By VICTORIA MILKO
1 of 8
A photographer wearing a protective vest with a 'press' sign at the back films an anti-military government protest being dispersed with tear gas by security forces in Sanchaung township in Yangon, Myanmar on March 3, 2021. Since Myanmar's military dismissed the results of democratic elections and seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, peaceful nationwide protests and violent crackdowns by security forces have spiraled into a nationwide humanitarian crisis. (AP Photo)
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An elderly woman forced to flee bombings. A former peace negotiator leaving his job to fight Myanmar security forces. A woman’s husband shot during a peaceful protest, leaving her alone to care for their two children.
Since Myanmar’s military dismissed the results of the country’s democratic election and seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, peaceful nationwide protests and violent crackdowns by security forces have spiraled into a nationwide humanitarian crisis.
The Associated Press spoke to people in Myanmar about how their lives have changed in the year since the military took power. They spoke on condition their names are not disclosed for fear of reprisal.
THE WIDOW: “HE SUDDENLY DISAPPEARED”
Before his death, Khine’s husband earned enough money making door gates that her family lived a comfortable life in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. She was able to stay home to care for the couple’s two young daughters while the husband worked.
On Feb. 1, Khine’s husband got a phone call from a friend, telling him about the military takeover.
“He looked really sad, angry and couldn’t talk much,” Khine told the AP by phone.
In the weeks that followed, protests calling for the military to restore democracy and free imprisoned politicians rippled through the country. Khine and her husband joined the crowds.
In late March, as security forces began using lethal force to crack down on protests, Khine was babysitting when demonstrators came to her home to tell her that her husband had been shot. They took him to two clinics but both refused to treat him. He died when they reached a hospital.
“He suddenly disappeared,” she said. “Before the coup, I had never imagined that our family life would fall apart like this.”
Her husband is one of at least 1,490 people killed by the military since the takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a group that monitors verified arrests and deaths in Myanmar. Over 11,775 have been arrested, according to the group.
Since her husband’s death, Khine has started working at a garment factory, earning $3 a day. Unable to afford their old apartment after the loss of her husband’s income, the family has moved into a small room. She worries about being able to provide for her children and their mental health.
“My eldest daughter is becoming traumatized,” said Khine. “She often says, ‘My friends have their fathers, but I don’t.’”
THE DISPLACED: “FLEEING THE WAR IS EXHAUSTING”
Bomb blasts, gunfire and artillery shelling have followed 63-year-old Mee at every shelter she’s been forced to flee to over the past year.
She first had to flee to a camp for the displaced after fighting broke out near her village in eastern Myanmar. A month later, the camp was no longer safe, and the medicine she needed for her heart disease and hypertension wasn’t available. With nowhere else to go, Mee moved to a relative’s house.
“While we were there, gunfire was heard,” Mee told the AP by phone “We decided not to run away, even if we died, because fleeing the war is exhausting.”
Not long after, the area near her relative’s house was bombed, and she had to move once more. For now, Mee shares a small barn with 15 other people, all of them displaced. She has enough medicine only for two months and is concerned about the future of her family and the country.
As of Jan. 17, the U.N. refugee agency estimates the number of the displaced since the army takeover at 405,700. Another 32,000 have fled to neighboring countries.
“I am worried and tired every day,” Mee said. “For now, my hope is that I just want to see peace and calm. Then, I want to go back to my house.”
THE SURGEON: “LIVES HAVE TO BE SACRIFICED”
Before the military seized power, the 28 year-old assistant surgeon was studying for his exams to become a specialist. He lived with his family and would take pride in treating patients at the hospital he worked at in a major city.
On the morning of the takeover, he went to work, seeing military vehicles on the roads and helicopters overhead. The phones and internet were cut. Stepping into the hospital, he learned the military had detained the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
The next day, he and other health care workers in state-run hospitals quit, sparking what would become known as the Civil Disobedience Movement.
“After the military coup, we no longer wanted to work under them. We believed all the health sectors will have no progress under the military,” he told the AP by phone.
Myanmar has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for health care workers, according to Physicians for Human Rights. It said 30 health workers were killed and 286 arrested between the takeover and Jan. 10.
Seeing his colleagues getting arrested, the surgeon fled to an area controlled by an armed opposition group. He has worked in makeshift clinics made of tents in camps for four months, treating people with general illnesses and those wounded by military shelling and land mines.
Medicine is hard to find, with security forces arresting anyone transporting medication.
“We have to carry medicine secretly. That’s why it takes about a month for medicine to arrive,” he said. “Even if cars are carrying paracetamol or something like that, they’re arrested.”
The surgeon still dreams of being able to return home to take the exams for a specialist.
“But dreams and reality are different,” he said. “The people are suffering from the oppression of the military council. Lives have to be sacrificed for the revolution.”
THE JOURNALIST: “WE DARE NOT TAKE OUT OUR CAMERAS”
The videographer knew journalists had to show the world what was happening in Myanmar. Setting aside their anger and sadness about the military takeover, they went to the streets to document protests and brutal crackdowns with their phones day after day.
“We dare not take out our cameras” for fear of arrest, the videographer told the AP by phone. “Things are getting worse.”
Facing increasing threats, many of the videographer’s colleagues fled to the jungle to join armed resistance groups. Others have been arrested. By Dec. 1, more journalists were arrested in Myanmar than every country in the world except China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least two journalists have been killed and others tortured while in detention, the group said.
Yet the videographer continues to work, realizing that any report could be the last one.
“I’m working like an underground journalist,” the videographer said. “In case of an emergency, I have prepared a bag if I need to run.”
Despite the threats, the journalist has no intention of leaving the country.
“The international community only knows about the military’s atrocities through the media,” the videographer said. “But I will continue to do this work until I can’t do it. If the security forces chase and catch me — let them.”
THE FIGHTER: “I DECIDED I WOULD TAKE UP ARMS”
After watching fellow peaceful protesters get shot in the head by military forces, the 47 year-old made a decision.
“I decided I would take up arms, and I started looking for options to actually do so,” he said.
His protests had started peacefully. After the military takeover, he began organizing rallies in Yangon. But as the weeks passed, he knew his safety was in jeopardy.
“I stopped living in my apartment,” he said. “I also had to ask my family to leave that apartment to a secret location so that (the military) could not harm them.”
But when the protests turned deadly, he realized he wanted to take a step further.
“I never thought I would find myself involved in a struggle,” he told the AP by phone.
The man is just one of thousands of people in Myanmar who have joined loose-knit guerilla groups called People’s Defense Forces. Some have forged alliances with armed ethnic groups that have been at war with Myanmar military for decades, while others have pledged allegiance to the opposition National Unity Government, a parallel administration that declared a “defensive war” against the military in September.
Before the takeover, the man enjoyed going to restaurants with his family, shopping trips to the mall and spending time with his children in their home when he wasn’t working at a nongovernment organization involved in the decades-long peace process.
His days are now spent on missions he is hesitant to speak about for security reasons. He lives in an area of a jungle controlled by an armed ethnic group, carrying multiple weapons wherever he goes. He and his comrades forage for whatever they can to survive and sleep in hammocks strung between trees.
“The life I enjoyed is no longer available,” he said.
The man said he is frustrated by the international community’s lack of response, and that the people of Myanmar have had to take matters into their own hands.
“We have the right to use violence to defend ourselves while the international community stands by.”
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An elderly woman forced to flee bombings. A former peace negotiator leaving his job to fight Myanmar security forces. A woman’s husband shot during a peaceful protest, leaving her alone to care for their two children.
Since Myanmar’s military dismissed the results of the country’s democratic election and seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, peaceful nationwide protests and violent crackdowns by security forces have spiraled into a nationwide humanitarian crisis.
The Associated Press spoke to people in Myanmar about how their lives have changed in the year since the military took power. They spoke on condition their names are not disclosed for fear of reprisal.
___
THE WIDOW: “HE SUDDENLY DISAPPEARED”
Before his death, Khine’s husband earned enough money making door gates that her family lived a comfortable life in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. She was able to stay home to care for the couple’s two young daughters while the husband worked.
On Feb. 1, Khine’s husband got a phone call from a friend, telling him about the military takeover.
“He looked really sad, angry and couldn’t talk much,” Khine told the AP by phone.
In the weeks that followed, protests calling for the military to restore democracy and free imprisoned politicians rippled through the country. Khine and her husband joined the crowds.
In late March, as security forces began using lethal force to crack down on protests, Khine was babysitting when demonstrators came to her home to tell her that her husband had been shot. They took him to two clinics but both refused to treat him. He died when they reached a hospital.
“He suddenly disappeared,” she said. “Before the coup, I had never imagined that our family life would fall apart like this.”
Her husband is one of at least 1,490 people killed by the military since the takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a group that monitors verified arrests and deaths in Myanmar. Over 11,775 have been arrested, according to the group.
Since her husband’s death, Khine has started working at a garment factory, earning $3 a day. Unable to afford their old apartment after the loss of her husband’s income, the family has moved into a small room. She worries about being able to provide for her children and their mental health.
“My eldest daughter is becoming traumatized,” said Khine. “She often says, ‘My friends have their fathers, but I don’t.’”
___
THE DISPLACED: “FLEEING THE WAR IS EXHAUSTING”
Bomb blasts, gunfire and artillery shelling have followed 63-year-old Mee at every shelter she’s been forced to flee to over the past year.
She first had to flee to a camp for the displaced after fighting broke out near her village in eastern Myanmar. A month later, the camp was no longer safe, and the medicine she needed for her heart disease and hypertension wasn’t available. With nowhere else to go, Mee moved to a relative’s house.
“While we were there, gunfire was heard,” Mee told the AP by phone “We decided not to run away, even if we died, because fleeing the war is exhausting.”
Not long after, the area near her relative’s house was bombed, and she had to move once more. For now, Mee shares a small barn with 15 other people, all of them displaced. She has enough medicine only for two months and is concerned about the future of her family and the country.
As of Jan. 17, the U.N. refugee agency estimates the number of the displaced since the army takeover at 405,700. Another 32,000 have fled to neighboring countries.
“I am worried and tired every day,” Mee said. “For now, my hope is that I just want to see peace and calm. Then, I want to go back to my house.”
___
THE SURGEON: “LIVES HAVE TO BE SACRIFICED”
Before the military seized power, the 28 year-old assistant surgeon was studying for his exams to become a specialist. He lived with his family and would take pride in treating patients at the hospital he worked at in a major city.
On the morning of the takeover, he went to work, seeing military vehicles on the roads and helicopters overhead. The phones and internet were cut. Stepping into the hospital, he learned the military had detained the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
The next day, he and other health care workers in state-run hospitals quit, sparking what would become known as the Civil Disobedience Movement.
“After the military coup, we no longer wanted to work under them. We believed all the health sectors will have no progress under the military,” he told the AP by phone.
Myanmar has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for health care workers, according to Physicians for Human Rights. It said 30 health workers were killed and 286 arrested between the takeover and Jan. 10.
Seeing his colleagues getting arrested, the surgeon fled to an area controlled by an armed opposition group. He has worked in makeshift clinics made of tents in camps for four months, treating people with general illnesses and those wounded by military shelling and land mines.
Medicine is hard to find, with security forces arresting anyone transporting medication.
“We have to carry medicine secretly. That’s why it takes about a month for medicine to arrive,” he said. “Even if cars are carrying paracetamol or something like that, they’re arrested.”
The surgeon still dreams of being able to return home to take the exams for a specialist.
“But dreams and reality are different,” he said. “The people are suffering from the oppression of the military council. Lives have to be sacrificed for the revolution.”
___
THE JOURNALIST: “WE DARE NOT TAKE OUT OUR CAMERAS”
The videographer knew journalists had to show the world what was happening in Myanmar. Setting aside their anger and sadness about the military takeover, they went to the streets to document protests and brutal crackdowns with their phones day after day.
“We dare not take out our cameras” for fear of arrest, the videographer told the AP by phone. “Things are getting worse.”
Facing increasing threats, many of the videographer’s colleagues fled to the jungle to join armed resistance groups. Others have been arrested. By Dec. 1, more journalists were arrested in Myanmar than every country in the world except China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least two journalists have been killed and others tortured while in detention, the group said.
Yet the videographer continues to work, realizing that any report could be the last one.
“I’m working like an underground journalist,” the videographer said. “In case of an emergency, I have prepared a bag if I need to run.”
Despite the threats, the journalist has no intention of leaving the country.
“The international community only knows about the military’s atrocities through the media,” the videographer said. “But I will continue to do this work until I can’t do it. If the security forces chase and catch me — let them.”
___
THE FIGHTER: “I DECIDED I WOULD TAKE UP ARMS”
After watching fellow peaceful protesters get shot in the head by military forces, the 47 year-old made a decision.
“I decided I would take up arms, and I started looking for options to actually do so,” he said.
His protests had started peacefully. After the military takeover, he began organizing rallies in Yangon. But as the weeks passed, he knew his safety was in jeopardy.
“I stopped living in my apartment,” he said. “I also had to ask my family to leave that apartment to a secret location so that (the military) could not harm them.”
But when the protests turned deadly, he realized he wanted to take a step further.
“I never thought I would find myself involved in a struggle,” he told the AP by phone.
The man is just one of thousands of people in Myanmar who have joined loose-knit guerilla groups called People’s Defense Forces. Some have forged alliances with armed ethnic groups that have been at war with Myanmar military for decades, while others have pledged allegiance to the opposition National Unity Government, a parallel administration that declared a “defensive war” against the military in September.
Before the takeover, the man enjoyed going to restaurants with his family, shopping trips to the mall and spending time with his children in their home when he wasn’t working at a nongovernment organization involved in the decades-long peace process.
His days are now spent on missions he is hesitant to speak about for security reasons. He lives in an area of a jungle controlled by an armed ethnic group, carrying multiple weapons wherever he goes. He and his comrades forage for whatever they can to survive and sleep in hammocks strung between trees.
“The life I enjoyed is no longer available,” he said.
The man said he is frustrated by the international community’s lack of response, and that the people of Myanmar have had to take matters into their own hands.
“We have the right to use violence to defend ourselves while the international community stands by.”
No peace in Myanmar 1 year after military takeover
By GRANT PECK
By GRANT PECK
January 29, 2022 GMT
PHOTOS 1 of 9
BANGKOK (AP) — The army takeover in Myanmar a year ago that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi not only unexpectedly aborted the country’s fledgling return to democracy. It also brought a surprising level of popular resistance, which has blossomed into a low-level but persistent insurgency.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of Myanmar’s military — known as the Tatmadaw — seized power on the morning of Feb. 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and top members of her government and ruling National League for Democracy party, which won a landslide election victory in November 2020.
The military’s use of deadly force to hold on to power has escalated conflict with its civilian opponents to the point that some experts describe the country as being in a state of civil war.
The costs have been high, with some 1,500 people killed by the security forces, almost 8,800 detained, an unknown number tortured and disappeared, and more than 300,000 displaced as the military razes villages to root out resistance.
Other consequences are also significant. Civil disobedience hampered transport, banking services and government agencies, slowing an economy already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. The public health system collapsed, leaving the fight against COVID-19 abandoned for months. Higher education stalled as faculty and students sympathetic to the revolt boycotted school, or were arrested.
The military-installed government was not at all anticipating the level of resistance that arose, Thomas Kean, an analyst of Myanmar affairs consulting for the International Crisis Group think tank, told The Associated Press.
“We saw in the first days after the coup, they tried to adopt a sort of business-as-usual approach,” with the generals denying they were implementing any significant change, but only removing Suu Kyi from power, he said.
“And of course, you know, that unleashed these huge protests that were brutally crushed, which resulted in people turning to armed struggle.”
The army has dealt with the revolt by employing the same brutal tactics in the country’s rural heartland that it has long unleashed against ethnic minorities in border areas, which critics have charged amount to crimes against humanity and genocide.
Its violence has generated newfound empathy for ethnic minorities such as the Karen, the Kachin and the Rohingya, longtime targets of army abuses with whom members of the Burman majority now are making common anti-military cause.
People opposed the army takeover because they had come to enjoy representative government and liberalization after years of military rule, said David Steinberg, a senior scholar of Asian Studies at Georgetown University.
Youth turned out in droves to protest despite the risks, he said, because they had neither families nor careers to lose, but saw their futures at risk.
They also enjoyed tactical advantages that previous generations of protesters lacked, he noted. Myanmar had caught up with the rest of the world in technology, and people were able to organize strikes and demonstrations using cellphones and the internet, despite efforts to limit communications.
A driving force was the Civil Disobedience Movement, founded by health care workers, which encouraged actions such as boycotts of military products and people not paying electricity bills or buying lottery tickets.
Kept in detention by the military, Suu Kyi has played no active part in these developments.
The ruling generals, who have said they will probably hold a new election by 2023, have tied her up with a variety of criminal charges widely seen as trumped-up to keep her from returning to political life. The 76-year-old Suu Kyi has already been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, with the prospect of many more being added.
But in the days after the army’s takeover, her party’s elected members of parliament laid the groundwork for sustained resistance. Prevented by the army from taking their seats, they convened on their own, and in April established the National Unity Government, or NUG, which stakes a claim to being the country’s legitimate administrative body and has won the loyalty of many citizens.
The NUG has also sought to coordinate armed resistance, helping organize “People’s Defense Forces,” or PDFs, homegrown militias formed at the local and neighborhood levels. The military deems the NUG and the PDFs “terrorist” organizations.
With urban demonstrations mostly reduced to flash mobs to avoid crackdowns, the battle against military rule has largely passed to the countryside, where the badly outgunned local militias carry out guerrilla warfare.
The army’s “Four Cuts” strategy aims to eradicate the militias’ threat by cutting off their access to food, funds, information and recruitment. Civilians suffer collateral damage as soldiers block essential supplies, take away suspected militia supporters and raze whole villages.
When the military enters a village, “they’ll burn down some houses, maybe shoot some people, take prisoners and torture them — the sort of horrific abuses that we’re seeing on a regular basis,” said analyst Kean.
“But when the soldiers leave, they lose control of that area. They don’t have enough manpower to maintain control when 80% to 90% of the population is against them.”
Some ethnic minority groups with decades of experience fighting the Myanmar military offer critical support to the PDF militia movement, including supplying training and some weapons, while also providing safe havens for opposition activists and others fleeing the army.
“We never accept a coup at all for whatever reason. The position of our organization is clear,” Padoh Saw Taw Nee, the chief of the Karen National Union’s foreign affairs department, told the AP. “We oppose any military dictatorship. Therefore, the automatic response is that we must work with those who oppose the military.”
He said his group began preparing immediately after the takeover to receive people fleeing from military persecution and noted that it played a similar role in 1988 after a failed popular uprising.
There is a quid pro quo — the NUG says it will honor the minority ethnic groups’ demands for greater autonomy when it takes power.
The military, meanwhile, keeps the pressure on the Karen with periodic attacks, including by air, that send villagers fleeing for safety across a river that forms the border with Thailand.
The support of the ethnic groups is seen as key to sustaining the resistance, the thought being that as long as they can engage the army, its forces will be too stretched to finish off the PDFs.
No other factors are seen as capable of tilting the balance in favor of the military or the resistance.
Sanctions on the ruling generals can make them uncomfortable — U.S. actions, especially, have caused financial distress — but Russia and China have been reliable allies, especially willing to sell arms. The U.N. and organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are seen as toothless at best.
“I see the stage sort of set for a prolonged conflict. Neither side seems willing to back down or sees it as in their interest or a necessity to back down or to make concessions in any way to the other,” said analyst Kean.
“And so it’s just very difficult to see how the conflict will diminish, will reduce in the near term, even over a period of several years. It’s just very difficult to see peace returning to many areas of Myanmar.”
——-
Associated Press video editor Jerry Harmer contributed to this report.
PHOTOS 1 of 9
The army takeover in Myanmar a year ago that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi brought a shocking end to the effort to restore democratic rule in the Southeast Asian country after decades of military rule. But at least as surprising has been the level of popular resistance to the seizure of power, which has blossomed into an insurgency that raises the specter of a protracted civil war.
BANGKOK (AP) — The army takeover in Myanmar a year ago that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi not only unexpectedly aborted the country’s fledgling return to democracy. It also brought a surprising level of popular resistance, which has blossomed into a low-level but persistent insurgency.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of Myanmar’s military — known as the Tatmadaw — seized power on the morning of Feb. 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and top members of her government and ruling National League for Democracy party, which won a landslide election victory in November 2020.
The military’s use of deadly force to hold on to power has escalated conflict with its civilian opponents to the point that some experts describe the country as being in a state of civil war.
The costs have been high, with some 1,500 people killed by the security forces, almost 8,800 detained, an unknown number tortured and disappeared, and more than 300,000 displaced as the military razes villages to root out resistance.
Other consequences are also significant. Civil disobedience hampered transport, banking services and government agencies, slowing an economy already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. The public health system collapsed, leaving the fight against COVID-19 abandoned for months. Higher education stalled as faculty and students sympathetic to the revolt boycotted school, or were arrested.
The military-installed government was not at all anticipating the level of resistance that arose, Thomas Kean, an analyst of Myanmar affairs consulting for the International Crisis Group think tank, told The Associated Press.
“We saw in the first days after the coup, they tried to adopt a sort of business-as-usual approach,” with the generals denying they were implementing any significant change, but only removing Suu Kyi from power, he said.
“And of course, you know, that unleashed these huge protests that were brutally crushed, which resulted in people turning to armed struggle.”
The army has dealt with the revolt by employing the same brutal tactics in the country’s rural heartland that it has long unleashed against ethnic minorities in border areas, which critics have charged amount to crimes against humanity and genocide.
Its violence has generated newfound empathy for ethnic minorities such as the Karen, the Kachin and the Rohingya, longtime targets of army abuses with whom members of the Burman majority now are making common anti-military cause.
People opposed the army takeover because they had come to enjoy representative government and liberalization after years of military rule, said David Steinberg, a senior scholar of Asian Studies at Georgetown University.
Youth turned out in droves to protest despite the risks, he said, because they had neither families nor careers to lose, but saw their futures at risk.
They also enjoyed tactical advantages that previous generations of protesters lacked, he noted. Myanmar had caught up with the rest of the world in technology, and people were able to organize strikes and demonstrations using cellphones and the internet, despite efforts to limit communications.
A driving force was the Civil Disobedience Movement, founded by health care workers, which encouraged actions such as boycotts of military products and people not paying electricity bills or buying lottery tickets.
Kept in detention by the military, Suu Kyi has played no active part in these developments.
The ruling generals, who have said they will probably hold a new election by 2023, have tied her up with a variety of criminal charges widely seen as trumped-up to keep her from returning to political life. The 76-year-old Suu Kyi has already been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, with the prospect of many more being added.
But in the days after the army’s takeover, her party’s elected members of parliament laid the groundwork for sustained resistance. Prevented by the army from taking their seats, they convened on their own, and in April established the National Unity Government, or NUG, which stakes a claim to being the country’s legitimate administrative body and has won the loyalty of many citizens.
The NUG has also sought to coordinate armed resistance, helping organize “People’s Defense Forces,” or PDFs, homegrown militias formed at the local and neighborhood levels. The military deems the NUG and the PDFs “terrorist” organizations.
With urban demonstrations mostly reduced to flash mobs to avoid crackdowns, the battle against military rule has largely passed to the countryside, where the badly outgunned local militias carry out guerrilla warfare.
The army’s “Four Cuts” strategy aims to eradicate the militias’ threat by cutting off their access to food, funds, information and recruitment. Civilians suffer collateral damage as soldiers block essential supplies, take away suspected militia supporters and raze whole villages.
When the military enters a village, “they’ll burn down some houses, maybe shoot some people, take prisoners and torture them — the sort of horrific abuses that we’re seeing on a regular basis,” said analyst Kean.
“But when the soldiers leave, they lose control of that area. They don’t have enough manpower to maintain control when 80% to 90% of the population is against them.”
Some ethnic minority groups with decades of experience fighting the Myanmar military offer critical support to the PDF militia movement, including supplying training and some weapons, while also providing safe havens for opposition activists and others fleeing the army.
“We never accept a coup at all for whatever reason. The position of our organization is clear,” Padoh Saw Taw Nee, the chief of the Karen National Union’s foreign affairs department, told the AP. “We oppose any military dictatorship. Therefore, the automatic response is that we must work with those who oppose the military.”
He said his group began preparing immediately after the takeover to receive people fleeing from military persecution and noted that it played a similar role in 1988 after a failed popular uprising.
There is a quid pro quo — the NUG says it will honor the minority ethnic groups’ demands for greater autonomy when it takes power.
The military, meanwhile, keeps the pressure on the Karen with periodic attacks, including by air, that send villagers fleeing for safety across a river that forms the border with Thailand.
The support of the ethnic groups is seen as key to sustaining the resistance, the thought being that as long as they can engage the army, its forces will be too stretched to finish off the PDFs.
No other factors are seen as capable of tilting the balance in favor of the military or the resistance.
Sanctions on the ruling generals can make them uncomfortable — U.S. actions, especially, have caused financial distress — but Russia and China have been reliable allies, especially willing to sell arms. The U.N. and organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are seen as toothless at best.
“I see the stage sort of set for a prolonged conflict. Neither side seems willing to back down or sees it as in their interest or a necessity to back down or to make concessions in any way to the other,” said analyst Kean.
“And so it’s just very difficult to see how the conflict will diminish, will reduce in the near term, even over a period of several years. It’s just very difficult to see peace returning to many areas of Myanmar.”
——-
Associated Press video editor Jerry Harmer contributed to this report.
U.N. human rights chief calls on Myanmar to restore civilian rule
Armed anti-riot police stand guard as demonstrators flash the three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance, during a protest against the military, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Photo by Stringer/EPA-EFE
Jan. 29 (UPI) -- As the one-year anniversary of the Myanmar coup nears, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is urging the international community to pressure the country to return to civilian rule.
"I urge governments -- in the region and beyond -- as well as businesses, to listen to this plea," Bachelet said in her appeal to the international community Friday. "It is time for urgent, renewed effort to restore human rights and democracy in Myanmar and ensure the perpetrators of systemic human rights violations and abuses are held to account."
Since the Feb. 1 coup, the military's effort "to crush dissent has led to the killing of at least 1,500 people," she added.
The U.N. Human Rights Office has also documented daily human rights violations.
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At least 11,787 people have been arbitrarily detained for peacefully protesting the coup, with 8,729 remaining in custody, and at least 290 dying in detention, many likely due to torture, according to the U.N. figures.
The U.N. office has also documented village burnings, including places of worship and medical clinics, mass arrests, summary executions and use of torture, amid "assumed support of armed elements," in clashes between civilian militant groups and military forces.
Areas of highest intense military activity include the Sagaing region, and Chin, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states, according to Bachelet's address, which noted that the U.N. human rights office would publish a report in March detailing the human rights situation since the coup.
RELATED Military court sentences deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 4 more years in prison
While the coup has drawn near universal condemnation, Bachelet said the response has been "ineffectual and lacks a sense of urgency commensurate to the magnitude of the crisis."
Bachelet added that the current human rights crisis was "built upon the impunity with which the military leadership perpetrated the shocking campaign of violence resulting in gross human rights violations against the Rohingya communities of Myanmar four years ago -- and other ethnic minorities over many decades beforehand."
"As long as impunity prevails, stability in Myanmar will be a fiction," Bachelet said. "Accountability of the military remains crucial to any solution going forward -- the people overwhelmingly demand this."
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The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the crisis from the coup with projections that nearly half of the population of 54 million may be driven into poverty this year.
"Members of Myanmar civil society have told me first-hand what the impact of the last year has been on their lives and those of their families and communities," Bachelet said. "The people have shown extraordinary courage and resilience in standing up for their basic human rights and support each other. Now the international community must show its resolve to support them through concrete actions to end this crisis."
The Myanmar military took over the government and detained its civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other high-ranking democratically elected officials, in the coup.
Suu Kyi was sentenced earlier this month to an additional four years in prison for illegally possessing walkie-talkies and violating COVID-19 health restrictions. She was also given a four-year sentence last month on a different pair of convictions, a term that was later reduced to two years.
Protesters have demanded that Suu Kyi be released along with other members of the National League for Democracy Party.
The military, also known as the Tatmadaw, made unsubstantiated claims of fraud after November 2020 general elections, in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide over the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, picking up 396 of the 476 contested seats in parliament.
The country's election committee, independent observers, and numerous Western nations, have refuted the claims of election fraud.
Armed anti-riot police stand guard as demonstrators flash the three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance, during a protest against the military, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Photo by Stringer/EPA-EFE
Jan. 29 (UPI) -- As the one-year anniversary of the Myanmar coup nears, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is urging the international community to pressure the country to return to civilian rule.
"I urge governments -- in the region and beyond -- as well as businesses, to listen to this plea," Bachelet said in her appeal to the international community Friday. "It is time for urgent, renewed effort to restore human rights and democracy in Myanmar and ensure the perpetrators of systemic human rights violations and abuses are held to account."
Since the Feb. 1 coup, the military's effort "to crush dissent has led to the killing of at least 1,500 people," she added.
The U.N. Human Rights Office has also documented daily human rights violations.
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At least 11,787 people have been arbitrarily detained for peacefully protesting the coup, with 8,729 remaining in custody, and at least 290 dying in detention, many likely due to torture, according to the U.N. figures.
The U.N. office has also documented village burnings, including places of worship and medical clinics, mass arrests, summary executions and use of torture, amid "assumed support of armed elements," in clashes between civilian militant groups and military forces.
Areas of highest intense military activity include the Sagaing region, and Chin, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states, according to Bachelet's address, which noted that the U.N. human rights office would publish a report in March detailing the human rights situation since the coup.
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While the coup has drawn near universal condemnation, Bachelet said the response has been "ineffectual and lacks a sense of urgency commensurate to the magnitude of the crisis."
Bachelet added that the current human rights crisis was "built upon the impunity with which the military leadership perpetrated the shocking campaign of violence resulting in gross human rights violations against the Rohingya communities of Myanmar four years ago -- and other ethnic minorities over many decades beforehand."
"As long as impunity prevails, stability in Myanmar will be a fiction," Bachelet said. "Accountability of the military remains crucial to any solution going forward -- the people overwhelmingly demand this."
RELATED Aid group says 2 workers among adults and children killed in Myanmar on Christmas Eve
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the crisis from the coup with projections that nearly half of the population of 54 million may be driven into poverty this year.
"Members of Myanmar civil society have told me first-hand what the impact of the last year has been on their lives and those of their families and communities," Bachelet said. "The people have shown extraordinary courage and resilience in standing up for their basic human rights and support each other. Now the international community must show its resolve to support them through concrete actions to end this crisis."
The Myanmar military took over the government and detained its civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other high-ranking democratically elected officials, in the coup.
Suu Kyi was sentenced earlier this month to an additional four years in prison for illegally possessing walkie-talkies and violating COVID-19 health restrictions. She was also given a four-year sentence last month on a different pair of convictions, a term that was later reduced to two years.
Protesters have demanded that Suu Kyi be released along with other members of the National League for Democracy Party.
The military, also known as the Tatmadaw, made unsubstantiated claims of fraud after November 2020 general elections, in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide over the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, picking up 396 of the 476 contested seats in parliament.
The country's election committee, independent observers, and numerous Western nations, have refuted the claims of election fraud.
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