The Military's political role
Individual Documents
Description:
"Abandon hope. This is the message the junta is sending to the population of Myanmar.
World leaders will gather in Jakarta in early September for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia Summits. Participants will include several G7 leaders and U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, while U.S. President Joe Biden will be in the region attending the G20 with several ASEAN and G7 leaders. A key agenda item for the ASEAN meetings will be Myanmar, where a military junta in power after a 2021 coup has engaged in a mass crackdown on opposition movements and ethnic armed groups.
The junta has committed arbitrary detentions, summary executions, torture, and unlawful military attacks, much of the brutality amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes. A recent so-called partial pardon for ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi was essentially a scam — six years were shaved off the 78-year-old’s 33-year prison sentence, deflecting attention from another extension of the “state of emergency” the junta has invoked to try to justify their crackdown.
Diplomatic efforts on Myanmar since its 2021 coup have floundered. ASEAN and its allies, as well as the U.N. Security Council, have failed to compel the junta to curb their abuses, just as they failed to hold the Myanmar military accountable for crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against Rohingya Muslims in 2016-2017, atrocities that are ongoing.
Despite ASEAN’s inability to unify on Myanmar, diplomats within and outside the bloc continue to refer to ASEAN’s defunct five-point consensus from April 2021 — which Myanmar’s junta repudiated days after agreeing to it — as a pretext for their own inaction.
Myanmar’s generals have been counting on everyone giving up. And while the people of Myanmar have not, most outside governments have obliged. Myanmar’s human rights crisis, however, is not insolvable, and it’s too horrendous to be ignored.
Granted, it’s hard to be hopeful. The Myanmar military has engaged in relentless, violent campaigns against the country’s people for more than six decades. Some of the military’s most egregious crimes, including the violence against the Rohingya, occurred during the period of democratic reforms that began in 2010. The Myanmar military’s indifference about its international reputation and its willingness to commit massive human rights abuses seems unlimited.
The U.N. Security Council, which last December passed a resolution noting the council’s “full support for ASEAN’s central role in facilitating a peaceful solution” in Myanmar, needs to chart a bolder course. The United Kingdom, which traditionally leads council debates on Myanmar, should distribute ideas for a new, stronger resolution on Myanmar, including the possibility of an arms embargo and international sanctions. China abstained and did not veto last December’s resolution, indicating that more pressure at the council is possible. Some ASEAN members have called for U.N. support in resolving the crisis, and there is little hope ASEAN will ever accomplish anything if the Security Council doesn’t settle on a new approach soon.
Furthermore, ASEAN dialogue partners attending the summits — in particular, Security Council members United States, U.K., France, Japan, and upcoming 2024 addition South Korea — need to signal their intentions for stronger action at the U.N. rather than continuing to imply that ASEAN can solve the crisis in Myanmar on its own.
They should urge reluctant ASEAN members to cooperate in enforcing existing U.S., EU, and U.K. sanctions in Southeast Asian jurisdictions, and press them to suspend Myanmar from ASEAN entirely unless the junta begins moving toward reform.
In particular, ASEAN partners should pressure Thailand, which purchases hundreds of millions of dollars in natural gas from Myanmar, and Singapore, where the military has bank accounts for its foreign revenues. Thailand and Singapore should be warning companies and banks in their jurisdictions not to evade U.S. and EU sanctions or risk financial penalties.
Some observers claim that international pressure and sanctions are impotent in the face of the Myanmar military’s imperviousness. The truth is that the outside governments have never really unified to pressure the junta and impose punitive sanctions on Myanmar’s generals. Sanctions imposed by the US, European Union, and a small number of likeminded governments since the coup do target the military leadership and its business interests. Yet as with the previous sanctions put in place before Myanmar’s fleeting period of reform, measures have been imposed too slowly, not been enforced robustly, and failed to target the junta’s largest sources of foreign income.
Enormous revenues still flow to the junta in dollars, euros, and other currencies from joint ventures, mostly extractive, involving companies across the world — not just China, but also countries that have condemned the junta, including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia. Transactions from natural gas revenues, the junta’s single largest source of foreign currency, have only recently been targeted by the United States, and have not yet been effectively blocked. Restrictions on the military’s purchases of aviation fuel need to be strengthened and more tightly enforced.
More effective efforts to block extractive revenues, paid in dollars and euros, would significantly reduce the junta’s foreign-currency income. These efforts would also likely reduce transactions to the junta in other currencies: most international banks need to comply with U.S. and EU rules so they can conduct U.S. dollar and euro transactions for other clients.
Myanmar’s military has not faced serious economic pain. Should anyone then wonder why it has so blatantly defied calls by neighbors, world powers, and the United Nations? Does it make any sense to expect a divided ASEAN to compel them to change?
It’s not too late to adopt effective measures to compel Myanmar’s military to change its conduct. It’s simply a matter of political will. The people of Myanmar haven’t given up. Neither should the rest of the world..."
Source/publisher:
Just Security (New York) via Human Rights Watch (USA)
Date of publication:
2023-08-22
Date of entry/update:
2023-08-22
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Human Rights and international relations
Language:
more
Sub-title:
One observer says it’s the ‘military’s attempt to dominate and control all departments.’
Description:
"A recent reshuffling of top military personnel by the leader of Myanmar’s junta is part of an effort to gain control of the entire governing apparatus and remain in power for years to come, analysts and observers said.
Among the top generals reassigned on Aug. 3 were the heads of the defense and home affairs ministries – the first changes since Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power from the elected civilian-led government in a February 2021 coup. The two ministries are responsible for tackling armed anti-junta resistance fighters across the country.
Former Transport and Communications Minister Gen. Tin Aung San was appointed as defense minister, making him a member of the National Defense and Security Council, and former Defense Minister Gen. Mya Tun Oo was made transport and communications minister. Both will continue serving as deputy prime ministers.
Lt. Gen. Yar Pyae, the former Union Government Office 1 minister, replaced Lt. Gen. Soe Htut as head of the Home Affairs Ministry. Yar Pyae held on to his position on the State Administration Council – the junta’s governing body – and his roles of national security adviser to Min Aung Hlaing and leader of the junta’s peace negotiation team.
The move came days after Min Aung Hlaing extended emergency rule in Myanmar for another six months on July 31, thereby delaying the date by which elections must be held according to the country’s constitution. The junta previously pledged to hold elections in August.
It also occurred as Myanmar, already hit hard by economic sanctions, faces intense international criticism over the military’s attacks on civilian communities and execution of detained combatants in areas that are hotbeds of resistance to the regime.
An annual report released publicly on Tuesday by the U.N.'s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar cited strong evidence that the military and its affiliate militias have committed “increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes.”
New assignments at lower levels
A leader of the nonviolent anti-junta civil disobedience movement, or CDM, said Min Aung Hlaing reassigned generals he trusts to important ministries to prepare for what he may face during the next state of emergency period.
“The Defense Ministry is just like a correspondence office under the commander-in-chief,” the person said. “That’s why he transferred Gen. Mya Tun Oo, who is one of his major players, to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, which he will heavily use in the future to tackle the issues of airplanes and cyber communication.”
Min Aung Hlaing appointed capable Yar Pyae as home affairs minister in place of Soe Htut, who is in poor health, to strengthen the operations of the State Administration Council over the next six months, he added.
The CDM leader, who served in the military for 21 years and held the rank of a captain, moved to the civilian administration where he worked for nearly a decade until he was promoted to a director position. Following the 2021 coup, he left his job and joined other professionals who walked off the job to peacefully protest against the regime.
Reassignments have also taken place among lower-ranking military officers.
From January to the end of June, the junta transferred 40 lieutenant colonels, majors and captains to civil ministries to work as chief executive officers, or deputy and assistant directors, according to the junta’s weekly national reports.
Among them were one lieutenant colonel, nine majors and 30 captains sent to work at the Myanmar Economic Bank, Election Commission, Union Civil Service Board, ministries of construction, industry and commerce, sports and youth affairs, hotels and tourism, and the Yangon and Naypyidaw City Development Committees.
The largest number of military officers were transferred to the Myanmar Economic Bank with five majors as managers and 16 captains as assistant managers.
The transfers indicate that the junta is trying to control the operation of civil departments as well, said former Captain Kaung Thu Win, a member of the CDM.
“The junta aims to replace its people in senior positions in the civil departments such as directors to be able to control the head of the departments so that they will follow its instructions more faithfully,” he told RFA. “It transferred junior officers to the civil departments so that they can provide the military with the necessary information inside each department.”
RFA could not reach junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the personnel changes.
‘It’s called militarization’
Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thayninga Institute of Strategic Studies, said the new appointments would strengthen the military administration.
“The bureaucratic mechanism makes the administration of a country run smoothly and easily,” he said. “In order for that mechanism including national security projects to operate, it is important for all the people involved to be able to work effectively. That’s why we need really capable people who can focus on their tasks.”
More reliable replacements were made because many of the current government departments have experienced security breaches, he added.
The appointment of military officers to both top and middle-level civilian positions is the junta’s attempt to dominate the entire government apparatus, political and military analyst Than Soe Naing said.
“It’s called militarization,” he said. “It is a military’s attempt to dominate and control all departments.”
Given the country’s current situation with anti-junta People’s Defense Forces, led by the shadow National Unity Government, and ethnic armed groups fighting junta forces, it is important for the military regime to have reliable people to back it, Than Soe Naing said.
“They only work with their service members who they can trust, so that they feel safer,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"Radio Free Asia" (USA)
Date of publication:
2023-08-09
Date of entry/update:
2023-08-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"Myanmar’s junta finds itself in a conundrum. Two-and-a-half years after its coup, armed resistance to its rule has not diminished and is stronger than ever. What to do about this, from the junta’s perspective, is unclear. Its advantage in military hardware has not been decisive, its atrocity campaigns have not pacified, its diplomatic maneuverings have yielded little benefit, its ranks keep shrinking, and its financial viability gets thinner and thinner. Much of the foreign commentary about Myanmar focuses on the democratic resistance, with a good deal aimed at its weaknesses. But a big question is generally left unanswered: What is the military’s strategy to escape the hole it has dug for itself? On August 1, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing declared another state of emergency and mumbled about a future census and an election, this time in 2025. Why anybody would believe these pronouncements is baffling; they have been said over and over. Considering that, it’s worth assessing what the junta’s military status is and whether it has a viable strategy to regain the initiative, particularly on the battlefield.
It is worth stating some of the stark military realities facing the junta this year. Repeated large-scale offensives in Karenni State have been thwarted. Resistance has expanded across larger parts of Bago, Tanintharyi and Magwe regions while resistance everywhere is deeper, more experienced, better armed, increasingly coordinated, and unwavering in its intent to destroy the junta. No ethnic armed organizations have signed new ceasefires with the junta and none of the NUG’s partners has disowned it. The junta’s meetings with the remnants of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement don’t even carry ceremonial benefit anymore. The Arakan Army doesn’t need to fight to secure more and more control over Rakhine. All it must do is strengthen its administration and legal systems, support cyclone relief, train new cadres of soldiers within the state, and let the junta kill itself elsewhere. So desperate is the junta, it sends scarce reserves from Rakhine to bolster weakening units elsewhere.
RelatedPosts
The Myanmar Regime’s Hollow Gestures
Myanmar Junta Escalates War Crimes as Resistance Gains Ground in July
What’s Next for Myanmar as State of Emergency Comes to an End?
Presently, the junta cannot use highways to send supplies to large parts of the northern half of the country so it must resort to archaic flotillas easily targeted on the open spaces of rivers. It hasn’t sent significant convoys to Chin in over a year, and has stopped trying, so bad were its casualties. It has effectively lost its main arms supplier, Russia, and has not been able to bring any significant new weapons systems to the battlefield. Its new proxy militias, the Pyu Saw Hti, have never grown into significant combat forces while its old proxies, the Border Guard Forces (BGFs), only engage in hostilities to protect their commercial interests on their home turf. The junta’s troops are not massacred, but day after day they bleed casualties across the country through the steady onslaught of ambushes, roadside bombs, and drone attacks.
Worryingly for the junta, it cannot recruit new troops on any meaningful scale while its officer cadet schools scrape the barrel, desperate for admissions. It cannot maintain steady operations at key border crossings in Muse and Myawaddy, while reaching India with commercial traffic is impossible. There are increasing attacks on major highways – generals are hit with roadside bombs just outside of Naypyitaw while resistance checkpoints are increasingly the norm in Bago, Mon and Karen states. Bridges are now systematically blown up by the resistance, such as across eastern Bago and northern Mon. The coordination and strategy demonstrated in these systematic sabotage campaigns by the Karen National Union and its PDF partners will only spread.
And yes, internal cohesion is ever more problematic for the junta. It has doubts over its senior commanders, repeatedly arresting those from the northern and northwestern commands as well as the southern one in Tanintharyi. Lower-ranking field commanders have been repeatedly arrested in Karenni and Karen states for refusing orders to partake in offensive operations because they are pointless deathtraps. Overall, the junta’s units are more demoralized. Being surrounded by a population that wants you dead eventually takes a toll. Arguably the biggest military threats to the junta are consistent attrition and the subsequent erosion of the chain of command. Defections and desertions are not nearly as likely or devastating to a military as the loss of chain of command. The junta has too many small, disparate units. They won’t desert or defect en masse because that carries too many risks; they’ll just stop responding to orders and hunker down; wait for the storm to blow over until they can safely surrender. From a junta grunt’s perspective, they are now too dispersed as fighting forces, too atomized, and face too much resistance. No armored troop transport, limited and unreliable air support, little to non-existent medivac, no new weapons systems of note, limited to no communications with family, no rotations out, few if any reinforcements coming in… where does it all end for them?
Min Aung Hlaing can neither claim nor offer greater stability: no normalization, no change in public support. He knows it. Extending the state of emergency is all the junta can do, which merely reinforces the overall veracity of the preceding descriptions. The challenge for the junta is what to do about it. It never countenanced the possibility of wide-scale, sustained rebellion across massive swaths of the Bamar heartland, much less that resistance in these places would have consistent support and direct collaboration from major ethnic armed groups, enabling mass armed revolt across most of the country. Myanmar’s sprawling geography and its own decreasing manpower are crippling challenges for the junta.
Predictably, the junta’s forces will persist in what they do best, killing unarmed civilians and provoking massive population displacement through atrocity campaigns. The junta’s military strategy, if one wants to call it that, is to brutalize the population with endless atrocities hoping to break its defiance. At a much lower pace, it will conduct operations against armed resistance groups. Why this strategy would change the overall situation now is dubious given the junta’s challenges, but it will persist because that is all it knows. One shouldn’t downplay the humanitarian costs of atrocities and they do affect the armed resistance’s operations, but they are not decisive at a strategic level. Large parts of the country – think Karenni and Sagaing – have experienced systematic arson attacks and significant population displacement, but the resistance in all of them is stable if not increasing. The humanitarian crisis afflicting the Myanmar people is horrendous but their determination to win through stoic perseverance is unwavering so far.
The coordination and cohesion of resistance forces is constantly questioned and maligned by analysts domestic and foreign, but considering the back-story of decades of mistrust and indoctrination, the core block of the resistance – the National Unity Government and the consultative councils, plus the KIA, KNU, CNF and KNPP – is remarkably stable if at times frustratingly opaque. Local PDFs may bicker but that doesn’t detract from their overall achievement – building their capacities to consistently degrade the junta’s combat units. When they emerge, junta forces numbering up to several hundred men are routinely engaged in mortal combat by PDFs. This stands in contrast to a year or two ago when the junta could burn villages by the dozen with 20 men and face little to no pushback. In the remarkably honest calculation of the junta, far too much of the country requires an active military presence, i.e., what a state of emergency recognizes as necessary. In late March of this year, Min Aung Hlaing admitted in a woeful speech that the junta cannot control 130 townships. One should assume this means the junta cannot effectively control a great deal more. If the junta’s units go outside their bases, they must fight. If the junta doesn’t actively defend an area, it will be lost. The junta may “control” towns, but more and more this just means the army barracks, police station, and GAD office, which it increasingly uses to shell villages so that its battered units don’t have to emerge even to burn villages.
Considering this, what can be expected by the junta is greater emphasis on the theater of international diplomacy to obscure a worsening military position within the country. The supposed meeting by the Thai foreign minister with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, junta clemency for some of her convictions, and her movement to house arrest instead of a prison has the diplomatic and media corps abuzz. With Laos soon assuming the ASEAN chair, it can be expected that there will be more diplomatic engagement with the junta, which will attempt to use Aung San Suu Kyi as a prop to foster the false sense that it is moderating its approach. This theater of the absurd will garner endless commentary because it can be seen and written about. But it won’t change the substance of the matter, which is on the ground: a population of tens of millions that all viscerally want rid of this military. The revolution didn’t start because one party, much less one person, dictated it so. It started across the country when thousands of communities chose to take up arms. That is the reality of this time compared with 1962 and 1988, and it is inescapable. Myanmar’s war will be won or lost on the ground.
Regardless, even in the realm of diplomacy, the junta still faces massive challenges. “Support” from regional neighbors is not significant despite the hype. Nobody is going to prop up the junta with hefty amounts of armaments, help it break sanctions at a large scale, or invest in it in any way that will fundamentally change the strategic trajectory of the conflict, which it is losing. International engagement with the junta is largely transactional and the junta has less and less to offer. Allowing junta officials to join ASEAN meetings is morally pathetic but changes nothing. All that Track 1.5 talks produce is to make their participants feel better about themselves. The junta increasingly demonstrates it has little to offer its neighbors. It cannot control BGF crime hubs. It cannot prevent refugee outflows, instead causing ever more of them. The drugs trade is growing exponentially. Its economic management is woeful to even junta supporters. The latest sanctions by the US mean the junta cannot operate effectively with foreign business partners, meaning investment and even ongoing engagement is massively encumbered and never more unattractive. ASEAN has had no breakthroughs. Nobody can even remember what the 5 points of the ASEAN Consensus even were.
What the junta does next is unclear other than to manipulate the diplomatic stage and commit more atrocities. What the resistance does is much clearer – more of what it has been doing. The best thing going for the resistance is the public, which even after 2.5 years of war, still sees the junta as nothing but a loathsome ‘foreign’ occupying force. Public opinion is not shifting in the junta’s favor; too much innocent blood has been spilled. The biggest need is to send more and more humanitarian aid to displaced populations and bolster battered communities’ resilience. Maintaining public morale and support for the revolution and deepening cohesion of the core block of resistance are the other driving imperatives for the pro-democracy movement. Expanding the chain-of-command, bolstering local social services, and growing local administration are clear priorities already unfolding. Methodical relationships with the Myanmar diaspora are critical for financing. Engagement with unofficially supportive ethnic armed groups is important for bleeding the junta further.
It is easy to find faults in the resistance, to nitpick it in a thousand ways and claim these flaws lead only to defeat. Myanmar’s revolution is what it is: a sprawling bottom-up revolt initially driven by the imperatives of local self-defense that grew into a national uprising based on shared aspirations for a better future built upon federal democracy. Yes, more coordination, more messaging, more clarity about its politics, more inclusion, more and better of everything would be wonderful. But the flaws don’t detract from the bigger picture. Look around the world and there is no clearer example of a mass movement fighting for a just cause. Moreover, despite whatever its critics proclaim, the raw fact remains that Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance is not being defeated militarily and shows no sign of wavering despite all the horrors the junta has thrown at Myanmar’s people.
The junta is losing. If things continue as they are, it will lose. The junta’s incessant brutality has lit a fire it does not know how to extinguish. That will not change. It created this raging inferno of resistance through the arrogance of staging another coup and the mass atrocities it committed afterwards. More atrocities will not shift the war in its favor. The democratic resistance is viable and ascendant because it is, and will remain, a popular national uprising of a people determined to rid themselves of juntas once and for all. If present trends continue, and it stands to reason they will, Myanmar’s current junta will not be defeated in a grand battle for Naypyitaw. By the end Naypyitaw will not even matter. The junta will simply bleed out in different parts of the country until it effectively collapses as a force and a new government is stood up. The post-conflict peace may be messy in places, at least to parts of the international community, but it will not be Syria. There is simply too much social goodwill and solidarity among the Myanmar people, the starting and end point of this revolution..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2023-08-08
Date of entry/update:
2023-08-08
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Political History
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Military-controlled government seemingly needs more time to organise new vote as it tackles protests and armed resistance
Description:
"Myanmar’s military-controlled government has extended the state of emergency it imposed when the army seized power from an elected government in 2021, forcing a further delay in elections it promised when it took over.
MRTV television said the National Defense and Security Council met on Monday in the capital, Naypyidaw, and extended the state of emergency for another six months starting on Tuesday because time is needed to prepare for the elections. The NDSC is nominally a constitutional government body, but in practice is controlled by the military.
The announcement amounted to an admission that the army does not exercise enough control to stage the polls and has failed to subdue widespread opposition to military rule, which includes increasingly challenging armed resistance as well as nonviolent protests and civil disobedience, despite the army having a huge advantage in manpower and weapons.
The state of emergency was declared when troops arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and top officials from her government and members of her National League for Democracy party on 1 February 2021. The takeover reversed years of progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule in Myanmar.
The military said it seized power because of fraud in the last general election held in November 2020, in which Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory while the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party did poorly. Independent election observers said they did not find any major irregularities.
The army takeover was met with widespread peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with lethal force, triggering armed resistance that UN experts have described as a civil war.
As of Monday, 3,857 people have been killed by the security forces since the takeover, according to a tally kept by the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
The army-enacted 2008 constitution allows the military to rule the country under a state of emergency for one year, with two possible six-month extensions if preparations are not yet completed for new polls, meaning that the time limit expired on 31 January this year.
However, the NDSC allowed the military government to extend emergency rule for another six months in February, saying the country remained in an abnormal situation. The announcement on Monday is the fourth extension.
The state of emergency allows the military to assume all government functions, giving the head of the ruling military council, Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, legislative, judicial and executive powers.
Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the National Unity Government, an underground group that calls itself the country’s legitimate government and serves as an opposition umbrella group, said the extension of emergency rule was expected because the military government hasn’t been able to annihilate the pro-democracy forces.
“The junta extended the state of emergency because the generals have a lust for power and don’t want to lose it. As for the revolutionary groups, we will continue to try to speed up our current revolutionary activities,” Nay Phone Latt said in a message on Monday.
Monday’s report did not specify when the polls might be held, saying only that they would occur after the goals of the state of emergency are accomplished..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication:
2023-07-31
Date of entry/update:
2023-07-31
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Human Rights and international relations, The Military's political role, Political History
Language:
more
Description:
"The horrendous account of a businessman who says he escaped from “cyber slavery” in Myanmar made headlines in the Chinese mainland last week.
The man, using the pseudonym Li Wei, told the Metropolitan Channel of Henan TV in April that he was lured by a client to the Southeast Asian nation late last year when he tried to chase a payment he was owed.
His story is becoming a familiar one. Like many other victims, the man says he was trafficked by a criminal syndicate and forced to engage in so-called pig butchering scams.
More Chinese victims plucked from cross-border cyberscams in Myanmar
This common form of cyber fraud sees scammers, many of them trafficked, seeking to win the trust of victims by developing romantic or business connections – “fattening the pigs” before they are “butchered” by swindling money from them.
Li told the broadcaster that some of the cyber slaves had even been put in what their captors called a water prison. He said they were locked in rooms filled with water up to their mouths, with sharp nails on the floor that made it hard to stand.
Such accounts have been appearing more frequently in Chinese state media recently as the government seeks to warn the public about these scams.
In what the media called “a very big case”, a court in Chengdu, Sichuan province convicted 34 people late last month over their involvement in a scam ring based in Myanmar.
But the case only involved fraudulent proceeds of several million yuan – meaning the syndicate was just one of the many small operators in the crime hubs that have sprung up along the Moei River in Myanmar.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in May called on the Myanmar government to work harder to stop the scams, but it is unclear whether this type of pressure is having any effect.
One of the most infamous of the scam hubs is Shwe Kokko in the restive Kayin state. Originally a casino city co-developed by Yatai International Holdings – owned by Chinese-born businessman She Zhijiang – and the Kayin State Border Guard Force (BGF), it became a centre for online scams during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Shwe Kokko is also the headquarters for the BGF, which is made up of former insurgency troops from Kayin who were integrated into Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, during a ceasefire in 2010.
In 2020, the Myanmar government – then a power-sharing arrangement between the civilian government and the military – launched an investigation and halted the controversial project, called Yatai New City.
But local NGOs and media pointed out that the military coup that came the following year reversed the project’s fortunes, as the military government needed the BGF to fight rival armed groups.
The Tatmadaw has neither the capacity nor the incentive to stop the BGF from restarting this project and turning it into a hub for cybercrime.
The BGF is a loose group of former ethnic militias. Two small battalions reportedly defected from the military government recently, further undermining the Tatmadaw’s incentives to upset the remaining BGF forces on its side.
She has been a long-time fugitive from China and was arrested in Thailand last year for running a cross-border gambling business. He is waiting to be extradited to China, and according to Myanmar media reports the BGF has filled the void left by She.
Chinese, Malaysians among 2,700 victims rescued in Philippines cyber scam raid
30 Jun 2023
These schemes are a concern across the region, with Association of Southeast Asian Nations members vowing to work together to combat them.
There have been reports of rescues, crackdowns and trials in recent months – it is progress, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.
Getting to the root of the problem will be difficult and complicated, but there is an opportunity now for cooperation between Beijing and Asean members, since they face a common enemy.
Stopping these criminal syndicates and their protectors can only be done with regional cooperation, and with strong political will..."
Source/publisher:
"South China Morning Post"
Date of publication:
2023-07-04
Date of entry/update:
2023-07-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Political History
Language:
more
Description:
"On 30 June-02 July 2022, H.E. PRAK Sokhonn, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Kingdom of Cambodia, conducted his second working visit to Myanmar in his capacity as the Special Envoy of the ASEAN Chair on Myanmar. He was accompanied by H.E. Ekkaphab PHANTHAVONG, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC), who represented H.E. Dato LIM Jock Hoi, Secretary General of ASEAN; members of the Office of Special Envoy of the ASEAN Chair; and representatives of the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre).
The working visit aimed to move forward the progress in the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), notably on the expediting of the delivery of humanitarian assistance and joint vaccination program, which were endorsed at the Consultative Meeting on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance to Myanmar on 06 May 2022 in Phnom Penh, and the engendering of a conducive environment for an inclusive political dialogue.
Starting off the visit, on 30 June 2022, His Excellency Deputy Prime Minister attended the handover ceremony of Chinese government’s contribution of two million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to ASEAN for Myanmar, which was presented by His Excellency CHEN Hai, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Myanmar in Yangon.
Later on, in the afternoon, H.E. Deputy Prime Minister paid a courtesy call on H.E. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Chairman of the State Administration Council (SAC), in Nay Pyi Taw. With the ASEAN Leaders’ Five Point Consensus as an overarching guide, both sides exchanged views on situational updates and challenges in implementing this key document, and also followed up on the three previous meetings between Samdech Techo Prime Minister HUN Sen and the Senior General, as well as the outcomes of the Consultative Meeting on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance to Myanmar. The Senior General shared with H.E. Deputy Prime Minister the current security situation, including violence, brutality, and intimidation against civilians. The Senior General informed of the improvement of security for the people and his willingness to engage directly in the National Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). He also reassured the Special Envoy of his full support to the fulfilling of the latter’s mandate. The Special Envoy also took the opportunity to urge the SAC to explore ways to work with the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, so that we can further enhance synergy between our works within the framework of cooperation between ASEAN and the UN.
H.E. Deputy Prime Minister also met his counterpart Foreign Minister H.E. U Wunna Maung Lwin to discuss ASEAN-related matters. H.E. Deputy Prime Minister recalled the recent two communications on death sentence and the request to return Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into house detention. In the same tone of consistency, the Special Envoy reiterated his call for the cessation of violence, and requested the SAC to support a safe, timely and impartial delivery of humanitarian assistance to hard-to-reach areas, the release of prisoners, and for meetings with several non-SAC individuals, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Daw Su Su Lwin. He was informed that due to health condition, Daw Su Su Lwin was unable to meet the Special Envoy while the case of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains under judicial procedure.
H.E. PRAK Sokhonn also met the Myanmar Task Force on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance, headed by H.E.U Ko Ko Hlaing. Expediting the delivery of humanitarian assistance in a safe, timely and impartial manner was the key topic for discussion. The Meeting also deliberated on how the UN Specialized Agencies and international non-Later on, in the afternoon, H.E. Deputy Prime Minister paid a courtesy call on H.E. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Chairman of the State Administration Council (SAC), in Nay Pyi Taw. With the ASEAN Leaders’ Five Point Consensus as an overarching guide, both sides exchanged views on situational updates and challenges in implementing this key document, and also followed up on the three previous meetings between Samdech Techo Prime Minister HUN Sen and the Senior General, as well as the outcomes of the Consultative Meeting on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance to Myanmar. The Senior General shared with H.E. Deputy Prime Minister the current security situation, including violence, brutality, and intimidation against civilians. The Senior General informed of the improvement of security for the people and his willingness to engage directly in the National Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). He also reassured the Special Envoy of his full support to the fulfilling of the latter’s mandate. The Special Envoy also took the opportunity to urge the SAC to explore ways to work with the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, so that we can further enhance synergy between our works within the framework of cooperation between ASEAN and the UN.
H.E. Deputy Prime Minister also met his counterpart Foreign Minister H.E. U Wunna Maung Lwin to discuss ASEAN-related matters. H.E. Deputy Prime Minister recalled the recent two communications on death sentence and the request to return Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into house detention. In the same tone of consistency, the Special Envoy reiterated his call for the cessation of violence, and requested the SAC to support a safe, timely and impartial delivery of humanitarian assistance to hard-to-reach areas, the release of prisoners, and for meetings with several non-SAC individuals, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Daw Su Su Lwin. He was informed that due to health condition, Daw Su Su Lwin was unable to meet the Special Envoy while the case of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains under judicial procedure.
H.E. PRAK Sokhonn also met the Myanmar Task Force on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance, headed by H.E.U Ko Ko Hlaing. Expediting the delivery of humanitarian assistance in a safe, timely and impartial manner was the key topic for discussion. The Meeting also deliberated on how the UN Specialized Agencies and international non-government organizations can engage in Myanmar-led humanitarian works, including the Joint Need Assessment in the hard-to-reach areas
. The request was raised to the Myanmar Task Force in facilitating and simplifying procedures while Myanmar side called for more cooperation with local authorities and avoid political distancing from the side of international organizations and partners. The Special Envoy conveyed the willingness of Samdech Techo Prime Minister to dispatch Cambodia’s voluntary health personnel to help administer vaccines in those areas, which was strongly welcomed by the Myanmar Task Force.
On 01 July 2022, H.E. Deputy Prime Minister had a meeting with H.E. Lieutenant General Yar Pyae, Chairman of National Solidarity and Peace-making Negotiation Committee (NSPNC). The meeting focused on various agendas, including approaches to further engage with Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) in the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and the role of the Committee in humanitarian assistance operation and vaccination campaign to the people of Myanmar. H.E. Lieutenant General Yar Pyae expressed his willingness to cooperate with and welcome the participation of all parties concerned in Myanmar to become the signatories of the existing NCA. The Special Envoy shared with the Committee Cambodia's experiences in succesffully implementing the Win-Win policy of Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen, which has brought about peace and stability, and unity of the national army.
H.E. PRAK Sokhonn and accompanying delegates, then, held talks with the representatives of seven EAOs, who have signed the NCA with the SAC. The main topic of dicussion, among others, was on the challenges to end this decades-long conflict and how to advance peace talks for the benefit of all people in the country. The Special Envoy, once again, emphasized on how Cambodia brought about today’s peace, stability and development through the Win-Win Policy, initiated by Samdech Techno Prime Minister. Calling Cambodia as a friend in need, the EAOs commended Cambodia’s experience on national reconciliation and Win-Win Policy and appreciated the good office of the Special Envoy to help bring Myanmar back to normalcy. On the last day of the visit, H.E. Deputy Prime Minister met with representatives of seven political parties in Myanmar, who won seats at the 2020 election. The political parties briefed the Special Envoy on the developments of political and humanitarian situation on the ground in each state and region. They all shared great concern on the severe impacts of violence on civilians, including the burning of villages, without clear responsible organizations. They also shared common desire for peace and non-violence, and some political parties also informed of how they have helped support the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) coming from other regions. They called for early delivery of humanitarian assitance to their respective regions. The Special Envoy updated the Meeting on the progress of the the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) and the follow-up to agreement reached at the Consultative Meeting on Humanitarian Assistance to Myanmar, and expressed his commitment to help expedite the delivery of humanitarian assistance and to create conducive environment for political dialogue to start.
Before concluding his mission, the Special Envoy held a fruitful discussion with H.E. Christian Lechervy, Ambassador of the French Republic; H.E. Thomas L. Vajda, Ambassador of the United States of America; H.E. Ranieri Sabatucci, Ambassador of the European Union; and Mrs. Angela Corcoran, Chargé d’Affaires of the Australian Embassy. They exchanged views on the progress of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) and their assessments on political, economic and social situation in Myanmar and have commended the role played by Cambodia in humanitarian aspect, especially the recent two communications on death sentence and request for transfer of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi back to house detension..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia
Date of publication:
2022-07-04
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
106.52 KB
more
Description:
"Myanmar’s junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, whose regime has killed more than 1,700 civilians, has awarded himself two honorary titles which are traditionally given to those who make huge contributions to the country.
On Sunday, to mark Myanmar’s new year, the regime announced its honorary titles and medals for outstanding work for the country during the 75 years since independence.
Min Aung Hlaing gave himself the two highest titles — Sadoe Thiri Thudhamma and Sadoe Maha Thray Sithu.
The list was dominated by dictatorial figures.
Ne Win, the first military dictator who led the 1962 coup, was posthumously named Agga Maha Thray Sithu, the second-highest honor. Former military dictator Than Shwe, who picked Min Aung Hlaing as his successor as commander-in-chief, was given the same title.
Former president and general U Thein Sein was not mentioned as he already had the Agga Maha Thray Sithu.
Former brigadier general Kyaw Zaw, a central figure in the independence struggle and establishment of the armed forces, has previously only received a lower Thray Sithu honor. He was one of the 30 comrades who led the struggle against British colonial rule and the Kuomintang invasion.
Former prime ministers U Nu and U San Yu and the leader of the 1988 military reshuffle Senior General Saw Maung were awarded the Agga Maha Thiri Thudhamma and Agga Maha Thray Sithu on Sunday.
However, former military intelligence general Khin Nyunt, who was purged by Than Shwe in 2004 and now suffers from Alzheimer’s, was overlooked.
Former lieutenant generals Aye Ko and Tun Yi, who were Ne Win’s deputies, were both awarded the Maha Thray Sithu. Former vice-senior general Maung Aye, Than Shwe’s deputy, received no award on Sunday.
The current junta’s acting president, U Myint Swe, was awarded the Sadoe Thiri Thudhamma.
Late influential Buddhist monk Myaing Gyi Ngu Sayadaw U Thuzana, Karen National Union chairman Saw Mutu Say Poe, Restoration Council of Shan State leader Yawd Serk and some other leaders of ethnic armed groups were given Wunna Kyawhtin medals for their outstanding performances, which is normally given to leading artistic and literary figures.
U Hla Maung Shwe, a former adviser to the Myanmar Peace Center, was given the Wunna Kyawhtin medal. Many artists, including some from the colonial era, were given posthumous medals.
The regime also awarded honorary titles on March 27, Armed Forces Day, which marks the anniversary of armed resistance against Japanese occupation..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2022-04-18
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-18
Grouping:
Individual Documents
more
Description:
"Antagonism and mutual distrust between the Burmese armed forces (or
Tatmadaw) and the civilian sphere have long characterized Myanmar’s
post-independence politics. Since the 1950s, Tatmadaw publications DQG RI¿FLDO GLVFRXUVHV KDYH URXWLQHO\ DFFXVHG FLYLOLDQ SROLWLFLDQV DQG
parliamentarians in particular, of having drawn the country from one
crisis to another (Mya Win 1992; Min Maung Maung 1993). In its own
words and propaganda works, the Tatmadaw likes to position itself
as the sole cohesive, dedicated and disciplined state institution able
to safeguard the unity of the nation, protect its integrity and bring
about political stability (Selth 2002; Callahan 2000, 2009; Kyaw Yin
Hlaing 2009; Maung Aung Myoe 2009; Nakanishi 2013). Across time
and place, the contempt for disruptive and chaotic parliamentarian
politics as well as the divisive essence of civilian affairs has long
been underscored by civil-military scholarship as a legitimate incentive
for the intervention of coup-prone or “praetorian” armies (Huntington
1957; Finer 1975; Nordlinger 1977)..."
Source/publisher:
Academia.edu (San Francisco)
Date of publication:
2015-08-21
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Military History, Political role of the Tatmadaw, The Military's political role, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
636.57 KB
more
Description:
"New satellite data analyzed by Human Rights Watch corroborates images and videos streaming out of Myanmar’s Chin State showing towns once again on fire.
Human Rights Watch reviewed thermal anomaly data collected by an environmental satellite sensor (VIIRS) that detected the presence of multiple active fires in Thantlang town in Chin State in northwestern Myanmar. The thermal anomalies were detected for the first time on October 29 at 12:29 p.m. local time. The readings are consistent with reports of fires burning buildings during the day, depicted in photos and videos circulated around this time by the media and human rights groups. More than 12 hours later, additional thermal anomalies were also detected, consistent with reports of fires at night.
The military spokesperson, Gen. Zaw Min Tun, claimed without offering any evidence that, after clashes with soldiers, the Chinland Defense Force-Thantlang set houses on fire as they left. The media outlet Myanmar Now quoted a spokesperson for the armed group who blamed the military for the damage, saying soldiers were burning houses for “no reason.” Myanmar’s military has a long history of widespread arson attacks, such as those on ethnic Rohingya villages in Rakhine State in 2012, 2016, and 2017, and has made similar claims many times before to deflect blame.
Thantlang has been nearly completely uninhabited since September after its population, estimated to be around 10,000, fled mostly to other parts of Chin State because of ongoing fighting between the military and anti-junta militias that are part of a growing network of so-called People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). Parts of the town were reportedly previously damaged.
On October 29 the international humanitarian organization Save the Children released a statement saying their office in Thantlang had been damaged, and raised concerns that the fires risk “destroying the whole town and the homes of thousands of families and children.”
The laws of war applicable to armed conflict in ethnic minority areas of Myanmar prohibit deliberate, indiscriminate, and disproportionate attacks on civilians and civilian property. Intentional destruction of civilian property not being used for military purposes violate the laws of war and may amount to a war crime. A credible and impartial investigation of alleged war crimes is urgently needed, and those responsible should be held to account.
The United States and Swedish governments have condemned the attacks on Thantlang. But governments and the United Nations should demand that humanitarian agencies have unhindered access to provide aid to affected communities, call for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to be allowed to investigate the sites, and impose coordinated sanctions against those implicated in abuses..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication:
2021-11-03
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-05
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Human Rights Watch Reports on Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights and international relations, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၃၆/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ (၂၃) ရက်
အသိအမှတ်ပြုကြောင်းကြေညာခြင်း..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication:
2021-10-23
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), The Military's political role, Education in Burma/Myanmar - general
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
168.73 KB
more
Description:
"With a record-breaking number of defections unmatched in nearly six decades and brewing discontent among the ranks against their superiors, Myanmar’s more than 300,000-strong military is now at risk of splitting, according to some ex-army officers who have deserted their units recently.
Currently, around 2,000 soldiers and police have joined the country’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a nationwide boycott by Myanmar civil servants against the regime following their takeover in February. Many more are in the pipeline and out of the current 2,000 defectors, one-third are military personnel, said the officers who have joined the CDM as they are not pleased with the country’s military regime.
Though the number of defections is small for now, it is unprecedented in Myanmar’s military history going back to 1962 when the then dictator Ne Win staged a coup and consolidated the country’s armed forces. Some soldiers protested against the army during pro-democracy uprisings in 1988 but the number at the time was far less significant.
So, it’s worth asking why so many are doing so now.
“[Under the regime] people are ashamed to be soldiers, to attend the Defense Services Academy or to join the military. This is a very sad thing for the future of the military” said one of the officers, Captain Nyi Thuta.
After graduating in 2010 from the 52th Intake of the Defence Services Academy, he served at his base in Naypyitaw until the coup. When he learned about the takeover, he felt Myanmar was heading into a dark age. When the junta escalated its nationwide deadly crackdowns on peaceful protesters who were against their rule in March, the captain left his unit. He said “You can’t kill people who express their views.”
The regime’s brutality has shocked the world. They shot dead more than 100 people in a single day in March. They have sprayed bullets in residential areas. During raids, they have indiscriminately killed people, including children as young as 6. Arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings by the soldiers persist. As of Thursday, the junta had killed 1,019 people during their crackdowns, raids, arrests, interrogations, arbitrary killings and random shootings, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which is compiling the deaths and arrests since Feb. 1 coup.
Another defector, Captain Lin Htet Aung, said what his fellow soldiers did during the crackdowns were totally contradictory to the codes of conduct they were supposed to follow.
“They have changed into thugs with guns,” he said.
As a result, people detested the military so much that it demoralized the men in uniform like never before. The regime’s atrocities against protesters became an immediate push factor for some military personnel to join the CDM as they have become more aware of the true colors of the military junta, which has been committing atrocities and murdering its own people.
Sergeant Yin Lei Lei Tun used to be proud of being a soldier. But her faith in the armed forces she joined in 2016 was lost with the coup when she saw the junta’s atrocities against peaceful anti-regime protesters. So she joined the CDM in April after defecting from her military base in Yangon Region.
“After the coup, I feel insecure about being a soldier, as people hate the military. Our military is also doing the wrong thing” said the sergeant.
Currently, about 5 to 10 junta soldiers have been defecting from the military daily, according to the People’s Soldier group, a Facebook page co-founded by Captain Nyi Thuta to provide assistance to striking soldiers and to persuade more military personnel to leave their barracks to join the CDM.
Most of the soldiers who have joined the CDM are privates and sergeants. Officers ranking from lieutenants to majors account for around 100.
The Myanmar military has been notorious for attacking its own people rather than protecting them. Its atrocities like arbitrary killings, arrests and looting in ethnic areas are internationally well known. The coup in 2021 and follow-up atrocities have worsened its already tarnished reputation while pushing its leadership into a corner, as they are facing growing armed resistance in both urban and rural areas, forcing coup leader Min Aung Hlaing to admit he couldn’t fully control the country yet. Then they face another big blow: defections by their subordinates who detest their bosses’ actions.
Captain Nyi Thuta said the image of the military is now the worst in history, as more military personnel are realizing that the reputation of the military and soldiers have been totally shattered.
“So, this momentum [of defections] is going to grow. The sure thing is that the time has come for the people and people’s soldiers to unite,” he said.
Cracks in the military
Everyone familiar with Myanmar politics knows it is hard to imagine that change in Myanmar can come about without the involvement of some men within the military, which has remained the country’s most powerful institution since 1962.
Now with defections growing like never before, Captian Nyit Thuta said the military has potential to split into two groups: those who want to inherit the bad legacy of the military and others who don’t want to do so.
“Anyone defecting said they want to be people’s soldiers—professionals who protect the people. They don’t want to hand over the institution’s bad legacy to their juniors,” he said.
Another defecting military official, Captain Lin Htet Aung, also realized they were working for the coup leaders who put their personal benefits before the country or the military institution itself.
The captain, who graduated from the 54th Intake of the Defense Services Academy, left the military barracks in Shan State a few months after the February coup after seeing the regime’s atrocities against unarmed peaceful anti-coup demonstrators and civilians. Later he formed the People’s Embrace group to help military personnel who want to defect.
“We are seeing cracks in the military. There are many injustices in posting and other human rights violations that create discontent among the ranks against their superiors. So, the military could face a split,” said Captain Lin Htet Aung.
For examples, he explained, some military troops have been unfairly posted on the frontline for years while others who have good connections with people upstairs are being posted in safe areas like Naypyitaw, he added.
International and local observers are convinced that the military institution must split up in order to restore the path to democracy in Myanmar, as there is a lack of effective actions by the UN and international organizations and neither the armed resistance of the people nor the ethnic armed groups can defeat the junta.
Captian Lin Htet Aung also agreed with the point that without the split within the military, it’s unlikely democracy will be restored.
“Years-long bad habits [like corruption] and systems [like oppression] are deeply rooted in the military. We also need to fight to force those ingrained bad habits out in order to restore democracy. So, the institution needs to split up” he added.
In an attempt to encourage more defections, Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government (NUG) on Monday issued a statement urging military personnel to join the CDM by promising to keep not only their original positions and pension allowances, but also their safety.
It also said that security forces personnel who left the military barracks can join the federal union army and police forces reformed by the NUG.
Meanwhile, people’s reception of defecting soldiers has been quite encouraging, Captain Nyi Thuta said. Both the People’s Soldiers and People’s Embrace groups are now able to support the striking soldiers due to donations made by the public.
“They now realize that people just hate soldiers who support the institution that oppresses them with guns. They know now that you will be showered with love once you are no longer affiliated with them,” he said.
For most defectors from the military, they believe that only a split within the military itself will bring about a radical change for the armed forces to become the people’s military.
Captain Lin Htet Aung said the armed forces can’t be changed even with the death of coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, as another would take his place.
“To wipe out the deeply rooted bad habits and systems of the military, reform is the only way. It can only happen when it splits,” he said.
“It could happen if we are more united.”..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2021-08-28
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-29
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Protests were staged around the country on Sunday as a younger generation renews the struggle against military rule
Description:
"As Myanmar marked the 33rd anniversary of the “Four Eights” pro-democracy uprising on Sunday, activists around the country renewed calls to end military rule once and for all.
Anti-dictatorship protests were held in both urban and rural areas to commemorate the 1988 uprising, which began on August 8 of that year and was crushed the following month by a bloody coup that claimed thousands of lives.
Coming 188 days after the latest military coup, the anniversary was remembered with a renewed sense of urgency, with many activists linking the two events.
“Let’s struggle together towards completion of the unfinished 8-8-88 people’s liberation movement” was a slogan seen on placards and banners at a number of protests.
Some signs, meanwhile, bore starker messages.
“Blood that was shed in ’88 must be repaid in ’21,” read one that hearkened back to the violence that ushered in nearly a quarter century of brutal military rule.
That era ostensibly ended a decade ago after the military orchestrated a “transition” to quasi-civilian rule that left its power largely intact.
However, the country was again plunged into crisis when the military seized direct control on February 1, citing alleged irregularities in last year’s election.
Since then, the newly installed regime has killed nearly a thousand civilians and arrested another 7,000 in an effort to crush a massive popular resistance movement reminiscent of the one that emerged in 1988.
Many who came out into the streets on Sunday made it clear that they considered themselves heirs of that earlier struggle.
“We are carrying over the effort of previous generations who fought against the military dictatorship. The responsibility falls upon our generation now – a student activist.”
“The current generation must learn from history and defeat the fascist military dictatorship once and for all,” the General Strike Committee, a protest organizing coalition, said in a statement released ahead of the protests.
Nyi Zaw, the chair of the Yangon University Students’ Union, also pointed to the intergenerational nature of the current anti-coup movement.
“We are carrying over the effort of previous generations who fought against the military dictatorship. The responsibility falls upon our generation now,” he told Myanmar Now.
Others, meanwhile, called for unity among anti-regime forces, including people of different ethnicities, and emphasized the endurance of the resistance movement.
“Our public struggle and resilience over the past six months are the best proof that we will achieve victory,” said Tayzar San, a prominent anti-coup activist from Mandalay, who spoke to Myanmar Now on Sunday.
One of the most prominent voices of the 1988 uprising used the occasion of the anniversary to denounce the military for acting in bad faith during its past engagement with pro-democracy forces.
“It seems that we need to win by a knockout. Fine, then. We’ll give them a knockout – Min Ko Naing.”
Min Ko Naing, a former student leader who spent nearly two decades in prison for his outspoken opposition to military rule, told Myanmar Now he didn’t think the younger generation would fall for the “lies” that kept the former regime in power for so long.
“All their lies were unmasked on February 1,” he said.
As hundreds of members of the Myanmar diaspora gathered in Washington, D.C., on Sunday to call on US support for the shadow National Unity Government, Min Ko Naing also reflected on the international response to the crisis in Myanmar.
“Our people have fought every round and won every one with a high score. The world knows that. But it seems that we need to win by a knockout. Fine, then. We’ll give them a knockout,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2021-08-08
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, The Military's political role, Political History
Language:
more
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
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Political History, Military History
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
45.66 KB
more
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
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Military History, The Military's political role
Language:
more
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
Category:
The Military's political role, Political role of the Tatmadaw, Military History, Sanctions - general
Language:
more
Description:
"This morning, the junta prison department reportedly announced the release of 2342 prisoners across the country.
The junta detained innocents. Torture is used as policy by this military, detainees will suffer long-term physical and mental illness. There was no recognition of the injustice and suffering caused today, and no mention of the right to compensation.
Today’s events intend to make it seem there has been a relaxation in the junta’s repression. This is not the case. In fact, the junta is planning to detain and torture even more civilians. The people who remain in prison will be tortured more severely than those released. It is a continuation of the campaign of fear relentlessly waged against Burma’s people by the terrorist so-called State Administrative Council.
At least 883 peaceful protestors have been murdered, and 6421 detained since the coup. “Democracy will not be reached until all political prisoners are released, with justice and national reconciliation achieved. This illegitimate junta is not making positive changes, they are only trying to make the case to be given credentials at the UN in September”, said AAPP Secretary U Tate.
“They are arresting people who should never have been detained in the first place, those released will be threatened and suffer from trauma. They will need rehabilitation and understanding of the injustice they experienced”, said AAPP Joint-Secretary U Bo Kyi, “any release must aim at real reform, including the release of Daw Aung Suu Kyi. Violence must end, and those who committed torture and murder brought to justice. The junta is releasing people whilst arrests go on. The international community must not accept this as a relaxation. Real change must apply pressure to stop the violence and release all of the political prisoners. We have been dealing with this junta for decades, they will not be removed unless there is intense pressure. Releasing some political prisoners does not mean Burma will return to a civilian government the people want”
Burma’s path to democracy can only be restored if our elected leaders and all political prisoners are unconditionally released and a civilian government, elected by the people, in power.
In Solidarity,
AAPP..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of publication:
2021-06-30
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-30
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights and international relations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, The Military's political role
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
120.43 KB
Local URL:
more
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
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Most defectors now want to join the People’s Defence Force and fight against the regime, a former captain says
Description:
"About 800 soldiers have left the military to join the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) since the February 1 coup, a former captain who is helping people to defect has told Myanmar Now.
Lin Htet Aung, 29, defected in late March and has since teamed up with more defectors to assist others in leaving the military. He served in the 528th Infantry Battalion under the Triangle Region Command in eastern Shan state.
About three quarters of those who have defected are ready to join the People’s Defense Force (PDF) to fight against the regime, he said. The rest would like to help the revolution in other ways but do not want to fight, he added.
Around 100 of the defectors had been serving as officers with ranks including major, captain, and lieutenant.
Some have travelled to border regions controlled by ethnic armed groups and are giving crash courses in combat to people who fled cities to take up arms against the junta.
Most defectors are from the navy and air force; soldiers from infantry regiments have found it more difficult to flee due to the fear of repercussions against their families.
“The main reason they can’t defect is because they’re performing frontline operations and are separated from their families,” said Lin Htet Aung.
“They don’t have access to our statements either, so that doesn’t help,” he added, referring to public pleas by defectors for other soldiers to join CDM.
Between 40 and 50 of those who have defected left their families behind in military housing, he said. “They don’t know what to do and they have no support. There’s no way for them to reach out to their families.”
Most of the defectors are aged between 2o and 35 and no one above the rank of major has defected.
“We don’t expect anything from those in higher ranks,” Lin Htet Aung said. “The higher up they are, the more scared they are of losing their positions.”
“If they defected this fight would be over quickly,” he added.
"We don’t expect anything from those in higher ranks. The higher up they are, the more scared they are of losing their positions.”
Lieutenant Htet Nay Bala, 24, defected on March 7. He said he fled the 269th Infantry Battalion in Chin State after the regime ordered attacks against peaceful protesters across the country.
“Instead of protecting the people after taking their taxes as salaries, this institution is committing all these atrocities. So I no longer want to be a part of it,” he said.
“Everyone felt their future being taken away when the coup happened,” he added. “As a youth who loves my country, I’ll continue with the revolution. There’s no turning back.” ..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2021-06-08
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, The Military's political role
Language:
more
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
Category:
Political role of the Tatmadaw, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Human Rights and international relations, Military History, Political History, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
more
Sub-title:
While one party courted controversy by deciding to attend, others said they didn’t even consider taking part
Description:
"Leaders of most of Myanmar’s major political parties have decided not to attend a meeting with the country’s junta-appointed election body on Friday.
The meeting will be just the second held since the military appointed all new members to the Union Election Commission (UEC) in the wake of its February 1 coup, which it staged on the pretext of alleged irregularities in last year’s election.
The first meeting, held in late February, was attended by 53 political parties, only 10 of which had won any seats in the November 2020 general election.
Major ethnic parties such as the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), the Arakan National Party (ANP), and the Kachin State People's Party (KSPP) are among those that will not be in attendance on Friday.
Also absent will be the Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS), formed in 1988, and the United Nationalities Democracy Party (UNDP), which was founded in 2019 by former members of the National League for Democracy (NLD).
The NLD, which won last year’s election by a landslide, was due to form a new government when it was ousted by the coup. Most of its leaders are now in detention or in hiding.
Aung Moe Zaw, the chair of the DPNS, said in a video uploaded to the party’s Facebook page on Wednesday that his party refused to attend the Friday meeting because it rejected the coup regime’s “illegitimate” actions. It also boycotted the previous meeting.
“We are a political party that always says we are working for the public. They are killing and arresting members of the public on a daily basis and even threatening us with arrest. I myself have been charged with incitement. I don’t think we should attend the meeting for any reason,” he said.
The longtime pro-democracy activist added that the party would continue to boycott the regime until the path to democracy is restored in the country. He also called on other political parties to stand together with the people.
The chair of the SNLD, Sai Nyunt Lwin, told Myanmar Now that his party—which won 42 seats in last year’s election—did not even consider attending the meeting on Friday.
The SNLD, which is the largest ethnic party in the country, is more concerned with ongoing clashes and the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.
The party was also absent from the first junta-led UEC meeting in February.
The KSPP and the ANP, which both joined the February meeting, said they decided against attending this time around for a number of reasons.
“We were busy with Covid-19 issues and with our plans to relocate our party headquarters,” said KSPP central executive member Jan Hkung, adding that there was no discussion in the party about whether to accept the invitation of the military council’s UEC.
Tun Aung Kyaw, the joint secretary of the ANP, said that his party did discuss the possibility of attending the meeting, but decided against it on security grounds.
“As we all know, even administrators have been shot in the head. And there have also been explosions,” he said.
Naw Ohn Hla, the prominent rights activist who is also vice-chair of the UNDP, declined to comment on the party’s decision not to attend, apart from noting that it made the same choice in February.
Most of the parties that attended the last meeting were allied with the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, although a handful of ethnic parties also took part.
During that meeting, the junta-appointed UEC chairman announced that the results of last year’s election had been annulled over allegations of voter fraud.
In its final report on the election, however, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) said that “the results of the 2020 elections were, by and large, representative of the will of the people of Myanmar.”
The regime has said that it will hold elections again at an unspecified time, but few observers believe that they will be free or fair.
“The junta that staged the coup appointed the people who will run the election. How can we trust them to hold a fair election?” said the leader of an ethnic party who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity.
One of the few parties not directly connected to the military that decided to attend the meeting was the People’s Party, whose chair, Ko Ko Gyi, has been a well-known political figure since the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.
Ko Ko Gyi declined to speak to Myanmar Now about the decision, but in a recent interview with the BBC, he said that most of the party’s members agreed with the move.
“The majority of members think we should attend the meeting to officially express the party’s political stance and our views,” he said.
However, a number of senior party members, including the party’s general secretary and Ko Ko Gyi’s longtime associate Ye Naing Aung, have resigned over the decision.
The party did not send representatives to the UEC meeting in February..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2021-05-21
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-21
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Political History, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
more
Topic:
KIA, Kachin Independence Army, Myanmar military, Kachin State
Sub-title:
The Myanmar military launches air attacks on Kachin and Karen villages after losing strategic bases to ethnic armed organisations
Topic:
KIA, Kachin Independence Army, Myanmar military, Kachin State
Description:
"The Myanmar military continued to launch lethal air attacks on villages in Kachin State’s Momauk Township after one of its helicopters was shot down by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) on Monday.
KIA spokesperson Col Naw Bu told Myanmar Now that Kachin forces shot and destroyed a junta helicopter between the villages of Myo Thit and Kone Law in Momauk at around 8am.
“We shot it down during a battle. Fighter jets also came to the area,” Col Naw Bu said. “The battles are not on the ground—the military are launching airstrikes and using sophisticated weapons.”
After losing the helicopter, the regime’s armed forces continued its air attacks on Myo Thit, Kone Law and Si Hat villages, he added.
A 60-year-old man and a Buddhist monk, whose age was not known at the time of reporting, were killed in the strikes, local media reported. At least 10 villagers were injured, according to the Kachinwaves news outlet.
Fighting has intensified between the KIA and the military’s 77th Light Infantry Division in Momauk in recent days. A battle on April 29 killed 20 regime soldiers and led to a KIA seizure of junta weaponry, according to a KIA source.
The clash took place below Alaw Bum, a strategically important hill base that the KIA seized on March 25. The Tatmadaw has launched numerous air and ground attacks in a bid to reclaim it but has suffered heavy losses.
At the time of reporting, Alaw Bum was still in KIA hands.
The Myanmar military has also launched around 30 airstrikes since late March in Mutraw (Hpapun) District, Karen State. The territory is controlled by the 5th Brigade of the Karen National Union’s armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).
The airstrikes and heavy artillery fire, largely aimed at civilian targets, had driven more than 3,000 people to seek refuge across the border in Thailand as of Saturday, according to the Karen Peace Support Network.
The most recent round of regime air attacks followed the KNLA’s seizure of a junta base in the Thaw Le Hta area of Mutraw, across the Salween River from Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province, on April 27.
Many of the airstrikes have taken place near the Ei Htu Hta internally displaced people’s camp near the Salween River, forcing the camp’s population of more than 2,000 into hiding. Many are among the recent refugees in Thailand.
More displaced villagers from Karen State are expected to flee to Thailand if the regime’s airstrikes continue..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2021-05-03
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Armed conflict in Kachin State - general articles, Armed conflict in Kachin State - displacement and the humanitarian situation, Armed conflict in Kachin State - human rights violations, Arms (Military Expenditure, Arms Transfers, Arms Production Etc), Political role of the Tatmadaw, Internal displacement/forced migration of Kachin, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Unclaimed attacks on military airbases signal a possible spread of civil war from remote frontier areas to urban centers
Description:
"No group has yet claimed responsibility for several, almost simultaneous attacks on military targets in central Myanmar, including air bases recently used to target ethnic armed groups in the nation’s frontier areas.
Security analysts, however, believe the shadowy attacks are likely the work of an alliance between ethnic rebels and urban-based pro-democracy dissidents, with the former providing the explosives and the latter knowledge of local conditions in the Myanmar heartland.
If that assessment is accurate and the hits were not isolated incidents, it could mean that Myanmar’s long-running, low-intensity civil wars are spreading from ethnic minority areas in the nation’s periphery to major cities and towns.
Three months after top generals seized power from a popularly elected government and despite the fact that military and police have gunned down over 750 and arrested well over 4,000 protesters, people are still bravely taking to the streets to vent their anger with the coup.
The ongoing popular resistance underscores what is by now widely seen as perhaps the most unsuccessful coup in modern Asian history. That could yet spell ill for coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who has stuck stubbornly to his guns amid rising international condemnation that is deeply isolating the country.
There are certain indications provided confidentially to Asia Times by military insiders that veterans of previous ruling juntas, namely the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), are growing wary of Min Aung Hlaing’s perceived as ineffective and polarizing actions and tactics.
Recent developments, including the attacks on military airbases, have opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities and scenarios that were largely unforeseen when the tanks rolled into the main city of Yangon three months ago and scores of elected MPs and other politicians were arrested and detained in the capital Naypyitaw.
Those include a wider civil war in the nation’s central region heartland, including near the generals’ bunker-like capital at Naypyidaw. On April 29, unidentified militants fired rockets at air force bases in Magwe and Meiktila in central Myanmar.
Another explosion detonated at a Myanmar Army weapons storage facility near Bago city, about 70 kilometers north of Yangon. Those attacks came after intense fighting between the Myanmar military, known as Tatmadaw, and ethnic rebels from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) on the border with Thailand.
The shadowy unclaimed attacks on airbases also coincided with intensified battles with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the country’s far north, where many pro-democracy activists have sought refuge after bloody crackdowns in urban areas.
The Tatmadaw’s attacks have been marked by airstrikes on rebel targets which have included civilian villages. That’s caused the recent displacement of more than 25,000 villagers in Kayin state and at least 5,000 in Kachin state. That adds to the tens of thousands who fled their homes amid earlier fighting in the areas.
Long-time observers of Myanmar’s politics have privately drawn parallels between current events and what happened after an even bloodier coup in 1988, when thousands of dissidents also took to the hills and jungles after the Tatmadaw crushed another nationwide, pro-democracy uprising.
But, they note, there are fundamental differences between the events of 1988 and current developments. In 1988, young urban dissidents formed the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), donned uniforms and fought alongside ethnic rebels in the frontier areas.
At that time, it was much easier to acquire weapons from grey Thai arms markets and dissident groups had ready sanctuaries — and even offices — in neighboring Thailand. However, improved relations between the Thai and Myanmar militaries coupled with severe entry restrictions into Thailand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have at least so far kept the dissidents on the Myanmar side of the border.
The old ABSDF exists now only in name as most of its cadres have either surrendered or been resettled in third countries. The ABSDF’s ultimately failed uprising could explain why the new ethnic-urban alliance has taken on a different and potentially more explosive form.
Indeed, recent developments seem to signal the beginning of hitherto unseen urban warfare, which the Tatmadaw is ill-equipped to handle. Apart from the obvious alliances between informal groups of pro-democracy activists and ethnic rebels, local resistance forces have already emerged in Sagaing Region and Chin state. Reports indicate similar forces are coalescing in Mon state and Mandalay Region.
Social media posts show those local partisans are equipped with hunting rifles and homemade explosives but have nonetheless been able to inflict significant casualties on the police and military, including in Kalay in Sagaing Region. In nearby Chin state, a new force called the Chinland Defense Force reportedly killed 15 junta troops in their area.
Shadowy bomb and Molotov cocktail attacks have been reported against police stations in Yangon, Mandalay and Monywa.
At the same time, the Tatmadaw must contend with battle-hardened ethnic armies. In the country’s far north, there have been over 50 clashes since Kachin rebels overran and captured a Tatmadaw outpost on the strategic Alawbum mountain near the Chinese border on March 25.
Airstrikes have failed to dislodge the KIA, which has carried out subsequent attacks near the Hpakant jade mines in western Kachin state and north of Sumprabum in the state’s north.
In Kayin State, the Free Burma Rangers nongovernmental organization reports daily fights between the Tatmadaw and KNLA, despite the fact the two sides entered a ceasefire agreement in October 2015.
That agreement, which included the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and eight smaller, rather insignificant groups, was termed a “Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement” (NCA), although it was neither nationwide nor led to even a semblance of peace in frontier areas.
Although the KNLA and the KIA have sided openly with Myanmar’s until now peaceful Civil Disobedience Movement, other ethnic groups have been less supportive. In a March 27 interview with Reuters, RCSS chairman Yawd Serk said his group would not stand by idly if the junta’s forces continue to kill protesters but his vow hasn’t been followed up with any clear action.
On the contrary, the RCSS has been fighting a rival Shan group, the Shan State Army of the Shan State Progress Party and its ethnic Palaung allies in the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) for control of areas in northern Shan state.
Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic army, the 20,000-30,000 strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), has remained conspicuously silent since the coup. Not all Wa agree with the stance: Ten Wa civil society organizations signed on March 25 a written, urgent plea to the UWSA and its political wing the United Wa State Party to say something.
That hasn’t happened though, probably because the UWSA is so closely allied with China’s security services, which do not want to get involved with Myanmar’s anti-coup movement. Protesters have targeted Beijing’s perceived support of the regime at the United Nations. Several Chinese factories were torched in Yangon in one spasm of violence.
The 7,000-strong Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine state, one of Myanmar’s most powerful rebel armies, which has killed hundreds of Tatmadaw soldiers in recent fighting, has taken a more surprising stance. It entered into ceasefire talks with the Tatmadaw in November last year and was taken off its list of “terrorist” organizations soon after the February 1 coup.
Its leader, Twan Mrat Naing, said on April 16 at the UWSA’s Panghsang headquarters that the ousted National League for Democracy government claimed that it would create a federal union with equal rights for all nationalities but failed to deliver on the promise. With that view, it’s doubtful the AA will join any grand alliance between urban dissidents and ethnic armies.
Even without a unified ethnic resistance, there is still a chance that the Tatmadaw’s old guard could move to break the stalemate by pressuring or even trying to overthrow Min Aung Hlaing and his top deputies before the situation deteriorates further.
The SLORC and SPDC were likewise brutal outfits and no friends of democracy, but former junta chief and commander-in-chief Senior General Than Shwe did initiate liberal reforms that led to a more open society and vastly improved relations with the West and wider world before stepping aside in 2010.
Than Shwe is now in his late 80s and political analysts in Myanmar believe that the current chaos is hardly the kind of legacy he would want to leave behind. Whether the aging general has the wherewithal, influence or inclination to try to rein in Min Aung Hlaing is unknown, but the anarchy unleashed by his coup is clearly not in the military establishment’s short or long-term interests..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication:
2021-05-01
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-02
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Various groups, Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians, Political role of the Tatmadaw, History of the Tatmadaw, Several Groups, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
more
Sub-title:
A major who abandoned LID 99 says a culture of fear has long stopped soldiers from leaving the army, but now feels that may change
Description:
"An army major who recently broke rank has described Myanmar’s military as an institution rife with rank- and class-based discrimination, a reality that he said had made soldiers consider defecting prior to the February 1 coup.
Major Hein Thaw Oo, of the Meikhtila-based Light Infantry Division (LID) 99, was the highest-ranking known defector from the military at the time of reporting.
He abandoned the military after 20 years and joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience (CDM) on March 24.
A native of Magwe Region and a 2002 graduate of the 48th intake of the Defence Services Academy, the major had been stationed on the frontline in Lashio, northern Shan State. There, LID 99– whose soldiers are among the military’s “shock troops”– is known to have engaged in brutal clashes with ethnic armed organisations based in the region.
“In the military, for whatever reason, you’re always scared of anyone who has a higher rank than you,” Hein Thaw Oo told Myanmar Now.
The major said that the military “alienated” anyone who questioned the institution or its practises.
“It’s not just now, it has always been this way. If they don’t get along with you, you’re pushed aside. Not only that, you get in trouble,” he explained.
Those who, like him, have defected from the military and police are largely sheltering in areas controlled by ethnic armed organisations.
Hein Thaw Oo insisted there are more who want to defect, “from sergeants on upward.”
“If you don’t believe it, go ask them. If you ask them if they want to get out, they’d get out, dancing,” the major said.
The major said that he planned to undertake a temporary monkhood, and would later join a federal army to fight against the junta’s armed forces.
At least 739 civilians have been killed nationwide by the military regime during Myanmar’s anti-dictatorship Spring Revolution since the February 1 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a group which has been monitoring the violence.
On April 9 alone, more than 80 civilians who were protesting peacefully in Bago were murdered during a crackdown by the junta’s armed forces that involved the use of heavy artillery.
Hein Thaw Oo told Myanmar Now that the suppression of public opposition at these demonstrations has been directly ordered by military strategists from the junta’s Ministry of Defence in Naypyitaw.
Military officers consider protest sites to be battlefields, and ignore when lower ranking soldiers loot homes or commit robberies and extortion, he explained.
“I assume they’re giving these orders so that they can let the soldiers on the ground just roam freely and do what they want,” the major said, adding that this was how the military treated conflict areas.
Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong, the federal union affairs minister with the newly formed interim cabinet of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), recently said that he believed there were more officers who would leave if given the chance.
The cabinet, known as the National Unity Government (NUG), urged military and police to defect and stand with the public at an NUG press conference on April 16.
Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong invited military officers he came to know during his work on peace negotiations between the Myanmar army and ethnic armed organisations to join the CDM.
“Don’t follow [military chief] Min Aung Hlaing, follow justice and truth,” he said at the press conference, addressing those still serving in the regime’s armed forces. “Join us in building a society where everyone treats each other with humanity.”
Although there are soldiers who are dissatisfied with the military coup, chances of a mutiny depend on the NUG’s governing capacity, Major Hein Thaw Oo told Myanmar Now.
Captain Htun Myat Aung, a 15-year veteran of Myanmar’s military and another recent defector, said the same. He was among those whom Myanmar Now spoke to who speculated that other soldiers were waiting to see the NUG’s next moves before abandoning the armed forces.
“The military has been broken for a while. But they’ve instilled so much fear [in soldiers] that it would take a big spark that could combat this,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2021-04-22
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political role of the Tatmadaw, Inside the Tatmadaw, Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, The Military's political role, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
196.52 KB
more
Description:
"The Republic of the Union of Myanmar Union Prime Minister Mann Win Khaing Than Myanmar New Year's Speech..."
Source/publisher:
National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication:
2021-04-19
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-20
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"Sleeping by their makeshift barricades, knots of young men at Tahan in the western Myanmar town of Kale had not expected an attack in the pre-dawn darkness.
Armed with a few hunting guns made by village blacksmiths, catapults, some airguns and Molotov cocktails, they were no match for forces hardened by decades of conflict and equipped with combat weapons.
The first barrage of shots and rocket propelled grenades from Myanmar's army, known as the Tatmadaw, came around 5 a.m. on April 7, the protesters and residents of Kale said.
By evening, the one-sided battle was over, the sandbag barricades had been cleared and 13 people were dead, three people involved in the armed group told Reuters. Soldiers deployed on street corners and remain until now.
"So many people on our side were wounded that we couldn’t do anything and had to retreat," Aung Myat Thu, one 20-year-old protester in Kale, told Reuters from there by messaging app.
Although the resistance in Kale was quickly crushed, it points to a new phase of bloodshed in Myanmar after the Feb. 1 coup, with some protesters now seeking to take up arms against the junta's forces.
The junta did not respond to requests for comment.
The junta-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said 18 rioters were arrested in Kale after attacking security forces with homemade weapons. "Some of the members of the security forces were seriously injured," it said
Despite the early setbacks, disparate groups are trying to source better weapons, sharpen tactics, share intelligence and get training from some of the two dozen or so existing ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, several opposition politicians said.
"Some small defence units have been formed across the country, in the community, villages or wards," said Moe Saw Oo, a spokesman for the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a body representing ousted lawmakers that has set up a rival national unity government.
"At the same time, we are in coordination with ethnic armed organisations about the establishment of a proper defence force," he said.
Over 700 people have been killed and more than 3,000 have been detained by security forces cracking down on the nationwide protests that have raged since the military deposed the civilian government led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1.
Even as the fighters in Kale retreated, other groups have sprung up elsewhere. Acts of sabotage, such as the burning of administrative buildings and attacks on businesses linked to the army have broken out the in the main city of Yangon and the second city of Mandalay.
"It is a sign of the determination and the extreme violence the military has been using against protesters rather than a strategic assessment they can take on the might of the military," said analyst Richard Horsey, who recently briefed the U.N. Security Council on the threat of national collapse.
Among the new groups, the Ayeyarwaddy Federal Army announced its arrival last week in the heartland of the Bamar majority, which forms the core of the armed forces as well as Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
"Armed revolution is the only way to return the people's power," spokesman Mratt Thu Aung told Reuters via messaging app.
He did not disclose the group's location or the size of its force and Reuters was unable to do so independently.....'IF WE DON'T FIGHT...'.....Pressure to organise an armed group in Kale began in mid-March as the army stepped up violence against protests sweeping the largely Buddhist country of 53 million.
On March 17, police opened fire on an anti-coup rally - killing four people - after chasing protesters to Myohla on Kale's outskirts, said a 36-year-old activist who was there.
"From that point, the people, especially the youth, felt that we needed to do something to defend ourselves," he said, declining to give his name for reprisals against his family.
By late March, at least three barricades were set-up around the main market in Tahan, hundreds of people joining to pile up sandbags. Young people in the town banded together to form the Tahan Civil Defence Group, local activists said.
The group then raised funds and sought out weapons - mainly rudimentary hunting guns made by local blacksmiths, they said.
"At first we had seven guns, which then increased to 15 within a short time," the 36-year-old activist said.
The group went for target practice session in a nearby forest on March 26. Two days later, the Tahan Civil Defence Group held off an assault by junta forces. Shortly after, it combined with other local groups to form the Kalay (Kale) Civil Army.
Such groups were getting help from the CRPH across the country, an official of the group said.
Several thousand young people had been given basic training in arms and fighting by at least four ethnic armed organisations, mostly in Myanmar's border areas, he said.
"More are coming," he said, declining to be named. "If we don't fight, the future of Myanmar is gone."......'DON’T UNDERSTAND THE TATMADAW'...In Kale, the little-trained fighters were emboldened by early success.
The 19-year-old fighter said he was sleeping between barricades on the main road through Tahan when gunfire woke him.
"I grabbed my hunting gun and two soldiers started shooting at me," he said. "I had one chance to shoot back, but my gun didn't work."
He sheltered behind a wall, then fled during a lull.
The Tatmadaw advanced systematically, blocking off escape routes, one resistance member in Tahan said.
"We don't understand the Tatmadaw mindset," the 43-year-old said from a safe house. "That's our mistake."
Several young fighters were among the 13 dead at the end of a day of fighting, activists said.
Survivors had now gone underground, they said.
"We were not safe in Kale anymore," the 19-year-old fighter said by phone from northeastern India, whose border is just over 100 km (60 miles away). Indian authorities declined to comment.
A local NLD lawmaker involved in forming the Kalay Civil Army said fighters had been asked to lay low for now, while equipment and training were improved across Myanmar.
“Maybe the time will come to fight with the Tatmadaw,” the lawmaker said, “For that, we will need good training.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of publication:
2021-04-19
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-19
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Political role of the Tatmadaw, The Military's political role, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
135.32 KB
more
Sub-title:
Broad-based legitimate government is taking charge of the anti-coup movement and fast establishing a shadow administration
Description:
"Observers of Myanmar’s coup like to draw parallels to the 1988 student uprising that catapulted the current generation of Myanmar’s democratic political leaders onto the political stage.
“In 1988, Myanmar was a poor and isolated country in the middle of a political and economic crisis,” former student leader Myo Thant told the writers. “Our student uprising was much better prepared, unlike today when people were surprised by the coup. But still we failed.”
The military government could then portray itself as defending law and order, and it still had a constituency to rely on beyond its ranks.
The February 1 coup, by contrast, was a naked power grab by the top military leadership – toppling a popular government. The regime’s brutal campaign of psychological warfare on its citizens put the lie to their claims that it was just stepping in as caretakers to facilitate fairer elections in a year’s time.
Today, the junta’s constituency is its crack military units and a narrow economic elite of crony capitalists. They have nothing to win in a repeat election, however rigged. The Civil Disobedience Movement’s resistance has been spontaneous, decentralized and diverse. It has mobilized hundreds of thousands of protesters, the labor movement and ethnic minorities to shut down parts of the country quite effectively.
Myanmar’s banking system, always feeble, looks close to collapse. With banking havens for the junta’s finances, namely the US and Singapore, restricting capital flows, the Biden administration’s freeze on $1 billion of Myanmar’s US-held assets and an ongoing national boycott of military-affiliated businesses, the junta’s finances are being squeezed.
All this definitely means the junta’s strategy of carrying on with business as usual has gone out the window and makes large-scale violent escalation likely..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication:
2021-03-11
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-08
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, The Military's political role, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Description:
"Myanmar's ambassador to the UK said he has been locked out of the London embassy in what he described as another "coup," blaming the country's military.
Ambassador Kyaw Zwar Minn -- who last month broke ranks with his country's military junta -- told CNN he tried to gain access to the embassy on Wednesday for several hours but was unable to enter. Several of his staff were still inside the building, and were not being allowed out, he said.
Another source said that Myanmar's military attaché in London had taken control of the building. They added that a group of at least seven people are inside, of which one is a child.
CNN has reached out to the Myanmar military for comment. Phone calls made to the embassy went unanswered and emails bounced back. Kyaw Zwar Minn listens to a statement being read on his behalf as he stands outside the Myanmar embassy in London on Thursday.
Myanmar's military seized power in the country on February 1, deposing civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government. Non-violent protests against the coup have since broken out across the country, and several Myanmar diplomats posted abroad have also made statements of resistance.
Kyaw Zwar Minn, the UK ambassador, issued a statement last month calling for Suu Kyi's release from detention and pledged to keep the embassy open, following a call with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
At the time, Raab said in a tweet that he spoke to the ambassador and "praised his courage and patriotism in standing up for what is right."
The military responded by recalling him. "Since he did not conduct himself in accordance with given responsibilities, an order [is issued] to summon and transfer him back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," MRTV reported.
The source said embassy staffers were all caught by surprise, but that they had anticipated something could happen after the military coup in Myanmar and the ambassador's statement of defiance toward the junta.
A Facebook live stream on Wednesday showed several people showing their support for Myanmar's UK ambassador and expressing confusion with the events of the day.
Around 50 people also gathered outside the embassy building in Mayfair, an exclusive part of central London. Officers from London's Metropolitan Police were also on the ground, warning people to disperse as they were in violation of coronavirus restrictions.
Most those gathered since dispersed as the evening wore on, but CNN has seen at least four police vans filled with officers park near Myanmar's embassy.
London's Metropolitan Police told CNN in a statement: "We are aware of a protest outside the Myanmar embassy in Mayfair, London. Public order officers are in attendance. There have been no arrests."
In a statement to CNN, UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was "seeking further information following an incident at Myanmar's embassy in London."
Myanmar's military leaders tried in vain in remove another diplomat in March, after UN Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun called on the international community members to use "any means necessary" to help restore the country's civilian leadership.
He refused to step down however, a decision that has been supported by the UN.
Myanmar military spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun has said the junta plans to hold new elections after a one-year state of emergency..."
Source/publisher:
"CNN" (USA)
Date of publication:
2021-04-08
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-08
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, The Military's political role, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, UK-Burma relations
Language:
more
Topic:
Myanmar, coup, junta
Topic:
Myanmar, coup, junta
Description:
"As Myanmar descends into chaos, smartphone warriors in the anti-coup movement are seeking revenge online against the junta, hounding people with family ties to the military as a form of "social punishment".
The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February and the death toll from the violence has risen past 500 as the junta struggles to quash dissent. Anger and grief over the crackdown are being channelled into an online campaign, with close to 170 people with relatives in the junta listed on a website as "traitors". The site and a corresponding Facebook page - which had 67,000 followers before it was shut down - detail the personal information of these people, such as workplaces, universities and links to their social media accounts - a practice known as doxxing. "We are here to punish families of the military or the people who are supporting the military. Never forgive, never forget!" the Facebook page said.
Facebook closed down the page for violating community standards, but other pages with smaller numbers of followers still exist.
"We will continue to closely monitor the situation on the ground in Myanmar," a Facebook spokeswoman said.
The consequences of social punishment have resulted in some victims being forced to shut down their online businesses and a Myanmar university student in Japan quitting her studies, according to local media reports.
The campaign is broader in scope than those with family ties to the military - people not participating in the civil disobedience strike action are also being targeted and threats have been made to journalists who cover the junta's press conferences..."
Source/publisher:
"CNA" ( Singapore)
Date of publication:
2021-04-01
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup campaigns, Anti-coup protesters, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, The Military's political role, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, violations of
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
477.99 KB
more
Description:
"The day after the coup on February 1, 2021, civil servants across Myanmar launched a national Civil Disobedience Movement, consisting of multi-sector labor strikes targeting the Myanmar state’s apparatuses. By February 4, the first visible anti-coup protest in the country appeared in Mandalay, the second largest city in the country. The first visible protest in Yangon occurred on February 5. By February 11, protests and rallies started appearing in ethnic minority areas and the country’s peripheries in full force. On February 22, millions of Myanmar people joined a nationwide general strike against the coup regime in what is considered to be the largest single-day pro-democracy demonstration in the country’s history.
While the protest movements are widespread in many ethnic minority areas, ethnic minority communities disagree over how to respond to the coup. One side prefers to be quiescent and neutral bystanders; the other, particularly younger generations, insists on active resistance.
In this essay, I describe and reflect on ethnic minorities’ reactions to the coup, focusing on an emerging class cleavage in Kachin State, where I conducted research between 2017 and 2019. I have also communicated with several Kachin local residents and protesters in an informal capacity in the past weeks. It is important to note that my observations of an emerging class cleavage in Kachin communities is part of a broader trend across Myanmar. While the coup precipitated from a power struggle between the military and the National League for Democracy (NLD), ultimately, I argue that the on-going pro-democracy revolution in Myanmar is a (class) struggle, between ordinary Myanmar people and complacent elites, a struggle which cuts across entrenched ethnic, religious and political divides in the country.
To Protest or Not to Protest?
In the immediate aftermath of the coup, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities encountered a dilemma— whether or not to participate in the anti-coup protests that were spreading across the country. At the time, young ethnic minorities in Yangon and Mandalay were already participating in and organizing protests. However, in the ethnic minority states, ethnic minority politicians and businessmen and their associates urged caution. They argued that the coup is primarily a Bamar power struggle between the military and the NLD— something in which ethnic minorities do not need to get involved.
Many among the younger generations of ethnic minorities perceive the coup as a blatant assault on the country’s transition toward democracy and see the on-going crisis as an opportunity to remake Myanmar politics. They thus strongly disagree with elites’ calls to remain bystanders in this crisis. Social media posts by ethnic minority participants in the demonstrations indicate that many youth see only two abysmal outcomes if they remain quiescent: either (1) the coup-makers win, and Myanmar descends into another period of dictatorship or (2) the coup-makers retreat, and Myanmar goes back to the status quo—a political system that was hardly inclusive of ethnic minorities. So, they not only speak up against the coup but also advocate that the mainstream pro-democracy movement, including the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), recognize the interests of ethnic minorities. They collectively advocate for (1) ending dictatorship, (2) abolishing the 2008 constitution, (3) establishing a federal democracy and (4) unconditional release of those unjustly detained.[1] Their advocacy is broadly shaping the rhetoric of the mainstream pro-democracy movement in Myanmar. By early March, the Bamar public and the CRPH endorsed these demands..."
Source/publisher:
Tea Circle (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2021-03-22
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of Opinion and Expression - tools for change in Burma/Myanmar, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, General Strike, The Military's political role, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
271.14 KB
more
Sub-title:
Demonstrators in North Okkalapa flee under fire, and junta units raid striking rail workers’ district
Description:
"Police in Myanmar have surrounded and arrested at least 200 students and civilians protesting against the military coup on the outskirts of Yangon, according to witnesses who said those detained were driven away in unmarked trucks.
Video footage from North Okkalapa showed protesters fleeing under fire. At least one person appeared to be seriously wounded. Earlier, military forces raided a compound in a Yangon neighbourhood that is home to state railway workers who have been on strike. Riot police sealed off the Mingalar Taung Nyunt area where the Ma Hlwa Kone train station and housing for rail employees are located.
Photographs on social media showed officers blocking streets and what appeared to be people escaping. At least three arrests were reported. These could not immediately be confirmed. There was no apparent resistance to the raid, and local media said the authorities forced at least some residents from their homes.
The latest clampdown follows mass arrests a week ago when about 400 young people were put in prison.
As demonstrations continued in towns and cities across the country, the US embassy in Yangon condemned the police action against “innocent” people. It urged security forces to withdraw and to release all of those arrested. The military junta, led by Min Aung Hlaing, appears determined to crush the country’s general strike. Hlaing seized power on 1 February, overthrowing a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy won elections in November and was about start a second term. The coup undid years of slow progress towards democracy following five decades of military rule, and sparked a wave of non-violent protests. A civil disobedience movement has united large numbers of public-sector employees – some of whom have taken to the streets – and there has been a boycott of military-owned companies.
The raid on state rail workers comes days after several unions issued a joint call for a nationwide work stoppage. They said their strike would be part of a broader effort for “the full, extended shutdown of the Myanmar economy”.
Despite the increasingly violent tactics of security forces, protests continued on Wednesday in cities including in Mandalay, Monywa, Dawei, Myitkyina, Myitkyina, Bago, Kalaw and Myingyan. Some were met with police force, while others were brief and free of violence.
Riot police in the small southern city of Dawei fired teargas, forcing marchers to disperse and hide. There were reports of the use of rubber bullets. No injuries have been confirmed. A leading organiser of protests was arrested, according to the Dawei Watch news service. The city has become a hotspot for anti-coup protests and been subjected to heavy police crackdowns. Up to five deaths have occurred..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication:
2021-03-10
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-11
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Political role of the Tatmadaw, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
British-drafted UN statement watered down by China, Russia, India and Vietnam, as Amnesty says military using battlefield weapons on protesters
Description:
"The United Nations has condemned the Myanmar military’s violent crackdown against anti-coup demonstrators as seven more people were reported shot dead in protests on Thursday.
Local media, witnesses and medics said six people were shot dead in the central town of Myaing when security forces opened fire on anti-junta protests and domestic media said one man was killed in the North Dagon district of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.
Photographs posted on Facebook showed a man lying prone on the street, bleeding from a head wound. More than 60 people are believed to have been killed protesting against the 1 February coup that removed Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government from power. The UN statement however removed language that explicitly condemned the coup and threatened possible further action from the British-drafted text, due to opposition by China, Russia, India and Vietnam.
The presidential statement, signed by all 15 members of the Security Council called for “utmost restraint” by the military. A presidential statement is a step below a resolution but becomes part of the official record of the UN’s most powerful body.
The statement called for the immediate release of government leaders including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint who have been detained since they were ousted in the coup. It said it supported the country’s democratic transition and “stresses the need to uphold democratic institutions and processes, refrain from violence, fully respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and uphold the rule of law”.
But it is weaker than the initial draft circulated by the United Kingdom which would have condemned the military coup itself and threatened “possible measures under the UN Charter” – UN language for sanctions – “should the situation deteriorate further.”
Diplomats said council members China, Russia, India and Vietnam, which is a member of the 10-nations Association of Southeast Asian Nations known as Asean, along with Myanmar, objected to provisions in stronger earlier drafts of the statement.
China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said in a statement that “it is important the council members speak in one voice,” and declared that it’s now time for de-escalation, diplomacy and dialogue. The UN statement came as Amnesty International accused Myanmar security forces of using battlefield weapons on unarmed protesters and carrying out premeditated killings orchestrated by their commanding officers.
International pressure on the Myanmar junta has mounted since the army ousted and detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi last month, triggering daily protests around the country.
The United States also applied fresh pressure with sanctions against Aung Pyae Sone and Khin Thiri Thet Mon, two adult children of Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.
The pair have a variety of business holdings that have directly benefited from their “father’s position and malign influence”, said a US Treasury statement.
The UK is also exploring fresh sanctions, foreign minister Dominic Raab said in a tweet..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication:
2021-03-11
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-11
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Burma/Myanmar's Foreign relations, general, The UN and Burma - news and commentary
Language:
more
Description:
"The Myanmar military is using increasingly lethal tactics and weapons normally seen on the battlefield against peaceful protesters and bystanders across the country, new research by Amnesty International has revealed.
By verifying more than 50 videos from the ongoing crackdown, Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab can confirm that security forces appear to be implementing planned, systematic strategies including the ramped-up use of lethal force. Many of the killings documented amount to extrajudicial executions. Footage clearly shows that Myanmar military troops - also known as the Tatmadaw - are increasingly armed with weapons that are only appropriate for the battlefield, not for policing actions. Officers are frequently seen engaging in reckless behavior, including the indiscriminate spraying of live ammunition in urban areas. NEWS
CAMPAIGNS
EDUCATION
RESEARCH
IMPACT
NEWS
(Photo by Kaung Zaw Hein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
MYANMAR
UNLAWFUL KILLINGS
SHARE
Facebook
Twitter
Myanmar: Vast arsenal and notorious troops deployed during nationwide ‘killing spree’ protest crackdown – new research
11 March 2021, 00:01 UTC
Analysis of more than 50 videos show systematic and premeditated killings amid extensive deployment of battlefield weaponry
Soldiers implicated in atrocity crimes against ethnic minorities now operating in Myanmar’s cities
Evidence of extrajudicial executions and killings on orders of commanders
The Myanmar military is using increasingly lethal tactics and weapons normally seen on the battlefield against peaceful protesters and bystanders across the country, new research by Amnesty International has revealed.
By verifying more than 50 videos from the ongoing crackdown, Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab can confirm that security forces appear to be implementing planned, systematic strategies including the ramped-up use of lethal force. Many of the killings documented amount to extrajudicial executions.
These Myanmar military tactics are far from new, but their killing sprees have never before been livestreamed for the world to see.
Joanne Mariner, Director of Crisis Response
Footage clearly shows that Myanmar military troops - also known as the Tatmadaw - are increasingly armed with weapons that are only appropriate for the battlefield, not for policing actions. Officers are frequently seen engaging in reckless behavior, including the indiscriminate spraying of live ammunition in urban areas.
“These Myanmar military tactics are far from new, but their killing sprees have never before been livestreamed for the world to see,” said Joanne Mariner, Director of Crisis Response at Amnesty International.
“These are not the actions of overwhelmed, individual officers making poor decisions. These are unrepentant commanders already implicated in crimes against humanity, deploying their troops and murderous methods in the open.
“For years, ethnic minorities - including the Chin, Kachin, Karen, Rakhine, Rohingya, Shan, Ta’ang and more - have borne the brunt of horrific violence meted out by the Tatmadaw. Along with other rights groups, we have called on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, and bring the Tatmadaw’s senior commanders, including Min Aung Hlaing, to justice. Instead the Security Council has done nothing, and today we see the same military units turn their fire on protesters. “The military authorities must immediately cease their deadly onslaught, de-escalate the situation nationwide, and release all those arbitrarily detained.”
The 55 clips, filmed from 28 February to 8 March, were recorded by members of the public and local media in cities including Dawei, Mandalay, Mawlamyine, Monywa, Myeik, Myitkyina and Yangon.
According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, the death toll from the protests as of 4 March stands at 61. This official estimate excludes additional known casualties in recent days..."
Source/publisher:
"Amnesty International" (UK)
Date of publication:
2021-03-11
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-11
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Political role of the Tatmadaw, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Amnesty International reports on Burma/Myanmar
Language:
more
Description:
"The United Nations Security Council has condemned the escalating violence in Myanmar and called on the army to show restraint in its response to peaceful protesters, as the United States imposed sanctions on two children of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.
In a statement issued on Wednesday following days of talks that sometimes broke down, the 15-member council said it “strongly condemns the violence against peaceful protesters, including against women, youth and children. “The council calls for the military to exercise utmost restraint and emphasizes that it is following the situation closely.”
Language that would have condemned the February 1 coup and threatened possible further action was removed from the UK-drafted text, due to opposition by China, Russia, India and Vietnam.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he hoped the statement would push the military to realise it “is absolutely essential” that all prisoners are released and that the results of a November election are respected. The army has justified the coup by saying that the election, won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in a landslide, was marred by fraud – a claim rejected by the electoral commission. The junta has promised a new election, but has not said when it might take place.
Guterres acknowledged that Myanmar was not a “perfect democracy” before the coup.
“It was still heavily under military control in many aspects, which makes this coup even more difficult to understand, especially the accusations of electoral fraud by those that were largely in control of the country,” he said.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group tracking arrests since the military seized power, said on Wednesday night that more than 60 people had been killed since the protests began. Some 2,008 people had been detained with 1,689 still in custody, it said.
While welcoming the Security Council statement, rights groups monitoring the situation in Myanmar said more action was needed..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication:
2021-03-10
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-11
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Political role of the Tatmadaw, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Sanctions - general, Political, social and economic dimensions of investment in Burma
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Returned Refugees Face Risks to Life, Liberty Under Oppressive Junta
Description:
"The Indian government should halt any plans to deport ethnic Rohingya and others to Myanmar, where they would be at risk from its oppressive military junta, Human Rights Watch said today. On March 6, 2021, the authorities in Jammu and Kashmir detained nearly 170 Rohingya, sent them to a holding center as part of a verification process, and said they plan to deport them. Myanmar authorities have also asked the Indian government to return eight police officers who with their families sought refuge in India after the military coup.
Since the February 1 coup, when the Myanmar military overthrew the democratically elected government, the security forces have used excessive and lethal force against peaceful protesters throughout the country. They have killed at least 55 people and carried out hundreds of arbitrary arrests and detentions including enforced disappearances. The junta has amended laws to strip away basic rights, brought politically motivated prosecutions, and intermittently blocked internet access.
“Any plan to forcibly return Rohingya and others to Myanmar will put them back in the grip of the oppressive military junta that they fled,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. “Myanmar’s long-abusive military is even more lawless now that it is back in power, and the Indian government should uphold its international law obligations and protect those in need of refuge within its borders.”
The recent detention of Rohingya in Jammu and Kashmir follows the Indian government’s announcement in 2017 that it would deport all Rohingya, whom they consider to be “illegal immigrants.” Since October 2018, the Indian government has deported 12 Rohingya to Myanmar, claiming that they left voluntarily.
Many Rohingya in Jammu and Kashmir say that they hold identity documents issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and that they feared for their safety in Myanmar. Over a million Rohingya have fled Myanmar, primarily to Bangladesh, most of them since the military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing that began in August 2017. The 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar’s Rakhine State face severe repression and violence, with no freedom of movement, no access to citizenship, or other basic rights. Abuses against the Rohingya in Rakhine State amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, Human Rights Watch said.
“We are not ready to go back, until the situation improves in Myanmar,” said Mohammad Saleem, 42, a Rohingya refugee in Jammu and Kashmir. “It is extremely distressing for us to be sent back to Myanmar against our wishes.”
Indian authorities nonetheless say that they will deport Rohingya irregular immigrants not holding valid travel documents required under the Foreigners Act. But any forcible returns to Myanmar will violate the international legal principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits countries from returning anyone to a country where they may face persecution, torture, or other serious harm, Human Rights Watch said. Although India is not a party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, non-refoulement is recognized as customary international law and is binding on all countries.
Human Rights Watch has extensively documented rampant and systemic human rights violations against the Rohingya in Myanmar. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January 2020 imposed provisional measures on Myanmar to prevent genocide while it adjudicates alleged violations of the Genocide Convention. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2019 began an investigation into Myanmar’s forced deportation of Rohingya and related crimes against humanity..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication:
2021-03-10
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-10
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, International Criminal Court (Myanmar)
Language:
more
Description:
"Myanmar security forces surrounded the staff compound of striking railway workers opposed to the military junta on Wednesday as ousted lawmakers appointed an acting vice president to take over the duties of detained politicians. In New York, the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a statement that would have condemned the coup in Myanmar, called for restraint by the military and threatened to consider “further measures.”
Talks on the statement would likely continue, diplomats said, after China, Russia, India and Vietnam all suggested amendments late on Tuesday to a British draft, including removal of the reference to a coup and the threat to consider further action.
The railway staff in Yangon are part of a civil disobedience movement that has crippled government business and included strikes at banks, factories and shops since the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in a coup on Feb. 1.
Security forces have cracked down with increasing force on daily, nationwide protests, leaving the Southeast Asian nation in turmoil. More than 60 protesters have been killed and 1,900 people have been arrested since the coup, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group, has said. Footage posted on social media showed security forces near the railway staff compound. One person involved in the strike said by telephone they feared an imminent crackdown.
“I think they are going to arrest us. Please help us,” said the person, who asked to be identified only as Ma Su rather than their full name.
In a Facebook live broadcast from the area people chanted: “Are we staff united? Yes, we are united” and a commentator claimed police were trying to remove barricades and threatening to shoot.
Details could not be independently verified. Police and army officials did not respond to requests for comment..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of publication:
2021-03-10
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-10
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Political role of the Tatmadaw, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Rail Workers strike
Language:
more
Description:
"An official from ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party has died in custody following alleged torture, the second such death while in detention of junta forces this week, according to a watchdog group.
The deaths have raised concerns about the condition and treatment detainees are receiving in detention. Since the military seized power in a coup on February 1, security forces quickly moved to stifle dissent and arrested government officials, protesters, journalists, civil servants and NGO workers, and repressed independent media.
Many people have been taken arbitrarily in nighttime raids and their families do not know where their loved ones are, or what condition they are in, the United Nations said. Human Rights Watch said that people who are forcibly disappeared are more likely to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment than others arrested.
The National League for Democracy's (NLD) Zaw Myat Lynn died in custody on Tuesday after he was arrested in the biggest city Yangon, Reuters reported, citing ousted parliamentarian Ba Myo Thein.
Watchdog group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) released a statement saying "Zaw Myat Lynn, who was head of an educational institute, was announced dead today from injuries consistent with torture following an arbitrary nighttime raid."
The exact cause of death is still unknown but AAPP added Zaw Myat Lynn was subjected to beatings. Shortly before his arrest, Zaw Myat Lynn posted a livestream on Facebook in which he said, "I want to encourage all citizens across the country that we will be protesting day and night for 24 hours against the dictatorship."
He urged people to continue fighting the army, saying "we will risk our lives to defeat them."
"We are showing to the international communities including UN and other agencies that we, citizens of Myanmar want democracy and we value democracy as the most precious thing in our lives," he said.
It follows the death of a Yangon NLD party chairman Khin Maung Latt, who died while in custody on Saturday.
"On the night of his arrest, Khin Maung Latt was tortured to death in his cell," AAPP said in a news release. Reports of bruising to Khin Maung Latt's head and body raised suspicions he had been abused, NLD lawmaker Ba Myo Thein told Reuters.
CNN cannot independently verify this reporting and the details surrounding the deaths of Zaw Myat Lynn and Khin Maung Latt's are not immediately clear..."
Source/publisher:
"CNN" (USA)
Date of publication:
2021-03-10
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-10
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Police, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Immediately Produce Another NLD Official’s Forcibly Disappeared Father
Description:
"Myanmar’s junta should promptly and impartially investigate and hold accountable those responsible for the torture and death in custody of a National League for Democracy (NLD) official, Human Rights Watch said today. The junta should also urgently produce U Peter, the forcibly disappeared father of an NLD elected official and all others “disappeared” since the February 1, 2021, coup.
On the evening of March 6, 2021, witnesses saw soldiers and police arrive at the home of Khin Maung Latt, 58, a ward chairman in Pabedan township in downtown Yangon. After forcibly entering his home, the security forces beat and kicked Khin Maung Latt in front of his family, then took him away at gunpoint. The next morning, Khin Maung Latt’s family recovered his body from a hospital after notification by the authorities. The body had severe wounds to the hands and back and was covered in a bloody shroud, a witness said. “Myanmar’s junta runs the security forces and can quickly find out who killed Khin Maung Latt if they want to,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “If they want to show they believe in the rule of law, all those responsible should be held to account. Sadly, Myanmar’s security forces seem intent on using nighttime raids and brutal mistreatment to create fear and break popular resistance to military rule.”
A witness told Human Rights Watch that at 9:15 p.m., four military trucks arrived and stationed themselves on Anawrahta Road between 29th and 30th streets. Soldiers identified as being from the 77th Light Infantry Division lined up on 30th Street, where Khin Maung Latt lived, while others stood on 29th Street. Between 9:15 p.m. and 10.30 p.m., 15 gunshots were heard, the witness said. All the military trucks left at 11 p.m. The authorities informed Khin Maung Latt’s family around 7:30 a.m. on March 7 that they should retrieve his body from the Mingladon military hospital. A member of the Muslim community who helped prepare Khin Maung Latt’s body for a Muslim burial said there were deep wounds on his back and hands consistent with torture..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication:
2021-03-09
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Political role of the Tatmadaw, The Military's political role, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Watch Reports on Burma/Myanmar
Language:
more
Description:
"The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) pays respect to the heroes who sacrificed their lives and liberty to fight for democracy, human rights and dictatorship to an end. Up until now, more than (54) people have been killed due to the violent and arbitrary crackdowns.
As of March 7, a total of (1790) people have been arrested, charged or sentenced in relation to the attempted military coup on February 1. Of them, (3) were convicted; (2) to two years imprisonment, (1) to three months. (70) have been charged with a warrant and are evading arrest, (318) were released. A total of (1472) are still under detention or have outstanding charges/evading arrest, including the (3) sentenced.
In today’s detainee list, we received and documented the names of (17) people. However, more than 100 protestors including students and youths were arrested during the crackdown across the country today. We will continue to investigate these and make appropriate announcements when.
After brutal crackdowns on peaceful protests yesterday by the police and military, brutal acts continued into the night, raids into residential areas and homes, gunfire, and unlawful search and detentions. Some NLD members were targeted last night, these detentions are to deprive communities and protests of coordination and leadership. Last night, police and military raided the homes of NLD members in Pabedan Township, Rangoon, breaking down doors, opening fire at people looking out their apartments. The raids targeted the home of Khin Maung Latt, chair of the NLD party in Ward (7) in Pabedan Township who was found and detained. On the night of his arrest, Khin Maung Latt was tortured to death in his cell. They searched the home of Maung Maung, information officer of Pabedan Township NLD, but could not find him so they attacked his younger brother and put in a prone position. They searched the home of lawyer Maung Maung, vice chair of NLD Pabedan Township and took his phone and other material. Also detained were two sons of Thein Oo, vice chair of NLD Dagon Township, because they could not find Thein Oo. In Monywa, Sagaing, today they also arrested the wife of activist Nay Myo who they could not find. In Madaya Township, Mandalay Region, Ko Ko Lwin, treasurer of NLD Monywa Township was arrested last night.
Such violently beatings of arrests and torture are beyond brutal and inhumane, they are also intentional. Tortures is prohibited across the world, however, torture to achieve confession is allowed in Burma right now. The Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment was encated to protect detainees and convicts, yet the military junta does not follow and respect any domestic and international laws and allows its troops to commit human rights violations. We strongly condemn the death of Khin Maung Latt, chair of the NLD party in Ward (7) in Pabedan Township, as well as the hostage taking of family members, this is terrorism.
Today protests in Taikkyi, Tharkayta, South Okkalapa, Tamwe, Dagon Myothit (North), Mayangone, Sanchaung, Shwe Pyi Thar, Insein Townships in Yangon Region, Yay in Mon State, Magway, Pakokku Townships in Magway Region, Loikaw Township in Kayah State, Mandalay City, Myingyan, and Bagan Township in Mandalay Region, Lashio, Shan State, and Pathein Township, Ayeyarwady Region were brutally suppressed. Especially in Bagan, which is an ancient city and UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mandalay Region of Burma. Near the Bagan New Town market, one protester was shot and injured and 6 protesters were arrested during the crackdown by the junta’s forces. Around 10 protestors in Sanchaung township and at least 20 peaceful protestors were arrested, and another one was hit with four rubber bullets in South Okkalapa Township. 50 peaceful protestors, including two women were arrested and some injured in Taikkyi Township. two peaceful protestors were injured and another one was arrested in Pathein township. Six peaceful protestors were arrested in Mawlamyaing Gyunn Township. Some peaceful protestors were arrested in Loikaw and Mandalay. One peaceful protestor was injured in Myingyan. Two were injured in Loikaw..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of publication:
2021-03-07
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-08
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, The Military's political role, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf
Size:
962.97 KB 196.23 KB
more
Description:
"At least 38 people were killed after Myanmar's security forces opened fire on peaceful protesters in towns and cities across the country Wednesday, in scenes that have been described as "a war zone."
Thousands of protesters across the Southeast Asian nation have taken to the streets over the past four weeks against a military coup on February 1. Security forces have intensified their response in recent days, opening live fire into crowds, and using tear gas, flash bangs and stun grenades on demonstrators.
The United Nations said the total death toll since the coup was now 50, though activists put that total as higher.
"Today was the bloodiest day since the coup happened," Special Envoy Christine Schraner Burgener told a briefing Wednesday. Around 1,200 people have been detained, while many relatives are unsure where they are being held, she said. "Every tool available is needed now to stop this situation," Burgener said. "We need a unity of the international community, so it's up to the member states to take the right measures."
CNN reached out to the ruling military regime via email but has not yet received a response. Protesters run from police firing tear gas during a pro-democracy demonstration in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Wednesday.
Protesters have for weeks been demanding the release of democratically elected officials, including the country's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who are currently in detention. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy Party (NLD) won a landslide victory in November elections; military leaders allege voter fraud but have provided no proof for their claim.
Burgener said that in discussions with the military, she had warned that the UN Security Council and members states were likely to take strong measures. "The answer was: 'We are used to sanctions, and we survived those sanctions in the past'," she said.
"When I also warned they will go in an isolation, the answer was: 'We have to learn to walk with only few friends'."
Security forces -- which include members of the military's Light Infantry Divisions long documented to be engaged in human rights abuses in conflict zones throughout the country -- escalated their deadly crackdown on peaceful demonstrators this week. "Today, the country is like the Tiananmen Square in most of its major cities," the Archbishop of Yangon, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, said on Twitter.
In one brutal instance, Myanmar security forces were caught on camera beating emergency services with the butts of their guns, batons and kicking them in the head, according to activist group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).
The AAPP released the video on Wednesday and said in a statement that the leaked video was from North Okkalapa, in Yangon. The video provides a glimpse into the brutal methods deployed the security forces..."
Source/publisher:
"CNN" (USA)
Date of publication:
2021-03-04
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Political role of the Tatmadaw, The Military's political role, Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians
Language:
more
Sub-title:
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced “deep fears” of a violent crackdown on dissenting voices in Myanmar, where the military assumed all powers and declared a state of emergency after overthrowing the civilian government and arresting top political leaders, on Monday.
Description:
"“Given the security presence on the streets in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, as well as in other cities, there are deep fears of a violent crackdown on dissenting voices”, High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said in a statement on Monday.
“I remind the military leadership that Myanmar is bound by international human rights law, including to respect the right to peaceful assembly, and to refrain from using unnecessary or excessive force”, she added.
High Comissioner Bachelet also called on the international community to “stand in solidarity with the people” of Myanmar at this time. She also urged all nations with influence to take steps “to prevent the crumbling of the fragile democratic and human rights gains made by Myanmar during its transition from military rule.”..."
Source/publisher:
UN News
Date of publication:
2021-02-02
Date of entry/update:
2021-02-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
more
Description:
"Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) secured a landslide victory in November’s 2020 general election. The NLD’s massive win was shocking even for close observers of Myanmar politics, who anticipated the party’s popularity to take a hit after five years of controversial rule. Since the NLD has been in power, Myanmar’s nascent democracy has not met expectations. The country’s human rights record has not improved, the peace process is stalled, and repression of government critics is continuing. Economic growth has slowed down due to the inefficient bureaucracy and volatile conflict situation. Pro-democracy activists are wary of Aung San Suu Kyi’s growing authoritarianism while the international community now calls her a pariah.
The NLD did poorly in its 2017 and 2018 by-elections, a downward trend that was expected to continue. What does the NLD’s electoral victory suggest about Myanmar’s road to democracy?
Myanmar’s democratic institutions are working relatively well. The Union Parliament (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw) has been one of the most active government institutions since its birth in 2011, which implies that parliamentary democracy is functioning. General elections are held every five years and, while there is still room for improvement, no significant electoral fraud, violence or manipulation were reported in November. The voter turnout of 71.6 per cent is also an encouraging sign, up from 69 per cent in 2015.
But other aspects of Myanmar’s democratisation have regressed over the last five years. The government has tightened control over the media, causing overall freedom to decline and civil society space to shrink. Restrictive laws such as the Telecommunication Law, Unlawful Association Act and the defamation section in the Penal Code intimidate the media, while journalists have been detained for reporting on the conflict in Rakhine State. The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the electoral landscape, with domestic and international observers criticising the Union Election Commission for introducing restrictions on election campaigns and cancelling the vote in some townships in Rakhine, Shan, Kachin and Kayin states.
Continued ethnic conflict presents another challenge. The violent situation in Rakhine State has not yet been contained. Although there was no visible political violence during the election period, following the election, a parliamentarian elected to the Amyotha Hluttaw (upper house) was killed in late November 2020. The Arakan Army, an insurgent group, and the Tatmadaw — the Myanmar military — agreed to hold a by-election in areas where the vote was cancelled, but the incident shows that national reconciliation will not be easy..."
Source/publisher:
"East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of publication:
2021-01-15
Date of entry/update:
2021-01-17
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The Military's political role, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Human Rights Reporting (global, regional and Myanmar)
Language:
more
Description:
"Eight villagers who are currently being detained at the Dhanyawadi Naval Base in Kyaukphyu Township, Arakan State, are facing charges under Myanmar’s Counter-Terrorism Law, according to the Kyaukphyu Myoma police station.
The Tatmadaw arrested nine people from Kat Thabyay village on June 26 and a 100-household head from Sai Chone Dwein village two days later.
The detainees were remanded into police custody at Kyaukphyu Myoma police station on July 5. Two out of the 10 detainees — identified as Khin Win Maung and Maung Than Hlaing from Kat Thabyay village — have been released and the remaining eight men were charged under the Counter-Terrorism Law, said Police Captain Kyaw Zaw, head of the Kyaukphyu Myoma police station.
“Two youths were handed over to their parents as they were linked to the case. The remaining eight men have been charged under the Counter-Terrorism Law,” the police captain confirmed..."
Source/publisher:
"Eurasia Review"
Date of publication:
2020-07-08
Date of entry/update:
2020-07-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"Myanmar's military has been unlisted from recruitment and use of children as soldiers in military services since June 9 this year, an official from the Ministry of Defence told a press briefing on Monday.
"Myanmar's military has put efforts for ending the recruitment and use of children as soldiers in military services under a joint action plan since it was signed with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 2012," said Brigadier General Aung Kyaw Hoe, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defence.
During the four-year period, a total of 3,802 officers were provided training courses to prevent recruiting and using children as soldiers in military services and 262 children were released from the military services, he said.
Myanmar's military has released 1,006 children from the military services and 65 officials have been charged for recruiting and using children as soldiers in military services since a joint action plan started in 2012..."
Source/publisher:
"Xinhua" (China)
Date of publication:
2020-06-22
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-25
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Children, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"In 2014, a court-martial stripped former Tatmadaw major Kyaw Swar Win of his rank and sentenced him to two years in prison for supporting an amendment to the country’s 2008 military-drafted constitution.
The amendment targeted article 436, which itself makes amending the constitution virtually impossible without unanimous military support in parliament. It was sponsored by the then-opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
After his release in a July 2015 presidential pardon, Kyaw Swar Win tried running as an NLD candidate but missed the deadline to enter the race. He is trying again this year for a seat in the upper house.
The incumbent NLD is yet to select candidates, but the 43-year-old former military engineer is hopeful. He’s happy to support the party even if he’s not chosen as a candidate, he told Myanmar Now, and he believes the military’s rank-and-file will too.
Myanmar Now interviewed Kyaw Swar Win earlier in June in Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay region - the district he hopes to represent.
MN: What was the charge you faced after signing the petition in support of amending article 436 of the constitution?
KSW: Breach of military order, under section 41e of the 1959 Defence Services Act, which stipulates punishment for a soldier that “neglects to obey any general, local or other order.” … It doesn’t specify particular orders, just any orders in general that a soldier is expected to follow. [Kyaw Swar Win’s charge says he disobeyed an order to “safeguard the constitution.”] I was also charged under section 65. In the army, we call that amyinkat podma [arbitrary charge] - they can use it against you when they want to punish you..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-06-23
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-25
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Description:
"Four years into the five-year term of the NLD-led
government, the issue of political prisoners remains
one of the main problems in the country. Almost
all the repressive laws that the military dictatorship
used to jail activists remain in place. State media
controlled by the NLD government has even carried
propaganda features defending and promoting the
usefulness of repressive laws, and new repressive
laws have been proposed.
On the sixth anniversary of the death of U Win
Tin, almost 200 political prisoners remain in jail,
and almost 400 more activists and journalists are
awaiting trial and possible detention.
Aung San Suu Kyi, as de facto leader of the NLDled government, has the power through Presidential
pardons to order the release of all political prisoners.
Her party has the majority in Parliament needed to
repeal all repressive laws.
Instead of the compassionate and principled
stance you would expect of her as a former political
prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi denies that there are
political prisoners in the country and has made a
deliberate decision to keep those political prisoners
behind bars. This is not an issue where it can be claimed that
she lacks the power to act or is constrained by the
military. The military handed the power regarding
political prisoners to the civilian government.
Constitutionally there is no obstacle, and politically
Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly acted on issues
which she considers important despite potentially
upsetting the military, including making herself defacto President by creating the State Counsellor
position for herself..."
Source/publisher:
"Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of publication:
2020-04-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-24
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, About Aung San Suu Kyi
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
330.12 KB
more
Sub-title:
The Arakan Army (AA) has released an interview with a captive Tatmadaw (military) officer who claimed to have killed three Muslim men suspected of belonging to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) during the Tatmadaw’s massive crackdown in northern Rakhine State in 2017.
Description:
"ARSA launched deadly attacks on more than 30 military outposts in northern Rakhine in August 2017, sparking the crackdown and the exodus of more than 740,000 Muslims across the border to Bangladesh, where they continue to live in crowded refugee camps.
International organisations accused the Tatmadaw of killing thousands of Muslims and committing mass rape and other human rights abuses during the crackdown, and Gambia, acting on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, filed a genocide lawsuit against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice last November. In the interview, the Tatmadaw officer, identified as Captain Nyi Nyi Zaw, said Tatmadaw troops shot dead three Muslim men suspected of belonging to ARSA near Zin Pai Nyar village in Maungdaw townsCapt Nyi Nyi Zaw, of the 345th Light Infantry Battalion under the 15th Military Operation Command in Buthidaung township, was among several people the AA seized aboard a passenger ferry in October 2019.
AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha denied that the AA forced the officer to make the accusations.hip in September 2017.
Tatmadaw spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun denied the claims and accused the AA of forcing the officer to make the confession..."
“He has been held captive for months, so he will have to do as the AA tells him,” he said. “It’s untrue. We carry out all our missions according to military rules.”
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-06-18
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-18
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Armed conflict in Rakhine (Arakan) State, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"Board members of a military conglomerate with sweeping export and import operations have served as top customs and port authority officials for decades, a former company director has told Myanmar Now.
The President’s Office last week said it would investigate the appointment of two directors from Myanma Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) to lead the government’s customs department and the Myanma Port Authority.
But the practice, which appears to be a clear conflict of interest, has been going on since the military junta founded MEHL in 1990, retired lieutenant colonel Kyaw Zay Ya told Myanmar Now.
“The director-general of customs and the managing director of the port authority have always been on MEHL’s board of directors,” said the former director, who ran the conglomerate’s shares department for 10 years.
“But times are different now that this is an elected government … it’s not right,” he added.
A panel of United Nations experts has alleged that the military uses MEHL and other companies to enrich itself without civilian oversight and to fund operations that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Having MEHL board members in charge of customs and the country’s shipping ports allows the conglomerate to operate with less government interference.
“Things go much more smoothly for the company’s import and export businesses,” said Kyaw Zay Ya, who has also served as a regional MP representing the NLD and is now vice chair of the newly formed People’s Pioneer Party..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-06-04
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-05
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"The majority of lawmakers voted on Monday to defeat a bid by Myanmar’s military-backed former ruling party and military-appointed lawmakers’ to impeach the Parliament’s house speaker over his handling of the constitutional reform process.
A total of 243 members of the Lower House (62 percent of those in attendance) voted down the proposal by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and military appointees to remove Union Parliament Speaker U T Khun Myat. The accusation alleged that he violated the Constitution and parliamentary laws by favoring Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in its Charter reforms attempts, launched last year, and also on several other occasions. Military-appointed lawmaker Lieutenant Colonel Myo Htet Win said that the speaker broke the law by allowing the National League for Democracy (NLD) to submit an urgent proposal to form the Constitutional Amendment Committee in January 2019 and by blocking full parliamentary debate on charter amendment proposals submitted by military lawmakers and the USDP.
“The head of the legislative body’s failure to abide by the law harms the Parliament’s image,” the lieutenant colonel said.
In addition to accusing the speaker of thwarting debate on their charter-amendment proposals, the USDP and military-appointed lawmakers also accused U T Khun Myat of misusing his power to deny some of their motions on Monday during debate over their impeachment proposal..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-06-01
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-01
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Laws, decrees, bills and regulations relating to the judiciary (commentaries), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Military conglomerate holds majority stake in Ever Flow River port project while its board members regulate ports, customs
Description:
"A new listing on the Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) Thursday morning risks further funding public corruption and supporting the military’s “ongoing war crimes,” experts and rights group warn.
On Thursday, Ever Flow River Group (EFRG) will become the YSX’s sixth publicly-listed company.
EFRG operates a joint venture company with Lann Pyi Marine - a subsidiary of the military conglomerate Myanma Economic Holdings (MEHL) - called Hlaing Inland Terminal and Logistics (HITLC).
HITLC is building a $43m inland port in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar township between the Aung Zeya and Shwe Pyi Thar bridges. The site is still under construction and not generating income for EFRG or its partners yet, but capital raised at the exchange may speed up that process. EFRG is financing the project and will hold 49% equity in HITLC while Lann Pyi Marine is providing land for 51% equity.
According to disclosure documents EFRG provided to YSX, the project will include customs clearance and customs-bonded facilities.
Retired brigadier-general and MEHL director Kyaw Htin is the director general of Myanmar’s customs department and retired major Ni Aung, another MEHL director, is the managing director of the Myanma Port Authority, the federal port regulatory body.
Kyaw Htin and Ni Aung “will be directly profiting from their public positions through MEHL’s business” with EFRG, the rights group Justice for Myanmar said in a statement Monday. “The inclusion of a customs-bonded warehouse, customs clearance and port services within the project adds heightened corruption risk.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-05-28
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-28
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Corruption, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Suu Kyi is now close to old adversary China while long-ruling military is skeptical of Beijing's intent ahead of pivotal polls
Description:
"Elections are scheduled for November in Myanmar, and there is no indication so far that the polls will be postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis. Neither is there much doubt about the outcome.
Most political observers believe that State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) will win again, though not in the same landslide fashion as in 2015 as recent by-elections show she and her party have lost significant support in ethnic areas.
But the bigger electoral question is how her party’s delicate relationship with the autonomous military will play out and in that context how her government’s ties to its powerful northern neighbor China will be portrayed and potentially politicized on the campaign trail.
An entirely new paradigm has emerged in Myanmar, one where Suu Kyi is now seen as a trusted ally of Beijing and the military as a nationalistic bulwark against China’s strong advances. That’s a significant reversal, one that could have implications for stability in the lead-up to polls.
When Suu Kyi was under house arrest during military rule or active in non-parliamentary politics, China viewed the long-time pro-democracy icon with suspicion. That was at least in part because her late British husband, a Tibetologist, maintained ties with many Tibetans in exile..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication:
2020-05-25
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-26
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), “One Belt, One Road” initiative, Burma's economic relations with China, China-Burma relations
Language:
more
Description:
"In Rangoon’s Drug Elimination Museum, a sprawling hall of half-truths and hilarious fantasy, there are subtle clues to past power plays within the Defence Services, or Tatmadaw. In a section of the museum extolling the questionable commitments to drug eradication of the previous military regimes, displays of drug burnings and press conferences have full pages of the now-defunct Working People’s Daily. But one key figure in this record has been airbrushed from history, almost Soviet style. Except in clumsier form. A thin sheet of brown paper and tape covers several entire photographs. But the revisionists failed to conceal the photo captions underneath, including the name of the senior official depicted: General Khin Nyunt, the Chief of Military Intelligence (MI) and principal protector of some of Burma’s biggest drug dealers.
The scholar Andrew Selth’s latest book is an examination of one of Burma’s most powerful and feared figures of the past forty years. Since his purge in late 2004, Khin Nyunt has been eclipsed by history, ostracized from the military, largely unknown to the outside world since the ‘transition’ to democracy in 2011, and remembered only by his many victims. Selth’s study, Secrets and Power in Myanmar, is less a political biography of Khin Nyunt, and more a technical examination of the intelligence services, producing skilful navigation through the maze of the opaque world of intelligence gathering by one of the most esteemed chroniclers of modern Burma.
The book’s introduction outlines the fearsome place MI and other intelligence agencies, notably the Special Branch (SB) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, have played in generations of military rule starting from the Tatmadaw’s coup d’etat of March 1962, through nearly three decades of Socialist military rule, and the corresponding culture of a surveillance apparatus. Selth could have explored further the devastating impacts on the psyche of Burmese society during this period, but he wisely draws from Christina Fink’s 2001 book Living Silence to support his claims..."
Source/publisher:
"Teacircleoxford" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-05-18
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-18
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
explores the reasons behind the Tatmadaw’s stronghold over Myanmar politics.
Description:
"Having endured more than a half-century of military rule, Myanmar appeared to be the least likely candidate for democratic transition in Southeast Asia. Although the prospects for Myanmar’s democratization resurged with the landslide victory of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the 2015 election, this political change has been a top-down transition in the system–-from military rule to electoral authoritarianism–-not in the military’s dominance in politics. The military’s continued dominance was institutionalized by the “roadmap to democracy” engineered by the military regime in 2003. Most notably, this included the drafting of a new constitution in 2008 which allots a quarter of the seats in both houses of Parliament to the military. As the civilian control of the military is a necessary precondition for a democracy, the persistence and entrenchment of Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, has led to a late and limited democratic transition.
Myanmar’s continued military dominance despite its recent transition is not only a divergent pattern in the world, but also in Southeast Asia, as the Tatmadaw has outlasted its Filipino and Indonesian counterparts. This raises the following question: how can the enduring strength of the Tatmadaw be explained? The essay argues that Tatmadaw’s persistent hold on power results from its continuous elimination of democratic forces, its substantive involvement in the national economy, and its management of longstanding centre-periphery conflicts over the course of a half century of military rule; this has established the Tatmadaw as the country’s predominant political, economic, and even cultural elites, overshadowing any other contending force. Today, other than the Sangha, the military is the most deeply embedded institution in Myanmar’s politics, economy and society..."
Source/publisher:
"Teacircleoxford" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-05-13
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-17
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"After 58 years of military rule, Myanmar’s parliament will today close debate on how to amend its third and current constitution, which was written in 2008.
In a lightly reported step, on February 20, the Burmese parliament approved a joint military-civilian committee to debate constitutional changes. The negotiations arise from the barring of Myanmar’s powerful National League for Democracy’s Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency due to foreign family ties.
Myanmar’s constitution privileges the military with a special status by reserving 25% of parliament and several key national executive appointments for military officers. The Burmese military had curtailed foreign influence in the domestic economy and political statecraft with six decades of absolute power, but as the country transitions to civilian rule, the ruling officers do not want to see their influence over Myanmar’s future dissipate. Having already stated their acceptance of a reduced role in Burmese politics, the military is looking to maintain a say in Myanmar’s statecraft.
With a population expected to reach 65 million by 2050 and an economy quadrupling to $200 billion by 2030, the constitutional negotiations will determine whether Myanmar will transition to a stable civilian rule or retain an outsized military influence.
Wake up smarter with an assessment of the stories that will make headlines in the next 24 hours. Download The Daily Brief..."
Source/publisher:
"Foreign Brief"
Date of publication:
2020-03-05
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-05
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Sub-title:
The United Wa State Party (UWSP) will cooperate with the Union Election Commission (UEC) to ensure the success of the November elections in the four townships in the Wa self-administered division, a party spokesperson said.
Description:
"A UEC delegation led by its chair, U Hla Thein, came to Panghsang, the capital of the Wa region in Shan State, to meet with Wa leaders on the elections last week, said U Nyi Rang, UWSP spokesperson.
“In the poll, we will help the UEC, though we cannot say yet whether voting would be held in the four townships. We need to hold more talks,” he added.
Of the six townships in the Wa region, four are controlled by the UWSP and two by the government. In the 2010 and 2015 general elections, the UEC did not hold voting in the Wa-controlled townships of Pangwaing, Mine Maw, Panghsang and Narhpan.
U Hla Thein urged the leaders of the Wa state government to work together with the poll body in the 2020 elections. He talked about the right to vote and to elect poll representatives.
The UWSP submitted eight demands to the UEC, but U Nyi Rang refused to provide details.
Xiao Mingliang, vice chair of the UWSP, said the Wa government hopes Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would visit the Wa region, which has often invited the State Counsellor to visit..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-03-04
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Members of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw are preparing to vote on a series of amendments to the constitution but it is unlikely that any of them will be approved.
Description:
"PROPOSALS to amend the 2008 Constitution are finally being discussed in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and the debate has been lively. There have been heated exchanges between members of the politically dominant National League for Democracy and unelected military MPs and lawmakers from the Union Solidarity and Development Party, who oppose the NLD’s proposals for charter reform. Debate has been so robust at times that the speaker has directed that some outbursts be expunged from the parliamentary record.
After its landslide victory in 2015, the NLD waited until January 2019 – almost three years after taking office – to begin implementing its election campaign pledge to reform the constitution. The NLD took a similar approach to that adopted by Thura U Shwe Mann in his capacity as speaker of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw during the USDP government, and appointed a constitutional amendment joint committee, which was tasked to prepare a draft bill to amend the charter.
The unelected Tatmadaw MPs objected to the 45-member committee as being unlawful. While the NLD was trying to draft a constitutional amendment bill that incorporated the opinions of all parties in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, USDP and Tatmadaw MPs submitted five of their own amendment bills. In early February, the NLD-controlled joint bill committee finalised two amendment bills and sent them to parliament for debate alongside the five USDP and military bills. One bill contains changes that would also require approval at a national referendum, while the other contains those changes that only require Pyidaungsu Hluttaw approval. We can learn from these seven bills about the changes sought to the constitution by the NLD and ethnic parties on one side, and by the Tatmadaw and USDP lawmakers, on the other..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-03-04
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Topic:
Myanmar, Burma, political economy, reform, democratisation, Murdoch School
Topic:
Myanmar, Burma, political economy, reform, democratisation, Murdoch School
Description:
"In 2010, the first elections were held in Myanmar after 22 years of direct military rule.
Most Western observers had decided in advance that the polls would be a travesty. The
regime had been sanctioned and isolated following its refusal to transfer power to the
winner of elections held in 1990, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung
San Suu Kyi. Instead the regime had pursued its own, visibly flawed “roadmap to
democracy.” The 2008 constitution was largely designed by the military and was imposed
through an implausible “referendum” – a 93.8% “yes” vote on a 98% turnout – in the
middle of a major natural disaster, Cyclone Nargis. The NLD boycotted the 2010
elections, though smaller opposition parties did participate. Unsurprisingly, the militarybacked Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) secured approximately 60% of
the seats in both houses of parliament and captured all but one of the regional assemblies,
while the military took 25% of the seats in both national-level assemblies and one-third in
all the regional assemblies, as mandated by the constitution. Little change was expected
from what appeared to be a purely superficial exercise.
Yet, one year later, major reform was underway. The NLD had triumphed in byelections in April 2012, bringing Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament. Peace talks had begun with ethnic-minority insurgents. Peaceful gatherings and trade unions had been
legalised. Internet censorship eased..."
Source/publisher:
Journal of Contemporary Asia
Date of publication:
2013-00-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, The Burmese military's role in the economy
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
174.47 KB (27 pages)
more
Description:
"Scholars at the University of Oslo (Norway) and Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia) have
since 2012 conducted collaborative research on “Power, Welfare and Democracy (PWD)”,
based on previous studies with research organisations in civil society, and funded by the Royal
Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta. The PWD project has examined the character and challenges
of democratisation in Indonesia, and how it relates to power relations and social welfare in
society. The project has included a baseline survey on the development of democracy; a
thematic study on politics of citizenship; a thematic study on welfare regimes; a thematic study
on local regimes; and comparative anthropological studies of UN-REDD+ (Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). As this research project comes to an
end in 2017, a two-days conference will be held at the University of Oslo to summarise major
findings and to discuss the implications for domestic and international policy making..."
Source/publisher:
University of Oslo (Norway)
Date of publication:
2018-08-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-29
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
700.88 KB (164 pages)
more
Description:
"Myanmar’s history has been intertwined with the issues of postcolonial state building
since it gained independence from British colonialism in January 1948. The policies and
administration pursued by the British proved instrumental in deterioration of contact and
cooperation between the diverse ethnic peoples of Myanmar while ethnic conflict was
fostered.
1
The historical struggles of ethnic minorities for recognition and representation
are vital to understanding the current transition to democracy and struggles for
legitimacy in Myanmar.
Undoubtedly, the initial phase of independent Myanmar, following the assassination of
General Aung San on the eve of independence, was characterized by unstable but
occasionally democratic governments punctuated by interventions by the Myanmar
military. The last significant bid for democracy ended, however, following a military
coup by General Ne Win on 2 March 1962.
2
The new military ruler led the country, first
under his Revolutionary Council and then under his Burma Socialist Programme Party
(BSPP), into a 26-year era of isolation following his ‘Burmese way to socialism’, an
admixture of Buddhist, Marxist and nationalist principles that ethnic minorities in the
country interpreted as ‘Burmanization’, which saw Myanmar decline “from a country
once regarded as amongst the most fertile and mineral rich in Asia to one of the world’s
10 poorest nations.”3..."
Source/publisher:
Southeast Asia Research Centre (Hong Kong)
Date of publication:
2012-12-01
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-27
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
692.19 KB (27 pages)
more
Description:
"The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has expanded its senior management in a move the party says will facilitate its preparations for the 2020 general election.
The military proxy opposition party has appointed two vice-chairs and three additional members to its central executive committee, the party said at a press conference on Friday. “The election is drawing near, and as we need to campaign on a wide scale, we have reinforced with two vice-chairpersons,” said USDP spokesperson Dr. Nanda Hla Myint.
The new vice-chairs are former national police chief U Khin Yi and former Minister of the President’s Office U Hla Tun.
U Hla Tun facilitated the transfer of power from the previous government, led by the USDP, to the current National League for Democracy (NLD) government following the 2015 election. Dr. Nanda Hla Myint said the USDP has appointed U Hla Tun as vice-chair in the hope that he will facilitate the process again if the USDP wins the election.
U Hla Tun is also a retired major general and served as an ordnance director before the USDP government leadership appointed him minister of the President’s Office. U Khin Yi was the chief of the Myanmar Police Force and is a retired brigadier general of the Myanmar military. He served as the Union minister for immigration and population in the USDP government..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-02-24
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-25
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
more
Description:
"Military enterprises, ostensibly set up to feed and supply soldiers,were some of the earliest and largest Burmese commercialconglomerates, established in the 1950s. Union Myanmar EconomicHoldings Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation
(MEC) are two profit-seeking military enterprises established by
the military after the dissolution of the Burma Socialist Programme Party in 1988, which remain central players in Myanmar’s post-2011 economy.• Military conglomerates are a major source of off-budget revenuefor the military and a main employer of retired soldiers. Yet
few veterans receive more than a small piece of the profits
from UMEHL. The vast bulk of formal dividends instead
disproportionately benefit higher ranking officers and institutions
within the Tatmadaw. Military capitalism entrenches the autonomy of the Tatmadawfrom civilian oversight. Despite this, obligatory or semi-coerced
contributions from active-duty soldiers are a source of cash fow for
UMEHL, effectively constituting a transfer from the government
budget to the military’s off-budget entities. The most significant
source of livelihoods support for most veterans is the service pension dispersed by the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MoPF).• Despite delivering suboptimal welfare outcomes for most soldiers
and veterans while eroding the legitimacy of ceasefires, successive
governments since 1988, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s NationalLeague for Democracy (NLD) administration, have entrenched military capitalism by encouraging commercial activities of armed
groups that enter into ceasefire agreements..."
Source/publisher:
Yusof Ishak Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)
Date of publication:
2019-02-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Burma/Myanmar's relationship with the Global Economy
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
1.55 MB (49 pages)
more
Sub-title:
Nation building processes in tumultuous times
Description:
"The study of the role historiography and public memory play within nation-building processes in
Southeast Asia continues to see a steady rise of interest with scholars, governments and in
growing numbers also the public eye. In face of continuous local resistance towards national
integration, the struggle to define a national identity by converting multiple pasts into a single
national narrative remains crucial to authoritarian and post-authoritarian regimes alike. The
question of belonging to one nation has yet to be resolved by various communities throughout
the region (Aung-Thwin M. , 2012). Especially Myanmar’s challenged government tries hard to
create a general Myanmar identity that includes not only the Bamar majority, but also all of the
people living on Myanmar territory – with the current exclusion of the Muslim Rohingyas.
1 This
nation-building attempt is naturally on terms of the government. The streamlining of regional or
ethnic histories and narratives poses new threats and worries to the already suspicious minorities
amidst the pacification and reconciliation attempts of Naypyitaw. Successive regimes and leaders
have tried to both exploit the ideological groundwork laid in the dynastic, colonial and
independence eras and to develop innovative new strategies to convince Myanmar’s inhabitants
to overlook what divides them and prioritize what they have in common (Metro & SalemGervais, 2012)..."
Source/publisher:
Dr. Martin Großheim
Date of publication:
2015-02-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-17
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
1.21 MB (47 pages)
more
Description:
"Myanmar President Win Myint on Thursday warned the country’s powerful military to limit its involvement in politics, citing a mandate issued decades ago by independence hero General Aung San, during a ceremony inaugurating a new statue of the general and father of leader Ang San Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw.
Touching on a sensitive fault line in Myanmar politics as the country prepares for year-end elections, Win Myint said that Aung San issued a directive that members of the armed forces should refrain from participation in government administration, politics, and political party activities.
“I have read that he issued guidelines for the Burmese revolutionary military that they were not to interfere in the administration or in politics, while the military officers and soldiers were not to interfere in political parties and administrative activities,” he said in a speech marking what would have been Aung San’s 105th birthday.
“They are to work on the unity of the state,” Win Myint added.
Myanmar’s military known as the Tatmadaw, ran the country for five decades after a 1962 coup. Its political power is enshrined in the 2008 constitution drafted by the then ruling military junta, and efforts to amend the charter remain an uphill battle.
Military lawmakers who are appointed, not elected, control a quarter of the seats in parliament and retain a critical veto over proposed constitutional amendments. The military also controls three security and defense ministries..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of publication:
2020-02-13
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-16
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, Panglong Peace Conference
Language:
more
Description:
"The current government, led by the National League for Democracy (NLD), is not the first to attempt to amend the undemocratic 2008 Constitution. In 2013, its predecessor, led by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), gave it a try. But the USDP’s two-year attempt—widely viewed as lacking the will for genuine reform—ultimately proved fruitless, failing to amend even a single article of the Constitution.
Since it was launched early last year, the NLD’s push for constitutional reform has faced strong resistance from unelected military lawmakers and their allies in the USDP. Despite strong public support for charter change, the success of the NLD’s effort is far from guaranteed. The main hurdle for constitutional reform is the effective veto wielded by the military, for which the Constitution reserves 25 percent of Parliament seats. Under Article 436, proposed changes to the charter require the support of more than 75 percent of lawmakers, meaning no change is possible without military approval.
Let’s look at the differences between the USDP and the NLD’s approaches to charter change. On July 25, 2013, the then-ruling USDP established a joint committee with 109 members from all parties in Parliament to examine the country’s Constitution and consider changes to it..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-02-14
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-15
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"Hundreds of Myanmar nationalists rallied in the country’s commercial capital on Sunday in a show of support for the military, amid tensions between the civilian government and the army ahead of elections expected later this year. Around a thousand protesters marched from Yangon’s famed Shwedagon pagoda to City Hall downtown to accuse the administration of Aung San Suu Kyi of allegedly failing to protect the country’s Buddhist majority and for proposing constitutional amendments that would reduce the power of the military.
The proposed reforms have led to tensions between Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and military lawmakers, who hold a veto over amendments. Speaking at the rally, nationalist activist Win Ko Ko Latt criticized those planning to push through the reforms, comparing them to the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China.
“We can see how deadly the Wuhan virus is,” he said, referring to the Chinese city where the outbreak was believed to have originated. “I declare from here that those people who are trying to change (the constitution) are more frightening than the Wuhan virus.”
Government spokesman Zaw Htay and NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt did not respond to calls from Reuters seeking comment..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of publication:
2020-02-09
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-11
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Campaigns, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Exiled Activists in Myanmar's Political Reforms
Description:
"Myanmar’s tumultuous post-colonial history has been characterized by
decades of direct and indirect military rule and corresponding political
mobilizations that have ranged from armed ethnic and ideological
insurgencies to mass protests, student movements, and non-violent
pro-democracy uprisings. The nationalization and mismanagement of
the economy, the militarization of the state, political surveillance and
oppression, and the closure of universities are all factors that have triggered
the flight from Burma of millions of Burmese. Several main waves of exit
can be distinguished, following major political events—(1) the 1962 military
coup; (2) the installation of direct rule by the Burma Socialist Programme
Party in 1974 and the U Thant funeral crisis; (3) the 1988 mass uprisings;
and (4) the 2007 “Saffron Revolution” protests, respectively. The largest o the extreme sensitivity surrounding this subject, in the past very few
organizations inside Myanmar were able to operate openly on human rights
issues. Exile organizations based in Thailand and India are widening the
scope of their existing capacity-building initiatives for the documentation
of local human rights issues and improving the knowledge and skills of
those who defend human rights, while also expanding their (underground
and above-ground) networks across the country..."
Source/publisher:
Kerstin Duell
Date of publication:
2014-11-02
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-10
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf
Size:
213.52 KB (15 pages)
more
Topic:
civil society, democratisation, civil–military relations, ethnic confict, aid, Myanmar, transition, development, civil war, peace‐building.
Topic:
civil society, democratisation, civil–military relations, ethnic confict, aid, Myanmar, transition, development, civil war, peace‐building.
Description:
"The political landscape of Myanmar has changed signifcantly since
former dictator Than Shwe paved the way for a series of wide‐ranging
reforms in 2011. A nominally civilian government was sworn in and
political prisoners were freed. Most visibly, long‐term opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi has ascended to power after her long‐banned
opposition party – the National League of Democracy (NLD) – won
the historic elections of 2015 by a wide margin. The country’s vibrant
civil society also benefted from the lifting of restrictive laws on media
and public mobilisation. Despite these remarkable transformations,
Myanmar’s transition has seemingly slowed down and the space for
progressive social and political action has contracted once again.
Particularly worrying is the situation in the country’s borderlands, where long‐running sectarian conficts have escalated since 2011. In
order to understand the challenges that persisting authoritarianism,
state violence, and civil war pose to civil society in Myanmar, this article
situates contemporary social and political action within a historical
analysis of political transition. It asks about: (a) the nature of political
transition in Myanmar, (b) the challenges that the trajectory of political
transition poses for civil society actors, and (c) the implications for
international development and peace‐building initiatives.
This article argues that Myanmar’s political transition should not
be understood as a process of democratisation that is driven by
pro‐democratic forces and which might eventually lead to liberal
democracy. Viewing the country’s transition through the lens of
democratisation is not only misleading but deeply problematic.
Political reforms were planned and executed by the country’s military:
the Tatmadaw. The emergent hybrid civil–military order safeguards
authoritarian rule and military dominance. This top‐down nature
of political transition poses signifcant challenges for civil society. In
combination with fragility and confict, liberalising the public sphere
has not only benefted progressive social and political action but has also
enabled the growth of uncivil society,3 whose pursuit of exclusionary
identity politics fuels sectarian violence..."
Source/publisher:
IDS Bulletin
Date of publication:
2019-09-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Sustainable/alternative development in and for Burma, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
222.04 KB (22 pages)
more
Topic:
2020 Election, Democracy, disenfranchisement, Electoral Law, Ethnic groups, ethnic nationalities, fairness, franchise, Migrant Workers, Military, National League for Democracy, NLD, overseas workers, Union Election Commission, vote, voters, voting, voting rights
Topic:
2020 Election, Democracy, disenfranchisement, Electoral Law, Ethnic groups, ethnic nationalities, fairness, franchise, Migrant Workers, Military, National League for Democracy, NLD, overseas workers, Union Election Commission, vote, voters, voting, voting rights
Description:
"There are about 3 million migrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand, with perhaps an additional million dependent family members. Some 2 million of these people are officially registered with the Thai authorities. A large proportion are from ethnic nationality communities, such as the Mon, Karen, Karenni and Shan, who have suffered disproportionately from decades of conflict and violence in Myanmar. In many cases, they fled to neighboring Thailand in desperation, because their livelihoods and basic security were threatened at home.
In the 2015 elections, only 20,000 overseas Myanmar citizens voted—of whom 19,000 were living in Singapore; only 600 people voted in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, where there is a Myanmar consulate. Myanmar overseas workers were effectively disenfranchised. In 2015 this fact was little noted, amid the euphoria of a National League for Democracy (NLD) win after decades of military rule in Myanmar. In the interests of equity, and to ensure that the 2020 election results are deemed credible by minority communities, it is crucial that the forthcoming polls are seen to be free and fair.
Therefore, the Union Election Commission (UEC) should establish procedures for overseas-based Myanmar citizens to vote. At a minimum, arrangements should be made for them to vote at Myanmar embassies abroad. In order that the elections are seen as just and inclusive, such an initiative should be broader and permit migrant workers to vote in or near their place of work, as it is expensive and potentially illegal and risky for migrant workers in Thailand (for example) to travel to Bangkok, if they are not based there..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-01-29
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Legislation under consideration, adopted, amended or repealed
Language:
more
Description:
"The military-appointed home affairs minister, Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe, will resign from government and return to the army pending approval from the president, government spokesperson Zaw Htay said Friday.
“The president has been informed of his resignation,” Zaw Htay said at a press conference in Naypyitaw. “He will proceed according to the constitution.”
The home affairs ministry is one of three whose ministers are nominated by the commander-in-chief, rather than the President. The other two ministries are border affairs and defense.
Zaw Htay declined to say who would replace Kyaw Swe. “You will know when it is announced,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-02-02
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-02
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Topic:
Home Affairs Ministry, Lieutenant General Aung Soe, Lieutenant General Soe Htut, Lieutenant-General Kyaw Swe
Topic:
Home Affairs Ministry, Lieutenant General Aung Soe, Lieutenant General Soe Htut, Lieutenant-General Kyaw Swe
Description:
"Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe will retire from his post, an anonymous government source confirmed to The Irrawaddy.
The source told The Irrawaddy that there will be a change in the home affairs minister position and that the order will be issued soon. Lt-Gen. Kyaw Swe turned 60 in November 2019 and has reached the retiring age for civil servants in Myanmar. He will have to submit a request for retirement to the President and then seek the approval of the Union Parliament.
Under the 2008 Constitution, three ministries—Defense, Home Affairs and Border Affairs—are controlled by the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw. The heads of the three ministries are nominated by the military chief and the President appoints them with the approval of the national legislature.
Chief of Military Security Affairs Lieutenant General Soe Htut and Chief of Bureau of Special Operations Lieutenant General Aung Soe are both possible nominees to become the next home affairs minister..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-01-31
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-01
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Description:
"Increasing conflict between Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups and government forces during the last year has increased civilian casualties amid mounting allegations of war crimes.
With the U.N.’s International Court of Justice order that the country "take all measures within its power" to prevent any acts of genocide against ethnic Rohingya Muslims, who fled the country amid a bloody military crackdown in 2017, other ethnic minorities that have been fighting for decades over control of resource-rich territory are coming forward to voice their concerns over past documented atrocities, also carried out by the Myanmar military. The mountainside village of Pain Lone in Shan State was the site of such conflict last fall between government forces and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, an armed ethnic group based in the region, panicking students scrambling for cover as their afternoon classes were ending.
"The sound of the helicopters was very terrifying and the loud explosions falling around the village were terrible,” recalls local instructor U Maung Chone, who teaches in the remote mountain settlement.“
It doesn’t matter if they are falling in the town or just in the area. The explosions were very frightening for the kids,” the 45-year-old said, adding that he’d never seen army helicopters in more than two decades of teaching..."
Source/publisher:
"VOA" (Washington, D.C)
Date of publication:
2020-01-26
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-31
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Burma/Myanmar's Foreign relations, general
Language:
more
Description:
"Myanmar’s military continued to carry out serious human rights violations in 2019, while the government made no progress addressing the pervasive impunity of soldiers who committed abuses, London-based Amnesty International said Thursday in a new report on repression in Asia.
The military’s violations included war crimes in Kachin, Rakhine, and Shan states where government forces have been engaged in armed conflict with ethnic armed groups, the rights organization said.
Civilians, state lawmakers, and local officials have reported soldiers detaining and sometimes torturing villagers suspected of aiding the enemy or of being rebel fighters themselves in the conflict zones, especially in northern Rakhine state.
“The military committed serious violations against civilians, including unlawful attacks, arbitrary arrests, torture and other illtreatment, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and forced labor” in Rakhine state, where government forces have fought the rebel Arakan Army (AA) in heightened hostilities over the past year, the report said.
“Many of them constituted war crimes,” it said..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of publication:
2020-01-30
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-31
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
more
Topic:
ALP, Arakan Liberation Party, Chiang Mai, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, EAOs, ethnic armed organizations, Military, nationwide ceasefire agreement, NCA, Peace Process, Peace Process Steering Team, PPST, RCSS, Restoration Council of Shan State, Tatmadaw
Topic:
ALP, Arakan Liberation Party, Chiang Mai, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, EAOs, ethnic armed organizations, Military, nationwide ceasefire agreement, NCA, Peace Process, Peace Process Steering Team, PPST, RCSS, Restoration Council of Shan State, Tatmadaw
Description:
"Organizing a national-level political dialogue before the next peace conference will be one of the key issues to discuss during next week’s meeting between the government and the ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA).
The national dialogue began in 2017 but not all the signatories were able to convene. These included the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) because of objections from the Tatmadaw (military) about the location and the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) in Rakhine State, citing security concerns. The RCSS and ALP were missing from the dialogue in 2017 and 2018 and their input was therefore missing from the process to establish a federation.
With the formal peace process stalled, the national political dialogue has been abandoned for nearly two years.
Sai Ngern, the head of the EAOs’ negotiation team on the political dialogue framework and a secretary of the RCSS, said every NCA signatory “must be able to organize the national-level political dialogue under a new framework”.
“We tentatively plan it to be able to hold talks in late March. It will be on the agenda of the talks with the government on Jan. 28-29,” he told reporters after the 10 NCA signatories’ Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) meeting in Chiang Mai on Saturday..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-01-20
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-22
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Topic:
2008 Constitution, Constitution Amendment Committee, Democracy, Kokang Democracy and Unity Party, Military, National League for Democracy, NLD, Tatmadaw, U Myat Nyana Soe, veto
Topic:
2008 Constitution, Constitution Amendment Committee, Democracy, Kokang Democracy and Unity Party, Military, National League for Democracy, NLD, Tatmadaw, U Myat Nyana Soe, veto
Description:
"Myanmar’s parliamentary committee tasked with proposing changes to the 2008 Constitution has finished drafting two amendment bills.
Nearly 30 members from the National League for Democracy (NLD) and various ethnic parties on the committee approved the amendment bills on Monday. But all military representatives on the committee were absent from the meeting, said the committee’s secretary U Myat Nyana Soe, an Upper House lawmaker from the NLD. The Constitution Amendment Committee — the mechanism that the NLD and ethnic parties chose for reforming the military-drafted Constitution — was formed last February with 45 members from 14 political parties, independent representatives and members of the military bloc in Parliament.
The NLD holds 18 seats on the committee, the military has eight and the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was given two.
The USDP, Arakan National Party and the National United Democratic Party quit the committee late last year. The military rejected the existence of the committee and its works as unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the military members submitted two amendment bills and three bills jointly with the USDP to the Parliament last year..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-01-20
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-21
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Legislation under consideration, adopted, amended or repealed, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Topic:
AUNG SAN SUU KYI, ROHINGYA, KACHIN, MIN AUNG HLAING, TATMADAW, ETHNIC MINORITIES, ARAKAN ARMY, AUNG SAN, BURMESE
Topic:
AUNG SAN SUU KYI, ROHINGYA, KACHIN, MIN AUNG HLAING, TATMADAW, ETHNIC MINORITIES, ARAKAN ARMY, AUNG SAN, BURMESE
Description:
"January 4 marked the 72nd anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain. The civil war in which the country – a patchwork of diverse ethnic regions, with mutually incomprehensible languages, unerasable regional identities and distinct political histories – was born has come a full circle.
It is noteworthy that modern Myanmar was not the creation of nationalists. It was born out of the external shock of the Second World War and the dissolution of external colonial powers. Few Myanmar nationalist historians have acknowledged this historical fact, for it fundamentally and effectively undermines the nationalist historiography that typically glorifies and exaggerates the contributions of the ethnic-Burmese (Bama) nationalists – particularly State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s father and the Tatmadaw (military), originally a fascist proxy created by Japan as part of its wartime design against British rule in colonial Burma. Today, being an important site of the geopolitical rivalries among external powers, including China, India, the US and Japan, coupled with multiple domestic ethnic fault lines, Myanmar faces the very real prospect of another external shock, more than at any point in the country’s seven-decade post-independence history..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication:
2020-01-14
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-14
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Kachin State, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Topic:
Myanmar Police Force, Aung San Suu Kyi, child abuse, Tatmadaw, constitution
Sub-title:
The “Victoria” child rape case has laid bare the institutional failings of the Myanmar Police Force at a time when the government is also asking questions about the force’s conduct.
Topic:
Myanmar Police Force, Aung San Suu Kyi, child abuse, Tatmadaw, constitution
Description:
"Tthere have been demonstrations in Yangon, Mandalay and other cities amid public disgust at a Myanmar Police Force news conference held after charges were dismissed against the defendant in the “Victoria” toddler rape case.
The case concerns the rape of a two-year-old girl at a private nursery school in Nay Pyi Taw last year, who was later dubbed Victoria as part of a social media campaign.
There has been dissatisfaction over the way the police had handled the case since it came to light last May, but this turned to anger when senior officers revealed at the December 19 news conference the name and address of the victim and her parents, in apparent breach of the Child Rights Law.
The news conference came a day after the Dekkhina District Court in Nay Pyi Taw dismissed charges against Ko Aung Kyaw Myo (aka Aung Gyi), a driver employed by the supervisor at the school the girl attended, because of a lack of evidence. There was also public anger that documents relating to the case were posted on the MPF’s “Ye Zarni” Facebook page on the day of the news conference, before being taken down.
The public protests against the MPF came after State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi met senior MPF officers in Nay Pyi Taw on December 18 and urged them to be loyal to the government. In a wide-ranging speech, Aung San Suu Kyi also spoke about the deterioration of law and order in Rakhine State, the different roles of the MPF and the Tatmadaw, corruption within the MPF, narcotics trafficking, and the need for the MPF to take steps to build public confidence in its ability to provide security and peace..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-01-09
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-13
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Rule of Law - global and regional, Rule of Law - Burma/Myanmar-specific, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Rohingya rebels who had been holding him for weeks said he died during military attacks on Christmas Day
Description:
"An official from Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party was killed in Rakhine state after planning a show of support for the leader’s defense of Myanmar against genocide allegations at The Hague, a spokesman said Thursday.
The National League for Democracy’s Ye Thein, party chairman in Buthidaung township, had been held for weeks by the Arakan Army, insurgents fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
The rebels said he was killed in military attacks on Christmas Day but the claim could not be verified and NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt said the group bore responsibility. Ye Thein was detained on December 11 ahead of demonstrations backing Suu Kyi’s high-profile opening statements at the UN’s top court the same day.
“We, all members of NLD, are very sorry for the loss,” Myo Nyunt told AFP. “His gathering to support her was righteous and it was not a crime.”
The Arakan Army has carried out a series of daring kidnappings, bombings and raids against the army and local officials in Rakhine state.
Myanmar’s military has hit back hard, deploying thousands of additional soldiers to the western state and carrying out what Amnesty International called enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication:
2019-12-26
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-11
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), About Aung San Suu Kyi, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Discrimination against the Rakhine, The Military's political role
Language:
more
Description:
"With its ubiquitous presence, expansive mandate and long history within the military-led Ministry of Home Affairs, the General Administration Department (GAD) has been Myanmar’s paramount government agency, acting as the backbone of public administration. News of its removal from Home Affairs and placement into the Ministry of the Office of the Union Government last December shocked many — widespread belief prevailed that the reassignment of GAD was a red line that the military would not tolerate an elected government crossing. Removing a key department from a military-led ministry is notable, but there is more to be done. The National League for Democracy (NLD) government should think critically about how governance can be reformed to steer the country towards its goals of peace and full democracy.
For the NLD government, the GAD’s transition represents the most important public sector reform since democratic transition began in 2011. For State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the removal of the GAD from Home Affairs demonstrates that significant structural reform can be achieved under an NLD tenure, even reform that demilitarises the state apparatus by placing key departments under full civilian control.
The GAD’s power within government derives from its role in convening, communicating and coordinating across ministries rather than through its own executive decision-making power. Essentially, it is the ‘process manager’ over a large swathe of the country’s public administration. With the GAD transfer, the Office of the Union Government now has full control of the country’s paramount agency of administration..."
Source/publisher:
"East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of publication:
2019-08-24
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-07
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
37.34 KB (3 pages)
more
Description:
''Two years since Myanmar’s most prominent constitutional and human rights lawyer Ko Ni was assassinated in broad daylight and still there is no justice in sight.
The lack of closure is all the more telling considering Ko Ni had high-level ties to the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party and was working from behind the scenes to amend a constitution that gives disproportionate political and administrative powers to the military. Ko Ni was shot and killed on January 29, 2017 while leaving a terminal building at Yangon’s international airport upon his return from a trip overseas. Kyi Lin, the gunman, was captured at the scene after a struggle in which he also shot and killed a taxi driver, Nay Win, who heroically ran after the assailant.
Ko Ni’s burial in accordance with Muslim rituals, was carried out within 24 hours of his death. At his funeral, the road to the Muslim cemetery in Yangon’s North Okkalapa suburb was lined with cars, minivans and buses as thousands of people came to pay their last respects....''
Source/publisher:
Asia Times
Date of publication:
2019-01-29
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-31
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Popular participation rights: reports of violations in Burma, National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Rule of Law - Burma/Myanmar-specific, The Military's political role
Language:
English
more
Description:
''“This brazen killing of a prominent democracy advocate demands a rigorous State response to show this type of crime will be fully punished,” said Frederick Rawski, the ICJ’s Director for Asia and the Pacific.
Despite an official investigation and reports of more than 100 court hearings, nobody has been held accountable for U Ko Ni’s death – criminally or otherwise – and the circumstances have not yet been satisfactorily explained.
“Myanmar simply cannot satisfy its international law obligations without conducting an impartial and independent investigation that is free of military influence. Such an investigation is a pre-requisite for conducting an effective prosecution in a fair trial setting,” added Rawski.
U Ko Ni was well known as a vocal advocate for human rights and democratic reform in Myanmar. As an adviser to the National Legal of Democracy party, he was involved in creating the position of State Counselor, which formalized a leadership role for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, despite a constitutional provision barring her from the Presidency...''
Source/publisher:
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
Date of publication:
2019-01-29
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-31
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Rule of Law - Burma/Myanmar-specific, The Military's political role, Popular participation rights: reports of violations in Burma
Language:
English
more