121 gradually initiated. In 1969, Ne Win asked a panel of civilian experts to make recommendations on new state institutions. For the first time since the 1962 coup, the regime openly hinted at a possible termination of the revolutionary moment imposed by the army seven years before. In September 1971, a 97-member committee convened. Its aim was to draft the new constitutional text (Moscotti 1977: 7). The process, however, was still heavily influenced by the military leadership. Indeed, one-third of the committee comprised high-ranking officers. Fifteen subcommittees were formed but all were headed by a member of the still active Revolutionary Council. Yet, the latter was openly looking for a way to bestow some sort of legitimacy upon the whole process. Ne Win, as well as the members of the 15 subcommittees, toured the country for months between 1971 and 1973, coordinating thousands of meetings with representatives of the people, the peasantry, the workers, and the armed forces in their barracks (Arumugam 1975: 41). The well-orchestrated organization of mass meetings and public consultations aimed to enlist people’s suggestions on each successive constitutional draft which had been prepared by the committee. In fact, it was a ritualistic and theatrical exercise purported to confer upon the document the necessary popular legitimacy that Ne Win was seeking for the post-Revolutionary Council regime (Steinberg 2006: 183). Ne Win and other army leaders had long considered the 1947 constitution to be the product of a handful of elite lawyers, foreign legal experts, and Burmese politicians (Moscotti 1977: 4). By involving mass consultations of the people or at least giving the impression that the Burmese population had been involved in the constitutional process, Ne Win sought a broader legitimacy for the new state institutions. The fourth constitutional draft was eventually submitted to a national referendum in December 1973. It was claimed that over 90 percent of Burma’s eligible voters approved the constitutional draft in a tightly controlled vote. The new constitution6 was then promulgated on the twenty-sixth anniversary of the country’s independence, namely January 4, 1974. A month later national elections were held, as the new constitutional text envisioned a (single-party) parliamentary system. Once the unicameral People’s Assembly (or Pyithu Hluttaw) was convened, a few weeks after the elections the transfer of power from the military-run Revolutionary Council to a civilian government dominated by the sole BSPP became effective. Ne Win was elected president, and on March 4 he nominated the new members of his Cabinet, all civilians.7 As long-time Burma watcher Josef Silverstein then noted, Burma entered a new phase of “constitutional dictatorship” (Silverstein 1977: 35). The 1974 constitution indeed offered the military-run Revolutionary Council and the armed forces a tool to withdraw from the direct policy-making process by institutionalizing the authoritarian rule of a single and trusted political party, the BSPP (Silverstein 1974). The text allowed the concentration of power in the sole hands of party members and their local representatives. Nonetheless, in the late 1970s, most of them happened to be active Tatmadaw officers seconded to the party bureaucracy or retired military officers (Nakanishi 2013: 108–109)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Politics and Constitutions in Southeast Asia
Date of publication: 2017-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-07
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Title: Political Violence and Journalism in a Multiethnic State - A Case Study of Burma (Myanmar)1
Description: "By focusing on the situation of journalists from Burma (Myanmar) living in exile in Thailand, this article explores the consequences of political violence on the development of indigenous journalism in a multiethnic state. Drawing on data gathered from participant observation and in-depth interviews with Burmese journalists in Thailand and along the border between Thailand and Burma, the research examines how local journalists are struggling to develop a context-appropriate model for media development that adequately addresses their need to deal with disagreement and difference in a context of political violence. The research calls into question the relevance of the dominant U.S. approach to “objective” journalism. In this often dangerous context, the definition of concepts such as unity, media independence, and censorship must be seen as provisional and contested, given the various pressures brought to bear on journalists. The model of journalism arising organically in this context is influenced by the recent surge in foreign funding for journalism training yet borrows elements of the normative, objective model and the model of peace journalism. The inappropriate nature of imported journalistic ideologies, however, suggests the need for a more complex model of media development in such complicated and conflictual contexts.....Violence and Ethnicity in Burma: Home to the world’s longest-running civil war, Burma is characterized by great ethnic diversity, with more than 100 different languages and dialects identified (Smith, 1999).2 Population statistics are generally unavailable, and contentious when they are, because there has been no attempt to take a count of the population since the British census in 1931 (Smith, 1991). The 1974 Constitution identifies seven divisions and seven ethnic states—Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kayah (Karenni), Mon, Rakhine (Arakan), and Shan. There are several other large minority groups in the country, as well as many Chinese, Tamils, Bengalis, and others of Indian origin. The most recent figures available, from 1983, list the majority Burmans as constituting 69% of the population (Steinberg, 2001). Annexed by Britain in stages between 1824 and 1886, Burma was governed at first as a province of India. The British divided its administration in Burma into two divisions: Ministerial Burma in the central area of the country, and the Frontier Areas, in which the ethnic minority groups were given autonomy to govern themselves. During World War II, the Burmans fought with the Japanese against the Allies while the hill peoples such as the Karens and Kachins stayed loyal to the British. The British exacerbated existing tensions between the various groups by using ethnic minority soldiers to police the Burmans agitating for independence in central Burma. After independence in 1948, civil war broke out between ethnic minority groups and the Burman government, and Burma experienced only a few years of civilian rule before a coup brought the military into power in 1962 under the leadership of General Ne Win. Despite reshuffling of personnel over the years, the military has remained firmly in power, and political violence has been a defining characteristic of its rule. Worsening economic conditions throughout the 1970s and 1980s, along with the regime’s abuses of its own people, led to the massive protests in 1988. Initially led by students, the demonstrations eventually involved hundreds of thousands of civilians who took to the streets. The Burmese military reacted with violence, gunning down thousands of people during the protests, which with few exceptions were nonviolent.3 The uprisings eventually led to a coup and the takeover by a reshuffled military under the name the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). At the time of the 1988 uprisings, nearly 20 insurgent forces were active over about one third of the country, controlling vast rural areas (Smith, 1995), and it is estimated that perhaps 60% of Burma’s land area, home to only 10% of the population, was not secured by the government (Steinberg, 2001, p. 186). The ethnic insurgencies and the government’s counterinsurgency operations have led to massive numbers of casualties4 and to the pattern of violence perpetuating long-standing distrust, especially between the Burmans and the non-Burmans, although factionalism is also widespread within the Burmese opposition groups.5 Shortly after taking power in 1988, the SLORC began arranging ceasefires with ethnic nationality groups, who would agree to stop fighting in exchange for government promises of more assistance with development in education, health care, transportation, and infrastructure (Steinberg, 2001). These two things together—the ceasefires and their relationship to infrastructural development—offered the government a cloak of legitimacy despite its status as an international pariah after the bloodshed of 1988. Yet many ethnic minority leaders believed, as did Hkun Okker, president of the Pa-O People’s Liberation Organization, that the military regime got the upper hand by making deals with groups individually. The military regime cleverly recognized that the ethnic power has a major role to play in Burmese politics, so immediately they picked up the armed ethnic groups and they spread out their power. . . . They recognized that he who rules the ethnics, rules Burma. (Hkun Okker, personal communication, July 5, 2000) Nevertheless, the resistance gained new impetus in 1988 when the border-based ethnonationalist movements were joined by thousands of Burman student activists who fled the country in the crackdown after the uprisings. Burma’s revolutionaries, so energized back then, have continued to struggle; however, after close to two decades since the 1988 uprisings, they now recognize how slow the process of genuine social and political change can be. The Burmese opposition today must be understood as a dynamic, ever-negotiated “movement” of groups constantly slipping into and out of tensions and alliances. In general terms, the movement is widely conceptualized as having, on the one hand, an “ethnic” element, a coalition of minority groups with the shared goal of a dignified measure of self-determination for the ethnic nationalities within multiethnic Burma. The opposition’s most visible element, however, is the Burman majority, primarily concerned with the development of democratic governance. Despite much genuine agreement and cooperation between Burman and ethnic nationality groups, significant tensions remain. The actions of the current incarnation of the military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), have added to the volumes already dedicated to documenting abuses by the Burmese government. Human Rights Watch (2005) sums up the current regime’s abuses in this way:6 The SPDC restricts the basic rights and freedoms of all Burmese... [and] continues to commit systematic, widespread, and well-documented abuses in ongoing conflicts with ethnic minority rebel groups, including extrajudicial executions, rape, torture, forced relocation of entire villages, and forced labor. As of late 2004, an estimated 650,000 people were internally displaced in eastern Burma alone, and at least 240 villages have been destroyed, relocated or abandoned since 2002. Some 2 million Burmese have moved to Thailand, including 145,000 refugees living in camps. (n.p.) In addition to the struggle for their survival, Burma’s ethnic minority groups are concerned about preserving their cultures, especially because many are convinced the military regime is conducting a campaign to “Burmanize” the country. The SPDC promotes an (apolitical) cultural diversity by celebrating public ethnic minority cultural performances while committing abuses against these peoples in the rural areas. Meanwhile, the ceasefires between the regime and various ethnic factions continue, although with much mutual suspicion. In addition to the violence perpetrated against ethnic minority peoples, much attention is paid to the ongoing detention of Burma’s democratic leader and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. Beginning with her arrest before the country’s 1990 elections, which were won by the opposition in a landslide but subsequently ignored by the regime, to her release from house arrest in 1995, rearrest in 2000, release in 2002, and rearrest in 2003, her detentions have garnered international media attention. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest as of this writing. It is within this context of political violence against dissident Burmans and ethnic minorities that the Burmese opposition in exile is attempting to transform patterns of behavior that have led to such a factionalized, militarized pattern of leadership. Media, and especially journalism, are seen as key components in the transition to a more open and transparent democratic process and a reduction in political violence. I have seen the Burmese media in exile develop in impressive ways since my first contact with Burmese activists when I lived in Thailand as a volunteer teacher in a camp of refugees from Burma from 1989 to 1992. It is this development, a result of and also in tension with foreign assistance for media development, that is the focus of this research..."
Source/publisher: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Date of publication: 2006-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-05
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Title: Junta Massacres 40 People in Myanmar Resistance Stronghold During July
Description: "The bodies of around 40 people killed by junta soldiers were found in the resistance stronghold of Kani Township in Sagaing Region in July, according to residents. “Junta troops raided our villages. We fled and found corpses when we came back to the villages. Nearly 40 bodies were found in July. Most recently we found 12 charred bodies in Taung Pauk,” a Kani resident told The Irrawaddy. Kani on the Chindwin River is around 50km from Monywa, the regional capital. The township has seen several massacres as the junta scaled up military operations against the resistance. The onslaught forced more than 7,000 residents from at least four villages to flee their homes. In the junta’s latest massacre, 12 bodies, including that of a 14-year-old boy, were found in Taung Pauk village on July 30. “The other victims included three brothers and people from Thayet Taw and Kho Twin. The bodies were seriously disfigured,” said another resident. Only some bodies have been retrieved for burial because the military is still active in the area, he added. The bodies were found four days after junta troops entered Taung Pauk and Thayet Taw villages and detained male villagers suspected of helping the People’s Defense Force (PDF) resistance. All the 12 victims were reportedly detained by the junta on July 26. Some bodies were burned and some were rotting but they were all badly bruised and exhibited signs of torture, said residents. This is the third time in less than a month that numerous bodies were found near villages in Kani. The bodies of 16 civilians were found scattered in the jungle surrounding Yin village tract on July 11 and 12 after villagers fled junta raids on July 8. Witnesses said some were shot dead by junta soldiers chasing them. Seven bodies were discovered on July 28 and five more were found on farms near Zee Pin Twin village on July 29. One of them was a disabled man and another was in his 60s. Some had apparently been hanged. Residents said some bodies might be PDF fighters because they were not residents. The military has not yet responded to questions about the killings in Kani. “The military regime might say they were armed rebels but they were not shot in shootouts. They all bore signs of torture and the bodies were intentionally hidden. It is a war crime,” said a lawyer. Kani overwhelmingly voted for the National League for Democracy in the 2020 general election. All the NLD candidates won in Kani with each securing more than 83 percent of the vote. It was one of the first towns to take to the streets after the coup in February. Residents soon started using rudimentary hunting rifles and homemade guns and blowing up junta vehicles. The junta responded with raids and detentions in Kani’s villages. The resistance formed the Kani Township PDF on May 10 attacking junta troops, including on the Chindwin River..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-08-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-03
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Title: ‘Weapons, power and money’: How rare earth mining in Kachin enriches a Tatmadaw ally
Sub-title: The leader of a Tatmadaw-controlled Border Guard Force in a remote region of Kachin State has emerged as a key player in the global rare earth trade, and has turned the territory under his de facto control into a mining hub at a high environmental cost.
Description: "In mountainous areas of Kachin State bordering China’s Yunnan province, the land is rich in rare earth – elements that are used worldwide in everything from cellphones and laptops to precision-guided weapons. Rare earth mining in Kachin has turned Myanmar into the world’s third-largest official exporter in just a few years. Multiple sources told Frontier and Danwatch, a Danish investigative outlet that collaborated on this investigation, that the rare earth mined in Kachin is extracted illegally by Chinese or Chinese-backed companies in areas of Chipwi Township under the de facto control of an armed group and militia led by Kachin warlord Zahkung Ting Ying. A former officer with the Kachin Independence Organization, Zahkung Ting Ying led a breakaway unit in 1968 that merged with the Communist Party of Burma. When the CPB dissolved in 1989, he established the New Democratic Army-Kachin, and in 2009 the NDA-K became the first ethnic armed group to transition into a Border Guard Force (BGF) under the Tatmadaw. Zahkung Ting Ying also heads a Tatmadaw-aligned militia in the same region, sources told Frontier. “As a BGF, Zakhung Ting Ying and his former NDA-K are also part of the Tatmadaw chain of command, meaning it is technically a Tatmadaw unit engaged in this rampant illegal mining,” said Ms Clare Hammond, Myanmar researcher with London-based environmental watchdog Global Witness. Outsourcing environmental costs As early as 1987, the then leader of China, Mr Deng Xiaoping, predicted that rare earth elements would be crucial to the modern economy. “The Middle East has the oil, but China has the rare earths,” he said during a visit to a production site in ​​Inner Mongolia, a Chinese province. A group of 17 metals, rare earth elements are actually widely distributed over the earth’s surface but are often not concentrated enough to make extraction financially viable. Mining is also environmentally costly: wastewater and tailings ponds can leak acids, heavy metals and radioactive elements into soil and groundwater, while deforestation leads to erosion and destroys ecosystems. China has long been the world’s dominant player in rare earth mining, accounting for 95 percent of all official extraction in 2010, according to the United States Geological Survey. But rising demand for products containing rare earth elements – including in the permanent magnets used in wind turbine generators and electric car motors, as well as for use in the LED screens in our mobile phones and computers – has prompted efforts to diversify production. Rare earths’ utility in military technology, such as drones, has also boosted their global demand and strategic value, including for the US army. At the same time, China has tightened export laws and introduced comprehensive environmental regulations that have curtailed its own official extraction, particularly since 2015. Sources familiar with the industry told Frontier and Danwatch that China’s tightening regulations have pushed the extraction of rare earth elements – and particularly a subset known as heavy rare earths, which are in high demand for their use in high-tech weapons, among other products – across the border into Myanmar. “China has either closed or suspended most of its extraction of heavy rare earths and replaced it with imports from Myanmar,” said David Merriman, a specialist in rare earth elements at the international consulting firm Roskill Information Services, which deals with supply chains of critical raw materials. China’s official trade data shows that from 2014 to 2020 its imports of rare earth elements from Myanmar jumped from just 300 tonnes to 35,500, with the latter worth US$388 million. By 2019, Myanmar had surpassed Australia to become the world’s third-largest official producer of rare earth elements after China and the United States. Last year, 94 percent of rare earth elements officially imported by China came from Myanmar. Hammond of Global Witness told Frontier that official trade data may only offer a glimpse into the scale of Kachin’s rare earth mining industry, given its “illegal nature” and because the Kachin State-China border is “highly porous”. Zahkung Ting Ying appears to have seized the opportunity to make a profit from these trends, with sources telling Frontier that rare earth elements are extracted from territories under the control of his BGF and militia before being driven across the border for processing. Due to the illegal nature of rare earth mining and its occurrence in territory controlled by Zahkung Ting Ying’s armed groups, it is difficult to track the companies or individuals which are actively engaged in the industry, but local activists and mine workers told Frontier that the bosses and senior workers on the sites are Chinese and that the companies are of Chinese origin. Similar patterns have emerged in other industries in Kachin State, including in the jade mines of Hpakant township and tissue-culture banana plantations across Waingmaw township, where Chinese-backed companies have partnered with Myanmar-registered companies or entered the state illegally in order to skirt regulations when conducting business. Dr Hkalen Tu Hkawng, a Kachin activist and the minister for natural resources and environmental conservation in the parallel National Unity Government, said that local authorities under the Tatmadaw and armed actors like Zahkung Ting Ying’s BGF might also take taxes or bribes from Chinese businessmen in exchange for permission to mine rare earth – a practice that he said is also common among opium poppy farmers in areas of Waingmaw township under the control of Zahkung Ting Ying’s BGF. “The [former] NDA-K and Tatmadaw know what is happening where, and if they didn’t get anything from it, they wouldn’t stay quiet,” he said. Cross-border collaboration The history of rare earth mining in Kachin is murky. Several knowledgeable sources told Frontier that they believed some of the first rare earth mining in the state occurred in areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization in the years leading up to the collapse of a ceasefire with the Tatmadaw in 2011, but that mining has now mostly or entirely stopped in KIO-controlled areas. KIO information department head Colonel Naw Bu told Frontier that the KIO is not officially engaged in rare earth mining, but has allowed exploration in an area of its eastern district known by the Kachin name of Mung Hkawng Pa, in the Mai Ja Yang region. Col Naw Bu said he was not authorised to answer further questions related to rare earth mining in KIO-controlled areas. Google Earth satellite images show four clusters of pools in a mountainous area northwest of Mai Ja Yang town. The pools look identical to those in photographs given to Frontier by people who worked on rare earth mining sites in Chipwi Township, as well as photos and videos taken by several media who visited rare earth mining sites in Chipwi Township in 2019. But the number of apparent rare earth mining sites in the Mai Ja Yang region pales in comparison to the mining in Zahkung Ting Ying’s BGF and militia-controlled territory. Six knowledgeable people interviewed by Frontier said that nearly all rare earth mining in Kachin takes place in areas under control of Zahkung Ting Ying’s BGF and militia, particularly in the area around the border town of Pangwa, alternately spelled Pangwar or Panwar. Several sources told Frontier that rare earth mining started picking up in this area around 2014 or 2015. Satellite images of the border area show around 100 sites in the region with the pools characteristic of rare earth mining. The sources said that the mining was happening with impunity. “Even though there are complaints from local people, rare earth mining is controlled by the BGF, which has weapons, power and money, so they don’t listen to local voices,” said an activist based in Myitkyina. A representative from the Transparency and Accountability Network Kachin State (TANKS), a local civil society group, told Frontier that land seizures are among many problems which locals face as a result of rare earth mining. “The [former] NDA-K and rare earth companies forcibly grab local people’s farmland and give compensation without any negotiation. If local people don’t accept, they won’t offer anymore; maybe they will offer less than before. Local villagers have no chance to complain,” said the source, who asked not to be named. Impunity is nothing new in territory under control of Zahkung Ting Ying’s armed groups, local activists told Frontier. Although the NLD and civil society groups tried to monitor rare earth mining, enforcing the law was almost impossible, said the TANKS representative, whose organisation focuses on monitoring natural resource governance. Tatmadaw personnel would typically accompany assessment teams made up of NLD and civil society representatives on mining site visits, they said, and when the teams arrived, the mining would stop temporarily. “When they went back to Myitkyina, [rare earth mining] resumed. The NLD government tried to regulate rare earth mining as much as they could … but the main implementers are armed groups, so it wasn’t possible … [The NLD] could only say, ‘stop illegal mining’, but it wasn’t really effective on the groups holding weapons.” Frontier’s calls to Tatmadaw spokesperson Major-General Zaw Min Tun went unanswered. Frontier was also unable to reach Zahkung Ting Ying for comment, and his son, politician and former NDA-K senior commander Zahkung Ying Sau, declined an interview request. An official from the New Democracy Party (Kachin), a political party led by Zahkung Ying Sau, who was elected to the state hluttaw in 2020, said the party was not involved in rare earth mining and refused to comment further. A web of permits Myanmar mining permit records show that dozens of exploration permits have been issued to mining companies in the stretch of Kachin State’s border with China under control of Zahkung Ting Ying’s armed groups. Since 2014-15, Myanmar has published records for mining permits as part of its commitments under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which was developed to promote the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources. The EITI Global Standard requires governments and companies in these sectors to disclose a range of information, including revenues, fees and licences. Myanmar EITI records for 2016-17 show that of the 148 mining permits issued for Kachin State, more than half were in areas of Chipwi and Tsawlaw townships either within or close to territory controlled by Zahkung Ting Ying’s armed groups. None of the permits listed were for rare earth mining exploration or production, however. Most were issued on a “first come first served” basis for exploration of other materials, such as iron, tin, tungsten, marble, lead and zinc. Many of the permits were issued to companies that do not appear to have ever been registered with Myanmar’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, the country’s repository of corporate records. In the Pangwa area of Chipwi township, where the BGF is headquartered, permits were issued to several firms without a DICA registration record, such as “Chain Yein Taung Mining”, which held 15 licences overall, and “Lan Chaw Pwan Development”, which had three permits. DICA records also show that Zakhung Ting Ying and his son are directors of several registered companies that hold a large number of the permits. One such company, Myanmar Myo Ko Ko Medical Instrument Co Ltd, held 11 permits in total, all for iron production on a “first come first served” basis in the Pangwa area. Issued in 2016, the permits were due to expire in March 2021 and it is unclear whether they have been extended. Zakhung Ting Ying is also a director together with Zahkung Ying Sau and two other sons, Zahkung Ying Ting and Zahkung Ying Chan, of San Lin International Import and Export Co Ltd, which has held several permits in the Pangwa area of Chipwi township. Myanmar Myo Ko Ko and San Lin companies also share directors with other permit holding firms, including Bawm Myang Co Ltd, and Sin Kyaing Co Ltd. Myanmar EITI mining permit records for 2017-18, available through the OneMap portal, show that Bawm Myang, San Lin and Lan Chaw Pwan Development held permits around Pangwa that year. However, the TANKS representative told Frontier in May of this year that Myanmar Myo Ko Ko was the only company officially involved in rare earth mining under the NLD. They said the company was granted a one-year mining exploration licence by the union-level Ministry of Mines in 2018. Radio Free Asia reported in 2019 that according to the Kachin State Ministry of Mines, Myanmar Myo Ko Ko had been licensed to explore five mining sites totaling 114 acres, while the Kachin State Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation at the time, Dashi La Seng, confirmed to RFA that most rare earth mining was happening illegally in the area. Frontier tried calling Myanmar Myo Ko Ko, but of all the listed numbers, only one number worked and Frontier was told it was a wrong number. ‘Nothing can live there’ As rare earth mining has shifted from China across the border into Myanmar, the environmental consequences appear to have followed. According to Hammond of Global Witness, the “relatively weak rule of law” in the area means that rare earth mining often doesn’t meet even “basic environmental standards.” Frontier’s interviews, along with other media reports, have revealed concerns about contaminated soil and water sources as well as erosion, which local activists and mine workers told Frontier was causing landslides as well as sediment build-up in the Chipwi River. They also said that little heed was paid to worker safety. Seng Awng, the pseudonym for a 30-year-old Kachin from a village near Myitkyina, began working for a mining company whose name he does not know in September 2019. Sut Hting, the pseudonym for a 60-year-old Kachin who lives in a displaced person camp in Myitkyina township, also worked for a company whose name he did not know from December 2017 to May 2018. The two workers said they knew little about the chemicals used in the mining process. Seng Awng described the powders he worked with as similar to salt, while Sut Hting said that the chemical liquids and powders were stored in containers with lettering in Chinese. “Most local workers don’t understand what’s written on those containers, and no one comes to explain,” he said. Sut Hting avoided work which involved handling chemicals, even though it paid better, because workers said the chemicals harmed their health. “Most workers didn’t want those jobs. They just did it for one or two months,” he said. “They said those chemical liquids and powders harmed their health. Some workers even got sick. The company didn’t provide proper safety equipment.” Seng Awng, who was among workers who handled chemicals, said he wore gloves but the few times he touched the powder or liquid, he felt a slight burning sensation. He said workers avoided using local water sources for drinking or bathing and that forests in the area had been destroyed. “There’s nothing left there, not even trees. They cut the trees and burn them. In the working area, there is not a single animal,” he said. ‘Mining can happen more freely than before’ Those interviewed by Frontier and Danwatch believed that rare earth mining had picked up speed since the February 1 military coup. “Since the coup we’ve seen an increase in rare earth mining in Kachin State and we expect the lawless environment to be conducive to the business interests of militia groups more broadly,” said Hammond of Global Witness. “Illegal activity thrives in anarchic conditions, and the post-coup chaos has created a perfect opportunity for bad actors to take advantage by pillaging Myanmar’s natural resources.” Hkalen Tu Hkawng of the National Unity Government also forecast rare earth mining to increase. “When the public and activists don’t have the freedom to advocate for the rule of law and law enforcement, and when their ability to monitor becomes weak, rare earth mining can happen more freely than before,” he said. As the buyer of rare earth from Myanmar, China has a significant amount of leverage to tackle the rampant illegal mining of rare earths in Kachin State – if it chooses to do so. In January, China introduced draft policies for regulating the rare earth industry chain, which include prohibiting the purchase and sale of products extracted illegally and establishing a tracking system for rare earth.Hammond called on China to do more to stop the illicit cross-border rare earth industry, pointing out that it provided no benefit to communities, who only see the destruction of their land. “Rare earth mining in Kachin is benefitting militia leaders who answer to Myanmar’s military, and who provide support to the military in exchange for being allowed to pursue illicit business interests,” she said. “Cutting off sources of funding to these groups will in turn put pressure on the military.” – Additional reporting by Jaw Tu Hkawng
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Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2021-08-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-03
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Title: Fears of Another Long Dictatorship as Myanmar Coup Maker Appoints Himself PM
Topic: caretaker government, Coup, dictatorship, Election, junta, Min Aung Hlaing, Ne Win, NLD, Prime Minister, regime
Topic: caretaker government, Coup, dictatorship, Election, junta, Min Aung Hlaing, Ne Win, NLD, Prime Minister, regime
Description: "Fears are growing in Myanmar that the country is facing another decades-long dictatorship, as coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has taken on the role of prime minister in his newly formed caretaker government, following in the footsteps of former dictator Ne Win, who ruled the country for 26 years. Min Aung Hlaing’s self-appointment to the position and the formation of the new government were announced on Sunday as the Southeast Asian country marked sixth months under military rule imposed by his State Administration Council (SAC). On the same day, he said elections would be held by 2023. Since the military seized power from the democratically elected government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in February, Myanmar has been in turmoil economically, socially and politically. The regime has been struggling to rule the country in the face of popular protest and civil armed resistance. Currently, highly contagious new variants of the coronavirus are battering the country. The caretaker government is nothing new to Myanmar. In 1958 when the then ruling Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) was divided by faction and intrigue, then Prime Minister U Nu handed state power to then military chief General Ne Win after securing a promise from the general that an election would be held in six months. Ne Win agreed and formed a caretaker government, in which he was the prime minister. However, the election was not held until 1960. Ne Win handed power back to U Nu’s party after its victory at the polls. Two years later, however, the general seized power back through a coup, claiming that the Union of Burma (Myanmar’s former name) was in danger of disintegration under the U Nu government. After the takeover in 1962, Ne Win held power for 26 years as the supreme leader of the country. He turned what had been Southeast Asia’s most prosperous nation into a poor socialist state, isolating the country from the outside world and pushing it into the ranks of the poorest nations, with Burma earning the UN’s Least Developed Country (LCD) designation in 1987. Ne Win’s dictatorship was toppled by a nationwide popular uprising in 1988, but the protests were brutally cracked down on by the army, paving the way for another period of direct military rule until early 2011. Given this historical context, the regime’s announcement on Sunday of the caretaker government and its promise to hold elections in two years were met with skepticism. “The military is back in absolute power for the long haul,” said Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who has been covering Asia for decades. He said if anyone had any doubts about Min Aung Hlaing’s intentions when he ousted the democratically elected government in Feb. 1, it should now be clear to all that the military grabbed absolute power in order to crush any attempts to establish genuine civilian rule, which was the aim of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted National League for Democracy government. A Yangon-based political analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue said the regime appeared set on holding power for as long as it can. He said that by forming the caretaker government the junta was merely playing another card in its game of misleading the international community into believing that it is not a regime, but rather a government that is holding power temporarily. “They won’t give it back and it will be really bad for the country,” he said. Min Aung Hlaing earlier promised he would hand over power to whichever party won the next election. On Sunday, he said the polls would be held in 2023 after the state of emergency period was over. Last week, the regime officially annulled the 2020 election results, which saw the NLD win a landslide victory, claiming the NLD violated the constitution and election laws. The regime has also been working on disbanding the NLD over the alleged violations. Given the existing situation, it’s doubtful the NLD will survive to see the election Min Aung Hlaing has promised. Myanmar’s recent history also shows that the generals rarely keep their promises and are not reliable when it comes to polls. When the NLD won the general election in 1990, the then military regime didn’t honor the results. They organized an election in 2010 that saw its proxy party win but the polls were internationally dismissed as a sham. For the 2023 election—if it happens—one possible scenario is that a regime-backed party will have the upper hand with the demise of the NLD. Lintner said it’s “criminally naïve” to believe that the military will hand over power to a democratically elected, civilian government. Echoing Lintner, the Yangon-based analyst said parties backed by the regime will contest the vote, with one of them eventually forming a government. “The regime will make sure that one of them will win,” he said..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-08-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-02
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Title: Kani villagers find more bodies of civilians murdered by junta forces
Sub-title: A total of 40 corpses, most showing evidence of torture, have been discovered in the area over the past month
Description: "A dozen bodies were discovered near a village in Sagaing Region’s Kani Township on Friday, offering further evidence of atrocity killings by regime forces operating in the area. The 12 bodies, including one of a 14-year-old boy, were found in a wooded area near the village of Taung Pauk on the afternoon of July 30, local sources said. Days earlier, military forces entered Taung Pauk and other nearby villages and began arresting male residents suspected of involvement in the anti-coup resistance movement. A search party was later formed to locate the detained villagers, all of whom appear to have been tortured and murdered on the day of their arrest. “The bodies were very badly bruised. They had also started to decompose, to the point that you couldn’t pick them up. They were killed on the 26th or 27th, so that was understandable,” said a local activist who spoke to members of the search party. Some of the bodies had been kept under a burned hut and were covered by a sheet, he added. All 12 of the victims have been identified as villagers who were in the custody of the military at the time of their death. Two were from the village of Kho Twin and seven—including the 14-year-old—were from Thayet Taw, another village in the area. The other three were residents of the town of Kani who were staying with relatives in Thayet Taw. None of the bodies have been taken away for burial because the military is still active in the area, local residents told Myanmar Now. This is the third time in less than a month that bodies have been found dumped near villages in Kani Township. A total of at least 40 have been discovered so far, most of them showing signs of torture. On July 11 and 12, the bodies of 15 people were found scattered in a forest near Yin, a village that had been raided along with several others the day before. At least 13 more bodies were discovered last week near the village of Zee Pin Twin following clashes between the military and the local People’s Defence Force (PDF). The mass killings appear to be aimed at weakening support for the resistance movement, according to PDF fighters who insist that the regime’s brutal tactics are backfiring. “People are joining us now to avenge their dead loved ones, even if they didn’t want to fight before. The military’s attempt to terrify people into submission doesn’t work anymore,” said one PDF member who didn’t want to be named. Meanwhile, thousands of villagers have been displaced since the second week of July as clashes in Kani continue. Most have been forced to seek refuge in forested areas due to fears that crowding into camps or other villages could lead to dangerous levels of exposure to Covid-19 amid a recent surge of the disease. “We can’t make camps because of the pandemic. But we don’t have suitable shelter in the forest, which we need because it has been raining a lot. Aside from Covid-19, seasonal flu has been pretty bad,” said one displaced villager..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2021-08-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-02
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Title: Myanmar military leader takes new title of prime minister in caretaker government - state media
Description: "Myanmar's military ruler Min Aung Hlaing has taken on a new title as prime minister of a newly formed caretaker government, state media reported on Sunday, six months after the army seized power from a civilian government. Min Aung Hlaing has chaired the military-backed State Administration Council (SAC) that has run Myanmar since it was formed just after the Feb. 1 coup, and the caretaker government will replace it. “In order to perform the country’s duties fast, easily and effectively , the state administration council has been reformed as caretaker government of Myanmar,” a newsreader on state Myawaddy television said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of publication: 2021-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-01
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Title: National Unity Government Sent Message for the 59th Anniversary of 7 July - (၅၉) နှစ်မြောက် ဆဲဗင်း ဇူလိုင် အခမ်းအနားများသို့ ပေးပို့သော သဝဏ်လွှာ
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ www.nugmyanmar.org ၇ ဇူလိုင် ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် (၅၉) နှစ်မြောက် ဆဲဗင်း ဇူလိုင် အခမ်းအနားများသို့ ပေးပို့သော သဝဏ်လွှာ ၁။ ယနေ့ ဇူလိုင်လ ၇ ရက်နေ့သည် ဗမာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာ ကျောင်းသားသမဂ္ဂများအဖွဲ့ချုပ် အပါအဝင် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို တပ်ဦးမှ တော်လှန်ခဲ့သော ကျောင်းသားလူငယ် သူရဲကောင်းတို့၏ ၇.၇.၁၉၆၂ တွင် သွေးမြေခခဲ့ရသည့် အောက်မေ့ဖွယ်အထိမ်းအမှတ်၊ (၅၉) နှစ်မြောက် အခါသမယ ဖြစ်သည်။ အမှန်တရားနှင့် တရားမျှတ လွတ်လပ်ခြင်းအတွက် ထိုကဲ့သို့ ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက် ဘဝနှင့်အသက်ကိုပေးဆပ်ကာ လက်ဆင့်ကမ်း တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ကျောင်းသားလူငယ် တော်လှန်ရေးရဲဘော်အပေါင်းအား အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက လေးစားစွာ ဦးညွှတ်ဂုဏ်ပြုအပ်ပါသည်။ ၂။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတစ်ဝန်းရှိ အနယ်နယ်အရပ်ရပ်မှ တိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံပါဝင်သော လူငယ်များဖြင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းထားသည့် ကျောင်းသားသမဂ္ဂများသည် ကိုလိုနီစနစ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်ရာတွင် ရှေ့တန်းမှ တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ မြန်မာ့လွတ်လပ်ရေးနှင့် ပြည်ထောင်စုတည်ထောင်ရာတွင် အဓိကအခန်းကဏ္ဍက ပါဝင်ခဲ့သည့် ခေါင်းဆောင် များစွာကိုလည်း မွေးထုတ်ပေးခဲ့သည်။ ယင်းကဲ့သို့ သမိုင်းအဆက်ဆက် မတရားမှုကို ဆန့်ကျင်တော်လှန်ရာတွင် အစဉ်အလာရှိခဲ့သည့်အတိုင်း ၁၉၆၂ ခုနှစ် မတ်လ ၂ ရက်နေ့၌ ဗိုလ်ချုပ်နေဝင်းဦးဆောင်သည့် တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီက အာဏာသိမ်းပြီး ၂ ရက်အကြာ မတ်လ ၄ ရက်နေ့တွင် ကျောင်းသားသမဂ္ဂများက ကန့်ကွက် ကြောင်း ပူးတွဲကြေညာချက် ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့သည်။ အမှန်တရားနှင့် တရားမျှတမှုဘက်မှ ခိုင်မာစွာ ရပ်တည်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ကျောင်းသားလူငယ်များကို စစ်အာဏာရှင် တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီက ဇူလိုင် ၇ ရက်နေ့တွင် ရက်စက်စွာ သတ်ဖြတ်ခဲ့ရာ အပြစ်မဲ့သည့် ကျောင်းသားလူငယ် ရာနှင့်ချီ၍ ကျဆုံးခဲ့သည်။ ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက် ကျောင်းသား နိုင်ငံရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှုများ၏ အထိမ်းအမှတ်သင်္ကေတဖြစ်သည့် သမဂ္ဂအဆောက်အဦကိုပါ ဗုံးခွဲဖျက်ဆီးခဲ့သည်။ ၃။ အလားတူ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဖေဖော်ရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့တွင်လည်း ပြည်သူ့အာဏာကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက အဓမ္မသိမ်းယူခဲ့ပြန်သည်။ ထိုအာဏာသိမ်းမှုကို ရက်ပိုင်းအတွင်း ကျောင်းသားလူငယ်များက စတင်ကာ နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝန်းရှိ ပြည်သူတရပ်လုံးက ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ ဆန့်ကျင်ဆန္ဒပြခဲ့ကြသည်။ ၁၉၆၂ ခုနှစ် မှ ယခု ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်တိုင် စစ်အာဏာရှင်အဆက်ဆက်သည် ထောင်ပေါင်းများစွာသော လက်နက်မဲ့၊ အပြစ်မဲ့ ပြည်သူများကို စစ်အင်အားသုံးကာ ရက်စက်စွာ သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ နိုင်ငံရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူပေါင်း သိန်းဂဏန်းချီ၍ ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်း၊ သန်းနှင့်ချီသော တိုင်းရင်းသား ပြည်သူများ၏ ဘဝပေါင်းများစွာကို အတိဒုက္ခရောက်စေခြင်း၊ လူငယ်များ၏ မျှော်လင့်ချက်များနှင့် အနာဂတ်များကို စနစ်တကျဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းတို့ကို ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ ၄။ ထိုသို့ စစ်အာဏာရှင်အဆက်ဆက်၏ နှစ်ပေါင်း ၆၀၊ မျိုးဆက် ၃ ခု ကြာမျှ လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် ဖိနှိပ်အနိုင်ကျင့်ကာ ဘဝနှင့် အသက်အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ်များကို ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသော်လည်း အတိတ်သမိုင်းမှ ကျောင်းသားလူငယ်များ၏ အမှန်တရားကို ချစ်မြတ်နိုးသည့်စိတ်ဓါတ်၊ မတရားမှုကို ဆန့်ကျင်တော်လှန် ရဲသည့် သတ္တိတို့သည် ယနေ့တိုင် ဆက်လက်ရှင်သန်နေဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ ယခုလက်ရှိ စစ်အာဏာရှင် ဆန့်ကျင်တော်လှန်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှုများကိုလည်း လက်ဆင့်ကမ်း ဆက်လက်စေ့ဆော်ပေးလျက်ရှိသည်။ လူငယ်များ၏ တရားမျှတသော၊ တန်းတူညီမျှသော ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စု စိတ်ကူးအိပ်မက်အား ကျောင်းသားလူငယ် အားလုံး၏ သမဂ္ဂစိတ်ဓါတ်၊ ပြည်သူလူထု၏အင်အား၊ တိုင်းရင်းသား လူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံမှ ခေါင်းဆောင်အားလုံး၏ အတွေ့အကြုံနှင့် ပေါင်းစပ်ကာ အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်သွားနိုင်မည်ဟု မုချယုံကြည်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication: 2021-07-07
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar Coup Maker’s Birthday Greeted With Curses, Nationwide Condemnation
Description: "His name was scrawled on coffins at mock funerals across the country. People shouted wishes for his death. Myanmar’s poker-faced coup leader stared out from burning pictures. This is how Myanmar people marked the birthday of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who turned 65 on Saturday. In other words, it was how they vented their simmering hatred of him for his seizure of power from the country’s democratically elected government five months ago and his forces’ lethal response to the popular protests against him. Exactly two weeks ago on June 19, Myanmar people at home and abroad marked the 76th birthday of their elected leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained by Min Aung Hlaing since the coup. The junta chief must be envious of the celebrations held at that time, which were in stark contrast to what Min Aung Hlaing witnessed on Saturday. For the State Counselor’s birthday, smiles and flowers were everywhere. People prayed for her good health and speedy release. Myanmar’s favorite social media, Facebook, was flooded with pictures of people wearing or holding flowers to show solidarity with their leader, who is known for wearing flowers. One user wrote: “Come you Back, Mom…Revolutionary flowers are now in bloom.” When she learned about it, she thanked the people for her birthday celebration and also wished good health to the people, according to one of her lawyers. On Saturday, activists in Yangon left free fans at bus stops as part of a mock funeral for the coup maker. It is a common practice to distribute fans at Buddhist funerals. Young people staged flash mob protests, vowing to take revenge for his brutality toward protesters. In Mandalay, people set coffins bearing his name, along with pictures of him, on fire in the streets, cursing him and calling for his speedy death. Due to the misery he has brought to the country since the coup, people said he should have been stillborn. He is so despised that some people went even further, urinating on pictures of him. On Facebook, people posted pictures of themselves holding placards with their “birthday wishes” for Min Aung Hlaing. One sign read: “May you die in haste!” In Ayeyarwady Region, villagers prayed “May your birthday be your death day!” For Min Aung Hlaing and his wife Daw Kyu Kyu Hla, both known for their superstitious beliefs, the people’s reaction on Saturday must surely make them quite uncomfortable. Until this year, few in the country would have had any interest in his birthday. Were it not for the coup and his deadly response to the protesters, there would have been no mock funerals for him on Saturday. His predecessor as dictator, Than Shwe, was the subject of similar protests, but largely by activists in exile and not in the sort of nationwide denunciation that Min Aung Hlaing is facing today..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-07-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Amid This ‘Great Depression’, Myanmar’s People Will Never Give Up
Description: "Myanmar has entered a Great Depression. It must be spelled with a capital G and D, reflecting the real mood of the people of this country. This Great Depression began with the coup staged by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on Feb. 1, which in turn triggered political, social and economic upheavals that continue to this day. This Myanmar version of the Great Depression differs from the severe worldwide economic depression of the 1930s, though. The trauma of a coup d’état—or even the prospect of one—is familiar to the people of Myanmar, who suffered through three previous coups, and the total breakdowns in order that resulted, over the past six decades, in 1958, 1962 and 1988. However, the latest coup has been a particularly serious blow, not only politically, socially and economically, but also psychologically, for the whole population. Since the coup, all people in the country—rich and poor, educated and uneducated, employers and employees, civil servants and private company staff, parents and children, adults and kids, teachers and students, men and women, doctors and patients, villagers and city dwellers, farmers and traders, Buddhists and Christians, Hindus and Muslims, members of the ethnic majority and minorities, locals and foreigners—have been plunged into misery. Almost everyone I meet and speak to these days has shared with me their deep despair, anger and fear, without even being asked. They all feel lost, and we can all relate to this feeling; there is no need to elaborate. I tend to express my own feelings back to them with this observation: “This is the era in which everyone in our country, from beggars to the president, are experiencing the worst kind of suffering.” Shattered expectations One especially cruel aspect of this Great Depression was that it was thrust upon the country at a time when people had such great expectations. The people were in a delighted mood after November’s election, in which the National League for Democracy won a landslide victory, and were waiting to witness the rare spectacle of an elected government returning to power in order to entrench the country’s fledgling democracy, building on the freedoms, rights and economic opportunities that had been initiated over the previous decade. Actually, their great expectations were largely confined to practical improvements in their lives; they were not overly concerned with idealistic notions, given their country’s complex political situation, in which the military already enjoyed undemocratic privileges. But one man alone—an unprofessional general greedy for power—destroyed at a stroke their expectations and dreams of a brighter future. Because of his greed, the entire population now exists in this Great Depression. Since the coup, the country has endured four months of grief. Not a single day has passed without arbitrary killings, arrests or abductions in one place or another in Myanmar. So far, the regime’s forces have killed about 880 people, including many children, and have detained more than 5,000 protesters across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs over the past few months. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has warned that up to 3.4 million citizens could go hungry this year amid rising food prices and the loss of manufacturing, construction and service jobs. The coup has driven the economy into a state of rapid deterioration, and it is only expected to worsen in the near future. A third wave of COVID-19 infections has recently hit the country, but the regime’s response to the deadly virus has been to do almost nothing. Many people recall the systematic measures implemented by the previous civilian government to handle the first and second waves of COVID-19 last year. These are just the tip of the iceberg of the problems we face in this depression era. The whole situation on the ground is an indescribable catastrophe created by the coup leader and his regime. Min Aung Hlaing’s persecution of hundreds of doctors, teachers and striking civil servants has resulted in family separations as those on the wanted list have either gone into hiding or fled the country. His soldiers’ indiscriminate response to civilian resistance fighters in some urban areas has taken a great toll on people there. In Kayah State, residents returned to their homes to see they had been burned to ashes. Parents mourn their children who have died from pneumonia in rain-soaked forests after being forced to flee heavy-handed raids on their villages by thuggish soldiers. But this is not the first time for Myanmar. In this country, every generation has its own dark memories. The generations of our fathers and grandfathers suffered similar feelings of despair under successive generals whose decisions destroyed their dreams and their lives too. The older generation felt this despair under the rule of the late dictator General Ne Win for 26 years from 1962 to 1988, while the younger generation felt it under Ne Win’s successors, senior generals Saw Maung and Than Shwe, for the next 23 years from 1988 to 2011. These periods under military dictatorship were an ordeal—earlier examples of the Great Depression endured by the people of Myanmar. Dragged into a dark past In the past, however, when Ne Win staged a coup and introduced his autocratic rule to the country, authoritarianism was not peculiar to Myanmar. During the Cold War it was somewhat of a global political trend, existing in countries in Africa, Latin America, East Asia and the Middle East. Myanmar and its neighboring countries in Southeast Asia were not exceptional in this. In reality, it is not surprising that the rule of such great sinners should bring this kind of Great Depression. One only has to look at the world around us. Other countries have encountered worse experiences. Just look at the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically killed some 6 million Jews—two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe—during World War II. Think about the feelings of Jewish communities across the world; Myanmar people can’t compare their current situation to those Jewish victims. Cambodia, one of Myanmar’s neighboring countries, suffered such a Great Depression when the Khmer people endured the Khmer Rouge regime’s persecution of its perceived opponents, as well as minorities, causing up to 2 million deaths in the 1970s. They all suffered deeply, experiencing their own forms of Great Depression during such terrible periods. It is a phenomenon that has afflicted the whole world throughout human history with inexpressible suffering. But all those that experienced it had to overcome these ordeals. Nowadays, however, far fewer countries find themselves in this situation—for most nations, the most recent examples occurred decades ago. That’s why this latest coup in Myanmar feels so much worse to people than previous military takeovers. But it shall be overcome. How? One simple and fundamental quality is enough: simply, the will to never give up. In previous Great Depression eras, the people of Myanmar didn’t give up; each time, they continued to struggle until they were able to bounce back. That’s what they are doing now, and every single person needs to keep doing their part through their respective callings. That’s why we’re seeing so many people in Myanmar rejecting the coup in so many different ways, to restore the democracy they expected..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-06-26
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: In Myanmar, Anonymous Attacks Have Junta’s Families Living in Fear
Description: "Undeniably, the increasingly frequent bomb and hit-and-run attacks on regime targets in Myanmar’s urban areas are scaring the family members of high-ranking officials at the military regime-controlled Home Affairs Ministry to death. “They are really scary!” admitted the wife of Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Soe Htut, who heads the Myanmar Police Force and is under US sanction following the coup in February. Daw Nilar Sein made the confession during a Viber Group call with the wives of other senior officials from the ministry. A leaked recording of the call was shared on Mratt’s Channel. Myanmar has seen a spate of deadly bombings and shooting attacks on police stations, ward administration offices and other government facilities in response to the junta’s killing of more than 800 people during its nationwide crackdowns on protesters. A number of regime-appointed local administrators have been shot dead at close range recently. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. In the country’s southeastern Kayah State, among other places, junta troops have been killed by civilian resistance groups who have taken up arms against the regime. In the leaked conversation, which appears to be recent, Daw Nilar Sein instructs the others on the call to pay serious attention to security, claiming to have learned that 30 resistance fighters had been dispatched to Pyinmana in Naypyitaw to bomb the residences of high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the military. “Thoroughly check the stuff that comes into your houses. Be alert when you sleep at night,” she is heard saying. The wife of the Home Affairs Minister even reminds the others “not to go out with escorts in police uniform.” “If they see someone in uniform in your car, they [attackers] will notice and plant a bomb on the car,” she says. She also warns that the children of senior officials should not dine out at night, saying they are vulnerable to anti-regime informants at restaurants. “They are quite scary. The danger is not apparent,” she reminds the other callers. Apart from urging the others to be on alert, Daw Nilar Sein also recommends some rather more traditional self-protection measures: Reciting Buddhist scriptures to ward off the dangers looming over them. “Recite them now. They [the attackers] will be likely to come and get you, if they don’t get others!” At this point in the conversation, the minister’s wife takes a more high-tech approach. Daw Nilar Sein instructs the others in her group to “report” to Facebook the account of a minster in the parallel National Unity Government (NUG), and that of a Facebook influencer. The first victim turned out to be Dr. Zaw Wai Soe, who is the NUG’s acting minister overseeing three portfolios: Labor, Immigration and Population; Education; and Health and Sports. In the call, she accuses the orthopaedic surgeon-turned-minister of orchestrating the killings of security forces and raids on police stations. “His icy voice really scares me,” Daw Nilar Sein says. She urges the others to report Dr. Zaw Wai Soe’s account hourly every day until it is banned, because “Everyone seems to take what he said seriously.” Her other target was Pencilo, a popular Facebook influencer and energetic anti-regime activist who wages daily online psychological warfare against the junta and their family members, frequently warning them that their days are numbered. “Our police officers were killed because of these two [Dr. Zaw Wai Soe and Pencilo],” says Daw Nilar Sein. “They launch their destructive activities in cahoots.” “Do report them starting from tonight. If you don’t know how, ask your children!” she orders her listeners. So far, the Facebook accounts of both Dr. Zaw Wai Soe and Pencilo remain active, with more than 400,000 and 2.8 million followers respectively. In response to Daw Nilar Sein, Pencilo posted on Saturday morning that blocking her account or that of Dr. Zaw Wai Soe would not stop the revolution against the regime. “It will only stop when you all take a dirt nap! Get it?”..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-06-12
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Film festival highlights Myanmar’s long struggle for democracy
Sub-title: Online film festival that runs to June 20 aims to draw attention to Myanmar’s political crisis while raising money for groups inside the country striving to restore democracy and alleviate hardship.
Description: "Mr Kenneth Wong and his family left Myanmar soon after witnessing the military gun down unarmed protesters on the streets of Yangon in 1988. For Wong, a Burmese language lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, there’s a painful sense of deja vu over the situation in Myanmar. He was a university student in 1988 when the military violently suppressed a national uprising in which many of his friends participated. In the decades since, Wong was encouraged by the how much Myanmar had changed each time he visited. Then came the coup on February 1. “The things I’m seeing are things I hoped the new generation would never have to experience,” he told Frontier. Wong, who is also a poet and artist, began looking for a way to support the anti-coup struggle through art. He got together with a group of filmmakers and directors based in San Francisco and began sounding out Myanmar filmmakers and distributors with the idea of holding an online film festival, with all proceeds going towards humanitarian and pro-democracy groups inside the country. These discussions resulted in the Burma Spring Benefit Film Festival, which features more than 30 films from or about Myanmar, and runs until June 20. Helping to spearhead the concept was Gaetano Kazuo Maida, the executive director of the Buddhist Film Foundation/International Buddhist Film Festival. “The filmmaker community really responded to our urgent invitations,” said Maida. “All of the filmmakers that we reached out to were very generous, knowing that this was the cause,” added Wong. The film festival has an added poignancy because of the regime’s targeting of Myanmar’s top artists, including actors, filmmakers and bloggers. A fellow film festival organiser, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, who founded the annual Human Rights Human Dignity Film Festival, was arrested on the day of the coup. In total, the military has issued arrest warrants for 120 filmmakers, actors, celebrities and journalists for opposing the coup. “The junta recognises that these entertainers have an incredibly powerful voice and so they target them,” Wong said. One of the most recent filmmakers to be arrested was Ma Aeint, whose latest film, Money has Four Legs, directed by Maung Sun and released last year, was about censorship in Myanmar. Ma Eaint’s family haven’t been able to contact her since she was detained by police in early June. “We want to get in touch with her her as soon as possible because the interrogation centers are known for torture,” said her sister, Ma Su Wai. Many of the titles in the Burma Spring Benefit festival encapsulate the sense of deja vu Wong is feeling, at a time when the military is once again in control of the levers of power and the people are once again fighting for democracy. Burma VJ, a 2008 Best Documentary nominee at the Academy Awards in the United States, shows how thousands of monks led a campaign of nonviolent resistance against the military junta in protests in 2007 known as the Saffron Revolution. Dozens were killed and hundreds arrested, and the Danish team that made the documentary had to smuggle their footage out of the country. Fellow festival organiser Ms Jeanne Marie Hallacy said the films in the festival were selected both for the strength of their storytelling and filmmaking craft, and their relevance for a general audience to understand the country’s prolonged struggle for democracy and human rights. One of the newest films to be screened, Burma Spring 21, is unique in that the five-minute film was shot and edited by an anonymous Myanmar filmmaker soon after the coup. Although filmmakers would ordinarily covet acclaim for a completed project, fear of being on a government blacklist and facing potential reprisals means that the message takes precedence. “Facts and figures are easy to get online,” Wong said. “But what’s difficult to get are the explanations about the socio-political issues that spawned the current crisis. This is the type of information that is better discovered in books, films, and particularly in documentary films.” A highlight of the film festival will take place on June 11 when it is due to be addressed by two members of the National Unity Government: U Aung Myo Min, the minister for human rights, and Naw Susannah Hla Hla Soe, the minister for women, youth and children affairs. The film festival is just one event in one US city that is helping to create awareness and raise funds for people resisting the coup in Myanmar. Elsewhere around the world, local activist groups have been holding rallies and raising funds for the protest movement. Wong is working with the International Network of Engaged Buddhists to transfer much-needed funds to civil servants who have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement and are refusing to work under the junta. “These are lifelines to them, because if you are participating in the CDM, a salary is no longer available,” said Wong. Although Myanmar faces an uncertain future, Wong hopes for the day when the Burma Spring Benefit Film Festival will no longer aim to raise awareness and funds, and will instead showcase a renewed entertainment scene in all its creative glory. During his trips to Myanmar, he saw clear signs that the country was moving towards a better future after nearly half a century of military rule. “There were a lot of young people who were launching their own startups and drawing inspiration from Silicon Valley,” he said. “At tea shops, taxi drivers and waiters were eager to talk about politics and express their views without [having to worry about] being arrested. I felt that these were signs that democracy was struggling to be born. So this film festival is about creating awareness.”..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2021-06-11
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: The Day Myanmar’s Junta Pushed Through 2008 Constitution
Description: "On this day in 2008, less than one month after over 100,000 people were killed by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, military dictator Senior General Than Shwe announced the promulgation of the 2008 Constitution. Nargis struck the coast of Myanmar on the evening of May 2, 2008, smashing almost all the buildings in the Irrawaddy delta and affecting millions of people, especially in Yangon and Bago regions and Mon and Karen states. The junta, however, decided to proceed with the vote, holding the constitutional referendum in most of Myanmar on May 10 and in the more severely affected areas on May 24, 2008. While people were still in desperate trouble, the regime reported a heavy turnout and said 98.12 percent of eligible voters took part and 92.48 percent voted in favor. The constitution thus earned the satirical name, the Nargis constitution. After refusing to recognize the results of the 1990 general election, which brought a landslide victory to the National League for Democracy (NLD), the military regime took 14 years from 1993 to 2007 to design the constitution which guarantees its political leadership and bars NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president. The first general election since the 1990 poll was held in 2010 based on the 2008 Constitution, which saw the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party winning the vote and taking the office. However, no significant changes could be introduced under both the USDP and NLD, which came to power at the 2015 general election. Military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who was handpicked by his predecessor Than Shwe, seized power from the NLD government in February after the party repeated its electoral victory in the November 2020 general election. Constitutions were scrapped when military chief General Ne Win seized power in 1962 and Gen Saw Maung took power in 1988. However, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing said he would act in line with the 2008 Constitution..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-05-29
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Persuading Pariahs: Myanmar’s Strategic Decision to Pursue Reform and Opening
Topic: Myanmar/Burma, China, ASEAN, sanctions, pariah states, authoritarian transitions, Aung San Suu Kyi
Topic: Myanmar/Burma, China, ASEAN, sanctions, pariah states, authoritarian transitions, Aung San Suu Kyi
Description: "Abstract: Myanmar’s liberalizing reforms since late 2010 have effectively shed the country’s decades-long “pariah state” status. This article evaluates competing explanations for why Myanmar’s leaders made the strategic decision to pursue reform and opening. We examine whether the strategic decision was motivated by fears of sudden regime change, by socialization into the norms of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or by the geopolitics of overreliance on China. Drawing on newly available materials and recent field interviews in Myanmar, we demonstrate how difficult it is for international actors to persuade a pariah state through sanctions or engagement, given the pariah regime’s intense focus on maintaining power. However, reliance on a more powerful neighbour can reach a point where costs to national autonomy become unacceptable, motivating reforms for the sake of economic and diplomatic diversification.....Acknowledgments: We gratefully acknowledge the participation of interviewees in Yangon, Naypyidaw, Seoul, and Washington, DC. Research assistance was provided by Andrew Choi, Esther Pau Sann Cing, Li Xuan, Li Zimeng, Wang Qichao, Wu Shangwei, Zhang Xiaorui, and Zhou Xin. We also wish to thank the editor, three anonymous reviewers, and participants at the 2014 Murdoch-Macau Colloquium on Political Change and Governance in Asia, whose comments greatly improved this article. We thank the Asan Institute for Policy Studies for supporting Leif-Eric Easley’s research travel to Myanmar in 2014. Research for this article was funded in part by a grant from the University of Macau (SRG2013-00057-FSS). For over two decades, Myanmar suffered the reputation of an international pariah. After the 1988 coup that inaugurated 22 years of military rule under the State Law and Order Restoration Council / State Peace and Development Council (SLORC/SPDC),1 Myanmar incurred international condemnation and sanctions for human rights violations, including annulling the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) electoral victory in 1990; detaining opposition leaders, including NLD General Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi; killing civilians during military campaigns against armed ethnic minority groups; violently suppressing civil protests in the 2007 “Saffron Revolution”; and muzzling free speech and the press.2 The junta appeared unmoved by sanctions and international exhortations to pursue reform and opening. Its apparent steps toward ending military rule under the 2003 “Roadmap to Discipline-Flourishing Democracy” were often marred by process irregularities, lack of inclusiveness and transparency, and restrictions on and sometimes violent repression of opposition parties. Though the SPDC held landmark elections for a civilian government in November 2010, supporters of democracy were not encouraged when the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) swept the polls and elevated Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein to the presidency. Many were surprised, however, when Thein Sein initiated extensive reforms in 2011: releasing political prisoners, loosening media and civil society restrictions, and allowing Aung San Suu Kyi and other opposition members to run for parliament. Myanmar’s pariah status quickly abated as a parade of foreign leaders visited the country and eased sanctions. In November 2015, Myanmar’s first general election under nominally civilian rule saw the NLD defeat the USDP in a landslide, marking a new era in Myanmar’s politics.3 The manner in which Myanmar pursued transformative reforms raises important questions. Why did the SPDC pursue reform and opening when it did? What motivated the strategic decision to pursue transformative policies? Several scholars have argued that domestic factors drove Myanmar’s reforms. Jones maintains that the junta’s co-optation of ethnic militias allowed it to resume a democratization process it had begun and aborted in 1990 and again in 1996.4 Bünte, along with Croissant and Kamerling, emphasizes the aging SPDC leaders’ desire to manage succession politics through institutionalization.5 Roger Lee Huang argues that the junta sought to retain political control but did not foresee the extent of reforms under Thein Sein, an assessment shared by MacDonald.6 Other scholarship emphasizes international factors as primary catalysts for reform. One argument is that Myanmar’s leaders implemented domestic reforms to pursue rapprochement with the European Union, the United States, and other sanctions-imposing countries, and to counterbalance China’s growing political and economic influence.7 Another possible factor behind Myanmar’s transition is the socializing role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and more generally, Myanmar’s desire for international prestige.8 While more than one of these factors may have motivated Myanmar’s reforms, an “all of the above” answer leaves the country’s political transformation over-determined and under-examined. This article weighs the theoretical logic and empirical evidence for three competing explanations for Myanmar’s strategic decision to pursue transformative policies: first, junta leaders’ desire to maintain power and avoid sudden regime change; second, socialization into ASEAN norms; and third, the desire to reduce China’s political and economic influence over Myanmar.9 We base our research on numerous interviews with key informants in or engaged with Myanmar, as well as on primary documents. We find that while multiple factors motivated Myanmar’s strategic decision, the most important driver was concern about China’s growing influence. To frame the analysis, the next section defines pariah states and what it means to make a strategic decision to pursue transformative policies and exit pariahdom. We then briefly outline our interview methodology before discussing the timing of Myanmar’s transformative reforms. Subsequent sections review theoretical bases and empirical support for each of the three competing explanations. In the conclusion, we summarize our findings and discuss possible implications for other pariah states and for Myanmar’s political future..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Pacific Affairs (Canada)
Date of publication: 2016-09-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: In Myanmar, the army controls its soldiers' lives, minds and finances
Sub-title: The Tatmadaw, Myanmar's powerful army, controls every aspect of its soldiers' lives. And those who leave pay a heavy price. DW spoke to three defectors.
Description: "As he witnessed the brutal crackdown on unarmed civilians protesting the army's takeover, the young lieutenant felt increasingly disgusted. Soon after, he left without saying goodbye to his parents, fleeing the country first on motorbike and then on foot, aided across the border by local villagers. Along the way, he stuck to smaller roads, carefully avoiding checkpoints and detection. For if caught, he knew he would pay a heavy price for his desertion: In Myanmar, army defectors are usually sentenced to death — which is then commuted to life in prison, as the death penalty has not been carried out in over three decades. That could, however, change as the army faces opposition within its ranks to its power grab.....Rare insight into Myanmar's military: The lieutenant is one of three defectors DW has spoken to in recent weeks, exchanging almost daily messages with them. The man, who peppers his messages with laughing emojis, is in hiding in India. The other two, both high-ranking officers, are on the run in Myanmar, moving from one safe house to the next. Their accounts provide rare insight into an otherwise opaque institution that is known for committing gross human rights violations against its own citizens — and shows the army's stranglehold on soldiers' lives, minds and, DW has learned, also finances. The interviews were conducted via messenger apps, including patchy video and audio calls, given that the army's ongoing internet crackdown hampers most communication with the outside world. DW has not been able to independently verify their accounts, but the interviews corroborate each other in key aspects. In two cases, military identification cards were shown. Their identities are not disclosed in this report due to fears for the defectors and their families' safety.....'Every move monitored': The three men describe a cloistered, strictly controlled life, based on a stringent, overarching hierarchy. Soldiers, they say, are required to live on army bases and are only allowed to leave if granted permission by superiors. The army dictates what soldiers and their families "wear, say and believe in, even how to decorate your home," one man said. "They can check your house at any moment," he added. The wives of soldiers, he explains, are not allowed to wear the color red, which is associated with Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), or spout any other political symbols. "Everything is monitored," says another defector, who was deliberate with each word used to recount his experience. "They want to turn people into robots, who don't think (for themselves)." A monitoring team within the army using Facebook, all three sources say, watches over soldiers and their families' activities, scrutinizing every single like, share and post. Soldiers, one defector says, have to hand over their log-in details for Facebook, including sign-up phone numbers. "If people post political things, they can be arrested and put in jail for three or four weeks," one defector tells DW. Another says that soldiers have been denied promotions after sharing social media posts criticizing the leadership of the Tatmadaw — as Myanmar's military is known — or voicing support for the NLD party. One man recalls taking part in a training course a few years ago, where officers were shown how to tap into CCTV and intercept phone calls using Russian and Chinese technology — although he did not know the extent of surveillance. Low-ranking soldiers, one defector says, were treated "like slaves," with their wives forced to clean high-ranking officers' homes without pay. Another said he had witnessed a superior asking the wife of a low-ranking soldier to give him a massage. He says the woman acquiesced, knowing that refusing could have negative repercussions for her husband.....Anti-Muslim propaganda: According to DW's three sources, soldiers are fed a steady stream of propaganda that views the Tatmadaw as the guardian of the embattled Buddhist nation of Myanmar. The enemies, according to this propaganda, are made up of a shadowy cabal of Muslims, Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD party, who are bent on destroying the Buddhist country. It's an ideology that has been forged in a decades-long, at times brutal battle against a myriad of ethnic insurgencies that have been fighting for independence from the Burmese majority and, at times, each other. In Myanmar, a state with 135 different ethnic groups, where roughly 90% of the population adheres to Buddhism, politics and religion are closely interwoven. Generals have long built pagodas, erected Buddha statues, and paid homage to influential monks to legitimize their claim to power as a unifying force. Anti-Muslim sentiments are widespread, which the Tatmadaw is adept at exploiting for political capital. And this anti-Muslim, Buddhism-first propaganda is instilled into soldiers of all ranks. Soldiers, one source says, are being "brainwashed" into buying the army's worldview. Another said while he did not believe the propaganda, he did not speak out against it, for fear of being punished. One defector recalled how he had been verbally abused when he dared to question the narrative that Rohingya — a Muslim minority long denied full citizenship rights — were "terrorists" bent on destroying the country and that they had no place in Myanmar. One of the men, who, like many officers hails from a military family and had grown up on an army base, said that he had long believed the Tatmadaw's propaganda: When friends dared to question the army, he would defend the military, recalling his anger at anyone who spoke negatively of the institution he had been taught to revere. His views, he said, only changed following the coup when he witnessed the army's crackdown on peaceful protesters — unarmed men, women and children that the army labels "terrorists.".....Myanmar army is a state within the state: The Tatmadaw's outsized role is intertwined within Myanmar's political and economic life — a lucrative advantage that succeeded colonial rule. Following independence from Britain in 1948, a military junta took control in 1962, ushering in a prolonged period of iron-fisted rule characterized by strict censorship, imprisonment of opponents and international isolation. While in power, the army — as well as individual officers and their families — amassed great wealth. This included land, economic and financial assets. The generals only eased their grip on power in 2010, which culminated in elections that allowed for Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party to form a government. Even after ceding some control to elected politicians, it continues to play a vast role in both the political and economic field: The constitution guarantees the military 25% of parliament seats, meaning that the army can block any constitutional amendments it dislikes. It also retains control of important ministries, including defense and home affairs. Likewise, it continues to own and run a myriad of lucrative business interests without any independent oversight. The Tatmadaw runs its own schools, universities, hospitals and court system. In short: The army has established what is basically a powerful state within the state. And, since the coup, it is now formally back in power. In absolute terms, this professional army is the 11th largest in the world, with some 406,000 soldiers in active duty as of 2019, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.....Economic exploitation: The Tatmadaw not only tries to control soldiers' ways of thinking — but also their finances. Military personnel of all ranks, DW has learned, are forced to support military-owned companies through two mandatory schemes: This includes, the three defectors say, requiring soldiers to sign up for a life insurance policy with Aung Myint Moh Min Insurance Company Ltd. The policy, which they are forced to select, renews automatically every five years — with no way for soldiers to opt-out. ­­ The company is an alleged subsidiary of one of the military's two conglomerates, Myanmar Economic Holding (MEC) and Myanmar Economic Holding Limited (MEHL), according to a 2019 UN report. These conglomerates, benefit both the Tatmadaw and high-ranking individual officers and their families. The company did not respond to DW's requests for comment. Soldiers are also forced to make mandatory payments into MEC and MEHL, which are converted into shares. In return, soldiers receive a small dividend every year, defectors say. It is likely a way to both generate revenues for the military and individual generals — whilst buying loyalty. Many high-ranking officers upon retirement are often awarded posts in the two holdings, their subsidiaries and affiliated companies. Others are given posts in the civilian administration. The army does not respond kindly to those who attempt to leave its fold. One of the defectors tells DW that soldiers "cannot leave the army." In theory, another explained, soldiers can submit a letter of resignation after 10 years. "But that is only in the law," he explained drily. "In practice, it is not easy and it takes three to four years to submit the process (of leaving the army)." And even then, he added, it was not a given that the army would let the soldier go. He says he regrets his decision to join the army in the first place. The Myanmar Embassy in Berlin did not respond to DW's request for comment.....Tatmadaw hunting down defectors?: All three men are aware of the Tatmadaw's reach, as the army pursues defectors. One man says he had heard from a contact in the Tatmadaw's headquarters that it had compiled a list of some 300 defectors and was going after them and their families. It was, he says, "a manhunt." DW cannot verify the claim, however, given that the authorities have compiled a wanted list of activists and journalists that is broadcast every night on state television, it's likely that the same is happening with army defectors. One man describes how his family receives threatening phone calls. "They said: Where is your son? If you support him, you will get arrested." Soon after, he severed all communication with his family, fearing for their safety. Another source refuses to acknowledge whether he is still in contact with his family, fearing it would risk their safety. Despite all the high risks, one defector has no regrets. Life on the run and hiding in a different house each night to keep safe is, for him, a consequence of maintaining integrity. He stands by his decision to leave the army he had served for so many years, saying he did not want his future children to "think I did nothing to stop this illegal coup."..."
Source/publisher: "DW News" (Germany)
Date of publication: 2021-05-22
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: The Coup in Myanmar/Burma: Collective Trauma and Resilience
Description: "I wrote the following piece after 3 March 2021, on which 38 people died from the crackdown. Now the protest is over 100 days, and 782 people (as of 10 May), including children, have been killed. Over 3,740 people are in detention. Ordinary people all over Burma are living on edge due to the random acts of violence by “security forces.” When I got up on 1 February, I heard about the coup in Burma, my country. I tried to identify an assortment of feelings: anger, despair, distress, sadness, hopelessness. None of them seemed to fit precisely what I felt. Since I am not in Burma, I rely on Facebook, the communication channel most Burmese use for information, to stay informed. With those unnamable feelings in my chest, I started checking Facebook almost hourly to catch up with the ongoing situation. When a 19-year-old girl died, the first death of the protest, I could finally name the assortment of emotions I was feeling – trauma. A few years ago, a former political prisoner told me the whole country was experiencing trauma because of the violent suppression of resistance over five decades. Her words now came back to me as I tried to understand the emotions running through me. We are re-experiencing the collective trauma of living under the grip of the military. Every day the violence against protesters escalates and reminds those of us who lived and grew up under the military regime and who witnessed many violent crackdowns since 1962, of “the dark times.” I was born two years after the coup in 1962. I remember talking with my friends about politics and rumours we heard from adults, when we were about ten years old. Had Ne Win died? How much we children and the adults around us wanted him to be gone, the former dictator. My overriding memories of growing up in Burma under the military dictatorship involve a sense of lacking – of lacking necessities, and above all lacking rights and freedom. Economic struggles, censorship, martial laws, fear of the military and people associated with them; these were a big part of our everyday life. In the backdrop, there were ongoing wars with various ethnic groups. I can still recall watching tanks drive through our township to suppress the student demonstrations in 1974. The next day, we heard many young people had been killed or arrested. The atmosphere was full of fear and suppression, and it was suffocating. Then in 1988, the military killed thousands of people during a massive popular uprising for democracy. My mother went into depression in 1988 at the loss of life she witnessed. This is etched deeply in my memory. History has shown us again and again that it is always the young people who fight back, and now like before, they can be killed, beaten, tortured, raped. Still, these young people go on and take the front line. Now in 2021, Burma is a different country, but it is still beset by endless political, social and economic problems. Despite these problems, people have some freedom and hope, and communication with the outside world. There is also the widespread use of social media, which we didn’t have access to in 1988. Hence today’s young people, Generation Z, live in a very different political, social, and economic context. However, like many generations before them, they are the ones who dare to start the fight back and sacrifice their lives. The pain, sadness, anger, and anxiety of the families of those young people killed and arrested are unfathomable. Many people are saying that the revolution is close to victory. I want to believe that the people will win in the end, but at this point, it is not easy to see how the whole debacle is going to unfold. How do you fight an institution that does not hesitate or express remorse about using any weapon available to kill their own people—who are simply asking for their rights to be respected? People, especially Generation Z, persist despite the violence. On 3 March, Burma mourned the death of Kyal Sin, a 19-year-old girl who got shot in the back of her head. The words on her T-shirt said “Everything will be OK.” She left a note asking for her organs to be donated if it were not possible to resuscitate her. I felt devastated at the death of Kyal Sin and other youths on 3 March. However, it was seeing an emotional video posted on Facebook by a young woman, and recognising her own trauma, that led me to write this piece. In the video, the young woman films herself narrating her experiences of helping protesters on the frontline. This first-hand account is a plea for others to understand the violence that protesters face every day. This young woman has been helping protestors to flee from police violence. She repeatedly saw young people being brutally beaten up by the police. She had been using her car to block the road to delay the police vehicles so that she could assist the protesters to safety. It had been getting more and more difficult for her to do this because fewer people were turning up for the protests. The increasing use of tear gas, stun grenades, and live bullets emptied some of the main streets, and it was easier for the police vehicles to get through quickly to attack the protesters. Sometimes the makeshift roadblocks put up to deter police forces or police cars from passing through accidentally blocked her from reaching protesters. Other times people taking videos of the protests ignored her request to let her car pass through. Not being able to get through to the people she intended to help, and seeing police beat up her colleagues brought her to breaking point that day. She repeatedly said, “They asked the kids (protestors) to put up their hands on the heads and then they relentlessly beat them on their backs.” This broke her heart more than anything else. This woman knows she might die helping them, but she puts herself at risk to rescue the core young protestors. She wants more people to participate in protests to fight against the military and shield the front-line protestors. Since 1 February, she has hardly slept and has only eaten one meal a day because she is too tired. For her, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) is not helping unless everybody participates in the protests. Like most young people, her fear of losing out to the military is far greater than her fear of dying. Her emotional response on Facebook to those criticizing young protestors for confronting the police instead of having small protests near their places of residence, and her plea to people, gave me a glimpse of what young protestors are going through. There are good days and terrible days in the over-a-month-long ongoing protests. On good days, most protestors get away unscathed, inspired, hopeful, and with renewed aspirations. On terrible days, some get killed, wounded, arrested, but the people do not give up. Every day, they come out to protest the coup. They are determined to make sure the military goes down. That’s when you can see the best of Burmese people, their resilience. The younger generation fights with creativity, resilience, and humour that keeps them going even though they are putting their lives on the line. You can see messages or posts on Facebook that encourage unity, such as “we can have different opinions but we are not divided.” People set aside religious and ethnic tensions to fight the common enemy – the military, and, by doing so, they have more compassion and understanding of years of atrocity and violence directed at ethnic groups, including the Rohingya. I have learned from a good friend of mine, a survivor of violence, that post-traumatic growth and resilience emerge in the aftermath of violence. Dealing with trauma is not a walk in the park. There are good days and bad days. Bad days can take you to the edge, but resilience can bring you back to embracing life. Sometimes it comes from inside. And sometimes the help from outside is necessary to keep on going. More than ever, people in Burma need every possible form of assistance from the international community to continue their long struggle. The UN, ASEAN, China, Russia, India, Japan, and other countries need to take action. Every country can take action if they take their mind off trade, regional competition, and geopolitical influence. The Burmese people have shown their spirit and resilience in the face of the violent suppression by the military. Day by day, people in Burma realize they cannot depend on outside help, not even the UN. Regardless, they are determined to continue their revolt against the military. The protests have grown so large and spread across the country that they have become transformed into revolution. Even if the international community fails to help Burma, the “Early Summer Revolution” (named by the protestors) will go on. People of Burma have experienced collective trauma, but they have tremendous resilience, and the world needs to stand by them. The following is an English translation of a post by a poet that was shared on Facebook:[1] I am afraid of mornings. When he wakes up, he goes straight to the bathroom, has a shower, changes his clothes, picks up his bag, and gets ready to go out of the door. He doesn’t even notice the breakfast I prepared for him. I ask, Where are you going today? He used to tell me whether he was going to Hledan, Sule, Sanchaung, or Bargyar. Now he only says where the protest is. I warn him they are going to shoot today. He said they are shooting every day. Don’t spread that kind of talk. Instead of 100 people, only 50 will come to protest. Don’t make me afraid. It’s not the time for fear. Looking thin and sunburned, no gun, no bullet, just a backpack and the three fingers salute. He: Don’t keep calling me. He goes, and I go. I can exhale when everybody comes back home in the evening. Exhausting days since the coup. I have absolute empathy for the fallen heroes and their families. Salute to them!..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Tea Circle (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2021-05-17
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Why Russia is betting on Myanmar’s military junta
Description: "Authors: Artyom Lukin, Far Eastern Federal University and Andrey Gubin, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies On 1 February 2021, Myanmar’s military junta declared a state of emergency and seized power from the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. The coup immediately created a political crisis and resulted in mass bloodshed, but the international response has been divided. While the US-led West and its key Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea condemn the coup and imposed sanctions on the junta, other key powers are more ambivalent. In the UN Security Council, China, India and Russia have made efforts to shield the perpetrators from harsher censure and potential UN sanctions. From the very beginning Russia has refused to condemn the coup, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs merely expressing hope for ‘a peaceful settlement of the situation through the resumption of political dialogue’. In the same statement, Moscow noted as an encouraging sign that the military intended to hold a new parliamentary election. Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti justified the coup by arguing that the Myanmar army, the Tatmadaw, is the only viable guarantor of the multi-ethnic country’s unity and peace. The most visible manifestation of Russian support for the junta came in late March, when Deputy Minister of Defence Alexander Fomin became the highest-ranking foreign official to attend Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day parade in the capital Naypyidaw. While the military was violently cracking down on protestors, Fomin held talks with junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. He called Myanmar ‘Russia’s reliable ally and strategic partner in Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific’ and emphasised that Moscow ‘adheres to the strategic course of enhancing relations between the two countries’. There are several reasons why Russia is emerging as the most high-profile supporter of the Myanmar military government. Moscow’s close ties with Myanmar date back to the 1950s. Given that for most of its modern history the Southeast Asian country has been governed by the military, Russia has developed a working relationship with its uniformed rulers. Incumbent strongman general Min Aung Hlaing has visited Russia on numerous occasions, most recently in June 2020 to attend the Victory Day parade in Moscow, and is known as a champion of Myanmar–Russia ties. Under Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar–Russia military cooperation has received a boost. After China, Russia is the country’s second largest supplier of arms, being the source of at least 16 per cent of weaponry procured by Myanmar from 2014–2019. Myanmar’s military is now awaiting the delivery of six Su-30 fighter jets ordered in 2019, and in January 2021 the two sides signed contracts for a Russian air defence system and a suite of surveillance drones. Thousands of Myanmar’s military officers have also received training in Russia’s military academies. Tellingly, the Myanmar commander-in-chief maintains an official account on Russia’s VK social network while being banned from Facebook and Twitter. It is not coincidental that the Kremlin’s main interlocutor with Myanmar is defence minister Sergey Shoigu, who happened to visit the country just several days before the 1 February coup. Given this long-standing and profitable relationship with the Myanmar military, it stands to reason that Russia is not going to condemn the coup, let alone sanction the junta. Russian President Vladimir Putin has never been known for his sympathies for pro-democracy movements backed by the West, and the Kremlin hardly sees the English-educated Aung Sang Suu Kyi, whose two sons are British nationals, as a desirable alternative to uniformed rulers. Moscow’s support for a military dictatorship could damage its international reputation, but with what has already transpired between Putin and the West, the Kremlin could hardly care less about its reputational fallout from Myanmar. In defence of its stance on Myanmar, Russia could also point to Western hypocrisy — neighbouring Thailand is ruled by generals with dubious democratic credentials, but the country remains in the West’s good graces due to being a ‘treaty ally’ of the United States. It is unclear to what extent Moscow will coordinate its Myanmar policies with Beijing, Russia’s main strategic partner and a fellow autocracy. The Chinese government has refrained from condemning the military takeover, but compared to Russia it has been conspicuously less supportive — China’s relationship with the Tatmadaw has always been complicated, and Beijing is hardly happy about the coup. Whereas Moscow’s relationship to Myanmar is mostly limited to military-to-military ties, with scant social and economic interactions, China’s relations with its southern neighbour are more multi-dimensional. Beijing cannot afford to antagonise pro-democracy segments of Myanmar’s population, so it needs to adopt a more complex approach. Moscow and Beijing are likely discussing the situation in Myanmar, but their strategies differ. Russia is driven by the desire to keep lucrative military contracts and possibly gain a foothold in the Indian Ocean. By contrast, Beijing is guided by more long-term strategic interests dictated by Myanmar’s immediate proximity to China’s Yunnan province. Viewing itself as a global great power, Russia has a stake in maintaining a strategic presence in Myanmar, a geopolitically important country in the Indo-Pacific. To retain and expand Russia’s links with Myanmar, the Kremlin has banked on the generals. It remains to be seen if Moscow’s calculus will turn out to be the right one..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of publication: 2021-04-27
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: The politics of Myanmar’s agrarian transformation
Topic: Myanmar (Burma); democratic transition; rural working people; military coup; politics of agrarian transformation
Topic: Myanmar (Burma); democratic transition; rural working people; military coup; politics of agrarian transformation
Description: "Myanmar is in a dangerous and uncertain moment following the military coup on 1 February 2021. The articles in this Special Forum provide timely contextual analysis. Written before the coup, the articles delve into the politics of agrarian transformation in the context of (what was then) an ongoing (but fragile) opening up of political space. This introduction outlines three themes that connect the articles and now also shed some light on what the future may hold: (1) the limited character of the 2010–2021 ‘democratic transition’; (2) the struggles around land and natural resources amidst a social reproduction crisis and (3) the responses of rural working peoples. This Special Forum on Myanmar’s agrarian transformation concludes at a moment of great danger and deep uncertainty resulting from the military coup that took place on 1 February 2021. All the articles were written before the coup, and all the authors were keen to engage explicitly on the politics of agrarian transformation in the context of (what was at that time) a still ongoing (fragile) opening up of political space and the social-political challenges of working in such a context, including examining the changing political agency of the implicated differentiated rural peoples (along lines of class, gender, generation and in Myanmar the all-important question of ethnicity). Reading their analyses now may thus help to dampen any temptation to romanticize about what life and politics was like for many people before the coup. And it will put under a critical spotlight the call by some segments of the resistance movement for a return to where everyone/everything was before the coup, that is, to restore the NLD government to power under the military-crafted 2008 Constitution. Most of the authors who contributed insights and analysis to the six articles constituting this special forum are long-time social activists who have been working for many years outside the spotlight and under the radar, alongside many other veteran activists, grassroots organizations, issue-based associations and ethnic communities. In the years before and since the national political cycle that began with the March 2011 handover of government by the military-run SPDC to the quasi-civilian Thein Sein administration, they have been in the trenches, so to speak, along with many others,accompanying ordinary people in doing the everyday politics of regime transition. Such efforts have involved the crucial but often intangible work of feeling for openings, testing limits, deploying razor-sharp political humour, calculating risks, calibrating interventions, reaching out and ratcheting up, building bridges, stepping up and stepping back, pushing with restraint, articulating hopes, managing fears, calling bluffs, etc. It’s worth mentioning here too that this has also necessarily involved working to ensure the material conditions needed to enable these dynamics of activism to survive and thrive, despite increasingly bureaucratized and periodically politicized relationships with both government donors and international non-governmental donor agencies. While for various reasons and at various times government donors and donor agencies could become quite allergic to activism – especially activism taking extra-parliamentary form – this was not always the case, and despite what may have been risks involved in supporting social change activism during the post-2011 opening, some of these actors supported this work anyway. Much of what the bulk of ordinary people actively trying to shape the transition underway have been doing has remained invisible and in the shadow of a still fairly draconian ‘rule of law’, while the international media spotlight has tended to focus on increasing space for elite politics and elite-driven economic reform, as if these were all that mattered in the regime transition underway. It was important that these ‘invisible’ politics remained so at times, in order to protect and shelter them, and at other times, it was critical that they surface, in order to try to propel more central political processes in a more radical direction. But while much of the social activism for meaningful agrarian change has resurrected and unfurled in the lingering shadows cast by past coups, past waves of resource grabbing, and past ‘high politics’ turning points, at the same time, a fairly clear set of major neoliberaloriented economic reforms have been initiated and steadily pushed since 2011 as part and parcel of a ‘rule of law’ reform agenda aimed at creating the ‘positive enabling environment’ for big Asian, US and EU-based business interests itching to enter or do more business in Myanmar. Hitherto, earlier rounds of market liberalization following the thenmilitary regime’s response to political and economic crises in the late 1980s had mainly benefitted regional (especially Chinese and Thai) and local capitalists (with the exception of two infamous gas projects – one led by Total, one led by UNOCAL – see ERI 1996). The consequences of these reforms have been hitting the ground hard, yet affecting different groups of people differently depending on class, ethnicity, gender, generation, and geographic region. And so here is one crux of the matter for many of the hardest hit people today: as huge masses of people from all walks of life spill currently into the streets to protest the military coup – how and to what extent will the broad anti-coup resistance movement be able to take on 1. the contradictions emerging from capitalist development and 2. the growing aspiration for a democratic federal union? Capitalism is not tied exclusively to any particular kind of political system: it can exist under outright militarized authoritarian conditions, and also under still-militarized, semi-authoritarian political conditions where participation in decision making is open to some segments of society to some degree, but many (if not most) remain excluded more or less completely (e.g. more akin to what the country had been experiencing in the decade prior to the coup). Since 2011, capitalist development has wrought a new configuration of winners and losers, where a wider range of people found opportunities and breathing room to accumulate and have seen their living conditions improve, while many others have seen their situation deteriorate significantly. The ranks of those engaged in ‘3D’ migrant labour work abroad (e.g. dirty, difficult, dangerous) and the importance of migrant worker remittances to the national economy, for example, have increased dramatically since 2011 as a result partly of the new laws and policies put in place by the quasi-military Thein Sein government but then continued and even deepened by the ‘democratically-elected’ NLDled government (Borras et al. 2020). The agrarian crisis that is pushing many people, from different walks of life (both ethnic Bamar and non-Bamar), further toward or deeper into landlessness and precarious labour conditions, has been deepening throughout the country. But its precise character has varied, shaped by complex social-historical and political-economic particularities, including politicized geographies of race/ethnicity, obtaining in different regions and subregions. To be sure, however, regions and subregions where various non-Bamar ‘ethnic nationalities’ (a term increasingly preferred nowadays by non-Bamar activists themselves, in a bid to put the term ‘ethnic minorities’ firmly into the past) are most concentrated, have been clearly targeted for ‘accumulation by dispossession’ via outright extra-economic coercion, in tandem with and alongside processes of commodification, as discussed below. The increasingly organized, multiethnic demand for abolition of the 2008 Constitution and building of a democratic federal union is therefore very much underpinned by the intensely racialized/ethnicised character of Myanmar political-economy historically..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Routledge (London)
Date of publication: 2021-04-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.83 MB
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Title: The scramble for the Waste Lands: Tracking colonial legacies, counterinsurgency and international investment through the lens of land laws in Burma/Myanmar
Description: "This article traces the revenue category and legal concept of the Waste Land in Burma/Myanmar from its original application by the British colonial apparatus in the nineteenth century, to its later use in tandem with Burma Army counterinsurgent tactics starting in the 1960s, and finally to the 2012 land laws and current issues in international investment. This adaptation of colonial ideas about territorialization in the context of an ongoing civil war offers a new angle for under- standing the relationship between military tactics and the political economy of conflict and counterinsurgent strategies which crucially depended on giving local militias—both government and nongovernment—high degrees of autonomy. The recent government changes, including the more civilian representation in parliament and its shift to engage with Western economies, raise questions regarding the future of the military, as well as local autonomy and the rural peasantry?s access to land. As increasing numbers of international investors are poised to enter the Myanmar market, this article will revisit notions of land use and appropriation, and finally the role of the army and its changing relationship with Waste Lands... Keywords: Burma, colonialism, counterinsurgency, land law, Myanmar, Waste Land
Creator/author: Jane M. Ferguson
Source/publisher: Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 35 (2014) 295?31
Date of publication: 2014-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-01-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Constructing an intelligence state: the development of the colonial security services in Burma 1930–1942.
Description: Abstract: "My doctoral research focuses on the development and operation of the intelligence services in British colonial Burma during the years 1930 to 1942. This involves an examination of the causes of intelligence development, its progress throughout 1930-1942, its rationale and modus operandi, and the pressures it faced. This time period permits us to assess how intelligence development was a product of the colonial government?s response to the 1930 peasant uprising which came as such a shock to colonial security and how thereafter intelligence helped prevent popular hostility to the government from taking the form of an uprising. As a result, intelligence information was increasingly used to secure colonial power during the period of parliamentary reform in Burma in 1937. The thesis further examines the stresses that riots and strikes placed on colonial security in 1938, the so-called ?year of revolution? in Burma. The thesis then proceeds to consider how intelligence operated in the final years of colonial rule before the Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942. This study is significant not only because very little work on the colonial security services in Burma exists for the period under review, but also because it reveals that intelligence was crucial to colonial rule, underpinning the stability of the colonial state and informing its relationship with the indigenous population in what remained, in relative terms at least, a colonial backwater like Burma. The argument that intelligence was pivotal to colonial governmental stability in Burma because of its centrality to strategies of population control departs from conventional histories of Burma which have considered the colonial army to have been the predominant instrument of political control and the most significant factor in the relationship between the state and society in colonial Burma. Rather it will be argued here that the colonial state in Burma relied on a functioning intelligence bureau which collected information from local indigenous officials and informers and employed secret agents to work on its behalf. This information was collated into reports for the government which then became integral to policy formulation. The primary source base for this work includes British colonial material from government and private collections predominantly in the British library as well as government papers in the National Archives in Kew."
Creator/author: Edmund Bede Clipson
Source/publisher: University of Exeter (doctoral dissertation)
Date of publication: 2010-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-07-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.01 MB
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Title: Notes on Cavalry Employed in Upper Burma From October 1886 to October 1887
Description: Editor?s Note: Colonel Heyland?s observations on army horses and cavalry regiments in the final stages of the Third Anglo-Burmese War was originally published as a chapter (XVII) in History of the Third Burmese War, 1885, 1886, and 1887, in 1889. The organization of transport and mobile field forces was a significant problem for British forces in the early months of the war. In December 1885, for example: ?[S]ome 199 royal elephants and 300 ponies from the Manipur Cavalry in Mandalay were brought into the Transport Department of the Field Force, but of these half the elephants were without mahouts or only half trained, and half of the ponies were unserviceable.
Creator/author: Colonel Heyland 1st Bo. Lancers
Source/publisher: History of the Third Burmese War, 1885, 1886, and 1887 via SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2004
Date of publication: 1889-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: The China-Burma-India Theater
Source/publisher: China-Burma-India WWII
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: Heroes and Villains
Description: "When the soldiers of the Burma Independence Army, led by the Thirty Comrades, infiltrated Burma from neighboring Thailand in a brave action to oust the British, the modern history of the Burmese armed forces was born. The fragile, inexperienced and ill-equipped army had faced many ups and downs in Burma?s often turbulent political history. A year before independence in 1948, Aung San, the founder of the BIA and Burma?s independence hero, was gunned down by rivals, aided by British army officers. The country descended into turmoil and civil war. The legendary Thirty Comrades were also divided, dominated by two political factions. Gen Ne Win led and united the army, while his comrades went into hiding in the jungle, joining ?multi-color insurgent groups? aiming to topple the government. Ne Win, also a prominent member of the Thirty Comrades, o?nce proudly said that the Burmese army was founded by farmers, workers and other people of Burma, not by mercenaries. But he later fell victim of his own words, when he quelled street protests and dissent in the country by ordering troops to shoot and kill just to prolong his rule. So it?s no surprise to hear Burmese people saying that the armed forces were Ne Win?s pocket army. When the country was rocked by nationwide protests in 1988, Ne Win warned the nation in a state television address: ?If in future there are mob disturbances, if the army shoots, it hits—there is no firing into the air to scare.? Historians note that Ne Win and Aung San had entirely different views o?n the army, with the latter wanting to steer it away from politics. Thus, throughout the history of the army, we have learned that things are not black and white. There are military leaders who adhered to the wishes of the people and sided with them. Burmese will definitely remember and admire them. In this issue, we have singled out a number of the country?s fine, professional soldiers who were admired by the people. There are many more unnamed and unknown heroes who sacrificed themselves for the country and its people—too many for us to name all. We have also chosen some military leaders who have stubbornly stuck to their guns, driving the country into limbo. They definitely fall into the category of the villainous. However, all in all, we hope you will enjoy this special feature, marking the 62nd anniversary of Burma?s Resistance Day, now officially called Armed Forces Day..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 15, No. 3
Date of publication: 2007-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-05-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Title: NARRATIVE OF THE BURMESE WAR, DETAILING THE OPERATIONS OF MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL'S ARMY, FROM ITS LANDING AT RANGOON IN MAY 1824, TO THE.CONCLUSION OF A TREATY OF PEACE AT YANDABOO, IN FEBRUARY 1826.
Description: CONTENTS: . CHAPTER I. Junction of the combined forces from Bengal and Madras, at Port Cornwallis—Capture of Rangoon, and release of the British and Americans, who were made prisoners by the enemy….. CHAPTER II. Description of Rangoon, and the situation of the Army after landing there ….. CHAPTER III. State and position of the Burmese forces at the period of our landing in Pegu, and exertions of the court of Ava in calling out the military resources of the country—First encounter with the Burmese troops….. CHAPTER IV. Arrival at Rangoon of two Deputies from the Burmese camp—Continuation of the military operations, and situation of the army up to the first of July….. CHAPTER V. Feeble attack of the enemy on the British lines—Attack and capture of his fortified camp at Kummeroot — Expedition sent against Mergui and Tavoy on the Coast of Tenasserim….. CHAPTER VI. The King's two brothers, the Princes of Tonghoo and Sarrawaddy, with Astrologers, and a corps of Invulnerables, join the army—Operations of the British Force up to the end of August….. CHAPTER VII. Recal of Maha Bandoola and the Burmese army from Arracan—Continuation of hostilities at Rangoon— Their effect upon the court of Ava….. CHAPTER VIII. Friendly assurances of the Siamese—Their preparations for war, and probable line of policy—Capture of Martaban and Yeh….. CHAPTER IX. State of the force at the conclusion of the rains— Reinforcements and equipment for taking the field sent from India—Approach of the grand army under Maha Bandoola….. CHAPTER X. Actions in front of Rangoon, from the first to the seventh of December….. CHAPTER XI. Attack on the enemy's fortified camp at Kokeen.on the 15th December, and his final retreat to Donoobew….. CHAPTER XII. Plan of operations—Force equipped for field service….. CHAPTER XIII. Journal of the march from Rangoon to Donoohew….. CHAPTER XIV. Operations before Donoohew—Its evacuation by the enemy—Journal of the march to Prome….. CHAPTER XV. March of a detachment towards Tonghoo, and close of the Campaign….. CHAPTER XVL Winter-quarters at Prome—State of the country— Conduct of the inhabitants; with some remarks on their character and government….. CHAPTER XVII. Renewed exertions of the Burmese, government, in preparations for the prosecution of the war—Meeting of the British and Burmese Commissioners at Neoun-ben zeik, and their ineffectual efforts to conclude a peace….. CHAPTER XVIII. Strength and position of the British and Burmese armies—Defeat of the enemy in front of Prome ….. CHAPTER XIX. Preparations for an advance'upon Ava—Plan of the campaign….. CHAPTER XX. Journal of the march from Prome to Melloone ….. CHAPTER XXI. Conclusion of a treaty of peace—Is not ratified by the king—And the Burmese army, in consequence, is again defeated, and driven from Melloone ….. CHAPTER XXII. Continuation of the march upon Ava—Renewal of negotiations—Battle of Fagahm-mew—Conclusion of a definitive treaty of peace.... CHAPTER XXIII. Concluding Remarks.... APPENDIX......N.B. THE GOOGLE NOTE, PAGES AND COVERS PRECEEDING THE TITLE PAGE HAVE BEEN MOVED TO THE END OF THE TEXT. FOR THE ORIGINAL ORDER, SEE THE ALTERNATE URL.
Creator/author: MAJOR JOHN JAMES SNODGRASS
Source/publisher: JOHN MURRAY via Google Books
Date of publication: 1827-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-04-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 5.17 MB
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