By GRANT PECK and JERRY HARMER
February 1, 2023
7 of 15
Anti-coup protesters hold up signs as they march in Mandalay, Myanmar Sunday, March 14, 2021. The prospects for peace in Myanmar, much less a return to democracy, seem dimmer than ever two years after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, experts say.
BANGKOK (AP) — The prospects for peace in Myanmar, much less a return to democracy, seem dimmer than ever two years after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, experts say.
On Wednesday, legions of opponents of military rule heeded a call by protest organizers to stay home in what they termed a “silent strike” to show their strength and solidarity.
The opposition’s General Strike Coordination Body, formed soon after the 2021 takeover, urged people to stay inside their homes or workplaces from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Photos posted on social media showed empty streets in normally bustling downtown Yangon, the country’s largest city, with just a few vehicles on the roads, and there were reports of similar scenes elsewhere.
Small peaceful protests are an almost-daily occurrence throughout the country, but on the anniversary of the Feb. 1, 2021, seizure of power by the army, two points stand out: The amount of violence, especially in the countryside, has reached the level of civil war; and the grassroots movement opposing military rule has defied expectations by largely holding off the ruling generals.
The violence extends beyond the rural battlefields where the army is burning and bombing villages, displacing hundreds of thousands of people in what is a largely neglected humanitarian crisis. It also occurs in the cities, where activists are arrested and tortured and urban guerrillas retaliate with bombings and assassinations of targets linked to the military. The military, after closed trials, have also executed activists accused of “terrorism.”
According to the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a watchdog group that tracks killings and arrests, 2,940 civilians have been killed by the authorities since the army takeover, and another 17,572 have been arrested — 13,763 of whom remain detained. The actual death toll is likely to be much higher since the group does not generally include deaths on the side of the military government and cannot easily verify cases in remote areas.
“The level of violence involving both armed combatants and civilians is alarming and unexpected,” said Min Zaw Oo, a veteran political activist in exile who founded the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security.
“The scale of the killing and harm inflicted on civilians has been devastating, and unlike anything we have seen in the country in recent memory,” he said.
When the army ousted Suu Kyi in 2021, it arrested her and top members of her governing National League for Democracy party, which had won a landslide victory for a second term in a November 2020 general election. The military claimed it acted because there had been massive electoral fraud, a claim not backed up by objective election observers. Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military.
Shortly after the military seized power and quashed nonviolent protests with lethal force, thousands of young people slipped away to remote rural areas to become guerrilla fighters.
Operating in decentralized “People’s Defense Forces,” or PDFs, they are proving to be effective warriors, specializing in ambushes and occasionally overrunning isolated army and police posts. They have benefited greatly from supplies and training provided by the some of the country’s ethnic minority rebels — Ethnic Armed Organizations, or EAOs — who have been fighting the army for decades for greater autonomy.
“That’s not only a very brave thing to do. It’s a very difficult thing to do,” Richard Horsey, an independent analyst and adviser to the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press. “It’s a very challenging thing to do, to take on, you know, a military that’s been fighting counterinsurgency warfare (for) basically its whole existence.”
David Mathieson, an independent analyst with over 20 years’ experience in Myanmar, said the opposition’s combat capabilities are “a mixed picture in terms of battlefield performance, organization and unity amongst them.”
“But it’s also important to remember, two years in, that no one was predicting that they were actually going to be as effective as they are now. And in certain areas, the PDFs have been taking on the Myanmar military and, in many respects, besting them on the battlefield in terms of ambush and pitched battles, taking over bases.”
He says the military’s heavy weaponry and air power push the situation into a kind of a stalemate in which the PDFs are not necessarily taking over large swaths of territory, but fighting back and prevailing.
“So no one’s winning at the moment,” Mathieson said.
The military government of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has an advantage — not just in arms and trained manpower, but also in geography. Myanmar’s main neighbors — Thailand, China and India — have geopolitical and economic interests in Myanmar that leave them satisfied with the status quo, which largely secures its borders from becoming a major supply route for weapons and other supplies for the resistance. And while much of the world maintains sanctions against the generals and their government, they can rely on obtaining arms from Russia and China.
Min Aung Hlaing’s government is also nominally pursuing a political solution to the crisis it caused, most notably in its promise to hold a new election this year. Suu Kyi’s party has rejected taking part, deriding the polls as neither free nor fair, and other activists are employing more direct action, attacking teams from the military government who are conducting surveys to compile voter rolls.
“The regime is pushing for an election which the opposition has vowed to derail,” said Min Zaw Oo. “The election won’t change the political status quo; instead, it will intensify violence.”
The planned polls “are being run by a regime that overturned the popularly elected government. They are clearly being seen by the Myanmar people for what they are: a cynical effort to overwrite those previous election results that gave a landslide victory to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy, so these are not elections in any meaningful sense of the word,” Horsey said. “They have no legitimacy or credibility.”
In what amounted to an admission that it does not exercise enough control to stage the polls, the military government on Wednesday night announced it is further extending a state of emergency imposed when it seized power two years ago. That means, under Myanmar’s constitution, that it will be impossible to hold the election in August, a date that Min Aung Hlaing earlier said was under consideration.
State-run MRTV television said the state of emergency has been extended another six months because the country remains in an abnormal situation and time is needed to prepare for a peaceful and stable election. It did not offer a date for when the polls might be held.
On the diplomatic front, the military government has thumbed its nose at international efforts to defuse the crisis, even those from sympathetic fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose harshest response has been to not invite Myanmar’s top military leaders to its meetings.
Myanmar’s army government rejects virtually all efforts at peacemaking as interference in its internal affairs.
The resistance, by contrast, has actively reached out for international support. It won small new diplomatic victories Tuesday as the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada announced new sanctions meant to squeeze the military’s revenue and supply lines. The British and Canadian sanctions are especially noteworthy, as they target the supply of aviation fuel, a move activists have been seeking to counter the increasing number of airstrikes that pro-democracy forces and their allies in ethnic minority rebel groups have been facing in the field.
“Currently, both sides are not ready to seek a political solution,” said Min Zaw Oo. “The military stalemate won’t shift significantly this year, despite more deaths and violence.”
On Wednesday, legions of opponents of military rule heeded a call by protest organizers to stay home in what they termed a “silent strike” to show their strength and solidarity.
The opposition’s General Strike Coordination Body, formed soon after the 2021 takeover, urged people to stay inside their homes or workplaces from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Photos posted on social media showed empty streets in normally bustling downtown Yangon, the country’s largest city, with just a few vehicles on the roads, and there were reports of similar scenes elsewhere.
Small peaceful protests are an almost-daily occurrence throughout the country, but on the anniversary of the Feb. 1, 2021, seizure of power by the army, two points stand out: The amount of violence, especially in the countryside, has reached the level of civil war; and the grassroots movement opposing military rule has defied expectations by largely holding off the ruling generals.
The violence extends beyond the rural battlefields where the army is burning and bombing villages, displacing hundreds of thousands of people in what is a largely neglected humanitarian crisis. It also occurs in the cities, where activists are arrested and tortured and urban guerrillas retaliate with bombings and assassinations of targets linked to the military. The military, after closed trials, have also executed activists accused of “terrorism.”
According to the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a watchdog group that tracks killings and arrests, 2,940 civilians have been killed by the authorities since the army takeover, and another 17,572 have been arrested — 13,763 of whom remain detained. The actual death toll is likely to be much higher since the group does not generally include deaths on the side of the military government and cannot easily verify cases in remote areas.
“The level of violence involving both armed combatants and civilians is alarming and unexpected,” said Min Zaw Oo, a veteran political activist in exile who founded the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security.
“The scale of the killing and harm inflicted on civilians has been devastating, and unlike anything we have seen in the country in recent memory,” he said.
When the army ousted Suu Kyi in 2021, it arrested her and top members of her governing National League for Democracy party, which had won a landslide victory for a second term in a November 2020 general election. The military claimed it acted because there had been massive electoral fraud, a claim not backed up by objective election observers. Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military.
Shortly after the military seized power and quashed nonviolent protests with lethal force, thousands of young people slipped away to remote rural areas to become guerrilla fighters.
Operating in decentralized “People’s Defense Forces,” or PDFs, they are proving to be effective warriors, specializing in ambushes and occasionally overrunning isolated army and police posts. They have benefited greatly from supplies and training provided by the some of the country’s ethnic minority rebels — Ethnic Armed Organizations, or EAOs — who have been fighting the army for decades for greater autonomy.
“That’s not only a very brave thing to do. It’s a very difficult thing to do,” Richard Horsey, an independent analyst and adviser to the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press. “It’s a very challenging thing to do, to take on, you know, a military that’s been fighting counterinsurgency warfare (for) basically its whole existence.”
David Mathieson, an independent analyst with over 20 years’ experience in Myanmar, said the opposition’s combat capabilities are “a mixed picture in terms of battlefield performance, organization and unity amongst them.”
“But it’s also important to remember, two years in, that no one was predicting that they were actually going to be as effective as they are now. And in certain areas, the PDFs have been taking on the Myanmar military and, in many respects, besting them on the battlefield in terms of ambush and pitched battles, taking over bases.”
He says the military’s heavy weaponry and air power push the situation into a kind of a stalemate in which the PDFs are not necessarily taking over large swaths of territory, but fighting back and prevailing.
“So no one’s winning at the moment,” Mathieson said.
The military government of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has an advantage — not just in arms and trained manpower, but also in geography. Myanmar’s main neighbors — Thailand, China and India — have geopolitical and economic interests in Myanmar that leave them satisfied with the status quo, which largely secures its borders from becoming a major supply route for weapons and other supplies for the resistance. And while much of the world maintains sanctions against the generals and their government, they can rely on obtaining arms from Russia and China.
Min Aung Hlaing’s government is also nominally pursuing a political solution to the crisis it caused, most notably in its promise to hold a new election this year. Suu Kyi’s party has rejected taking part, deriding the polls as neither free nor fair, and other activists are employing more direct action, attacking teams from the military government who are conducting surveys to compile voter rolls.
“The regime is pushing for an election which the opposition has vowed to derail,” said Min Zaw Oo. “The election won’t change the political status quo; instead, it will intensify violence.”
The planned polls “are being run by a regime that overturned the popularly elected government. They are clearly being seen by the Myanmar people for what they are: a cynical effort to overwrite those previous election results that gave a landslide victory to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy, so these are not elections in any meaningful sense of the word,” Horsey said. “They have no legitimacy or credibility.”
In what amounted to an admission that it does not exercise enough control to stage the polls, the military government on Wednesday night announced it is further extending a state of emergency imposed when it seized power two years ago. That means, under Myanmar’s constitution, that it will be impossible to hold the election in August, a date that Min Aung Hlaing earlier said was under consideration.
State-run MRTV television said the state of emergency has been extended another six months because the country remains in an abnormal situation and time is needed to prepare for a peaceful and stable election. It did not offer a date for when the polls might be held.
On the diplomatic front, the military government has thumbed its nose at international efforts to defuse the crisis, even those from sympathetic fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose harshest response has been to not invite Myanmar’s top military leaders to its meetings.
Myanmar’s army government rejects virtually all efforts at peacemaking as interference in its internal affairs.
The resistance, by contrast, has actively reached out for international support. It won small new diplomatic victories Tuesday as the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada announced new sanctions meant to squeeze the military’s revenue and supply lines. The British and Canadian sanctions are especially noteworthy, as they target the supply of aviation fuel, a move activists have been seeking to counter the increasing number of airstrikes that pro-democracy forces and their allies in ethnic minority rebel groups have been facing in the field.
“Currently, both sides are not ready to seek a political solution,” said Min Zaw Oo. “The military stalemate won’t shift significantly this year, despite more deaths and violence.”
Myanmar extends state of emergency, delaying expected polls
By GRANT PECK
.png)
The constitution stipulates that to hold an election, the military has to transfer government functions to the president, who heads the NDSC, six months before the polls, which in the current case would mean Acting President Myint Swe, an army ally.
A spokesperson for the opposition’s underground National Unity Government, which acts as a shadow government opposed to army rule, said the extension was no surprise because they had expected the military would take some action to cement its control on the anniversary of its takeover.
Nay Phone Latt said in a text message that his group and its allies have the support of the public, whose determination will continue until “revolution” is achieved.
The military said its 2021 takeover was prompted by massive voting fraud in a November 2020 general election, though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory for a second term in the election, humiliating the military-backed opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party.
Critics say the military-planned election will be neither free nor fair because there is no free media and most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party have been arrested or gone into hiding or exile. Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military.
Last week, the military government enacted a new law on registration of political parties that makes it difficult for opposition groups to mount a serious challenge to army-backed candidates in a general election.
The National League for Democracy declared last November that it will not accept or recognize the military-planned election, which it described as “fake.” It said the polls are an attempt by the military to gain political legitimacy and international recognition.
Opposition militants have been attempting to disrupt preparations for the election by attacking personnel of the military government who are conducting a population survey that could be used to assemble voter rolls.
“Upon accomplishing the provisions of the state of emergency, free and fair elections will be held in line with the 2008 constitution, and further work will be undertaken to hand over state duties to the winning party in accordance with the democratic standards,” Min Aung Hlaing declared at a Jan. 4 celebration of Myanmar’s independence day in the capital, Naypyitaw,
By GRANT PECK
February 1, 2023
.png)
In this photo released from the The Military True News Information Team, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing talks during the National Defense and Security Council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Myanmar’s military government announced Wednesday that is extending a state of emergency originally imposed when it seized power two years ago, a move that appears to set back its plans for an election that had been expected in August.
(The Military True News Information Team via AP)
BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government announced Wednesday that is extending a state of emergency it imposed when it seized power two years ago, a move that appears to set back its plans for an election that had been expected in August.
The announcement on state-run MRTV television said the National Defense and Security Council, which met Tuesday, extended the state of emergency for another six months because the country remains in an abnormal situation and time is needed to prepare for a peaceful and stable election. The NDSC is nominally a constitutional administrative government body, but in practice is controlled by the military.
No exact date has been announced for the polls, though the head of the ruling military council, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has suggested they could be held in August. Wednesday’s report said the election will be held after accomplishing the provisions of the state of emergency.
The state of emergency allows the military to assume all government functions, giving Min Aung Hlaing legislative, judicial and executive powers.
The announcement, on the anniversary of the army’s seizure of power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, will be seen as an admission that the army has failed to quell widespread opposition to military rule, which includes increasingly challenging armed resistance as well as nonviolent protests and civil disobedience. State media said Tuesday’s NDSC meeting discussed how opposition groups are seeking to take power through “wrongful forcible means” including assassinations, bombings and destruction of state property.
BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government announced Wednesday that is extending a state of emergency it imposed when it seized power two years ago, a move that appears to set back its plans for an election that had been expected in August.
The announcement on state-run MRTV television said the National Defense and Security Council, which met Tuesday, extended the state of emergency for another six months because the country remains in an abnormal situation and time is needed to prepare for a peaceful and stable election. The NDSC is nominally a constitutional administrative government body, but in practice is controlled by the military.
No exact date has been announced for the polls, though the head of the ruling military council, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has suggested they could be held in August. Wednesday’s report said the election will be held after accomplishing the provisions of the state of emergency.
The state of emergency allows the military to assume all government functions, giving Min Aung Hlaing legislative, judicial and executive powers.
The announcement, on the anniversary of the army’s seizure of power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, will be seen as an admission that the army has failed to quell widespread opposition to military rule, which includes increasingly challenging armed resistance as well as nonviolent protests and civil disobedience. State media said Tuesday’s NDSC meeting discussed how opposition groups are seeking to take power through “wrongful forcible means” including assassinations, bombings and destruction of state property.
The constitution stipulates that to hold an election, the military has to transfer government functions to the president, who heads the NDSC, six months before the polls, which in the current case would mean Acting President Myint Swe, an army ally.
A spokesperson for the opposition’s underground National Unity Government, which acts as a shadow government opposed to army rule, said the extension was no surprise because they had expected the military would take some action to cement its control on the anniversary of its takeover.
Nay Phone Latt said in a text message that his group and its allies have the support of the public, whose determination will continue until “revolution” is achieved.
The military said its 2021 takeover was prompted by massive voting fraud in a November 2020 general election, though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory for a second term in the election, humiliating the military-backed opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party.
Critics say the military-planned election will be neither free nor fair because there is no free media and most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party have been arrested or gone into hiding or exile. Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military.
Last week, the military government enacted a new law on registration of political parties that makes it difficult for opposition groups to mount a serious challenge to army-backed candidates in a general election.
The National League for Democracy declared last November that it will not accept or recognize the military-planned election, which it described as “fake.” It said the polls are an attempt by the military to gain political legitimacy and international recognition.
Opposition militants have been attempting to disrupt preparations for the election by attacking personnel of the military government who are conducting a population survey that could be used to assemble voter rolls.
“Upon accomplishing the provisions of the state of emergency, free and fair elections will be held in line with the 2008 constitution, and further work will be undertaken to hand over state duties to the winning party in accordance with the democratic standards,” Min Aung Hlaing declared at a Jan. 4 celebration of Myanmar’s independence day in the capital, Naypyitaw,
No comments:
Post a Comment