The Militarization of Myanmar
As horrific scenes continue day and night throughout Myanmar, the lethal violence and atrocities committed by the Myanmar military are an all too familiar reality for ethnic peoples who have experienced decades of brutality by the same military under the previous successive military regimes, as well as during the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government.
Over the last weekend Myanmar saw one of the deadliest and darkest days in its history, with at least 74 people dead and hundreds more injured, many of these in the industrial Hlaing Tharyar Township in Yangon. Police and military personnel fired live ammunition carte blanche into crowds of peaceful protesters in an effort to terrorize them into submission and the weekend culminated in the full militarization of areas of Yangon, with the illegitimate junta imposing Martial Law in North Dagon, South Dagon, Dagon Seikkan, North Okkalapa, Hlaing Tharyar, Shwepyitha and five townships in Mandalay. The Orwellian-esque brutality knows no limits, with all out war being waged on the people of Myanmar exercising their opposition to the military regime. Scenes of extreme violence are continuing into the seventh week of the coup, such as a police officer killing an unarmed man collecting trash in Hlaing Tharyar the day after the crackdown, the barrel of the gun flush against his temple in an execution style murder. In Dawbon Township, security forces killed an unarmed protester, undressed and dragged him through the street without any consideration for his humanity. Additionally, reports of severe torture during detention, banning of media outlets, repeated internet blackouts and disabling mobile networks are all red flags that Myanmar is plunging back into fully fledged military rule intent on imposing suppression through a terror campaign against an unarmed civilian population. Meanwhile, conflict is ramping up in Karen and Kachin States between ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and the Myanmar military.
As horrific scenes continue day and night throughout Myanmar, the lethal violence and atrocities committed by the Myanmar military are an all too familiar reality for ethnic peoples who have experienced decades of brutality by the same military under the previous successive military regimes, as well as during the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government. Many of these people remain displaced in refugee camps along Myanmar’s borders with Thailand and Bangladesh, and as internally displaced persons throughout ethnic areas, unable to return and barely surviving on depleting foreign aid. Currently in Karen State, over 6,000 people have been internally displaced from their villages due to shelling and mortar attacks by the Myanmar military since early December 2020, seeking refuge and cover in makeshift camps in nearby forests.
The Myanmar military is seeking domain over Karen land to gain further control over and Burmanize Karen people, enrich themselves from natural resource extraction and development projects – including a roading infrastructure project through Karen farmland which is the catalyst for the recent outbreak of conflict. For Karen people protesting against the military coup, their concerns are multifaceted and go beyond the coup. In a recent statement by Salween Peace Park – in conjunction with a 3,200 person protest against the Myanmar military encroaching on their land – they call for the recognition of their self-determination, the end to a planned mega-dam project on the Salween River, the end to armed conflict and for the Myanmar military to withdraw from ethnic areas, end the coup, abolish the military-drafted 2008 Constitution and for the realization of a genuine federal democracy. In solidarity with protesters in Karen State, the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army has vowed to protect protesters exercising their rights.
Similarly in Kachin State, conflict has reignited in the past few months when the Myanmar military launched surprise operations in Brigade 4 in northern Shan State against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), after which heavy clashes have become a near daily occurrence. Most recently in Selzin village in Hpakant Township, the KIA attacked a Myanmar military base in retaliation to the military opening fire on anti-coup protesters. In response to this, the Myanmar military has launched airstrikes near IDP camps. Additionally, the Restoration Council of Shan State and the Myanmar military clashed on March 9 in Mong Nawng Township, southern Shan State. All of the abovementioned EAOs have declared their support for peaceful protesters against the junta.
While active conflict may have ceased between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military in Rakhine State, the aftermath of two years of fierce conflict is continually impacting ethnic and religious minority communities, such as the Rohingya, Rakhine, Chin, Kaman and Mro. Many are struggling to survive economic hardships, lack of access to livelihoods, landmines, COVID-19 and displacement, while the Rohingya are still being denied their identity and citizenship, face continued persecution and live in apartheid like conditions. Many Rohingya who have sought safe asylum in India and Malaysia have been deported back to Myanmar where a genocidal and tyrannical regime is intent on persecuting them. As highlighted in her oral statement to the 46th regular session to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), PV founder and chairperson, Khin Ohmar, reminded the HRC that impunity for the Rohingya genocide and grave atrocity crimes committed against other ethnic groups has precipitated the current crisis in Myanmar and thus must be at the forefront of any discussions on rejecting the military coup and moving towards democracy.
There are many calls from the ground within Myanmar for a coordinated and unified response from the UN and international community in order to help defeat the illegitimate military junta. The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), as the legitimate government for Myanmar’s people, has taken a central role in pushing back against the junta. The CRPH is echoing the voices from the ground, such as the Civil Disobedience Movement, Generation Z, General Strike committees and civil society organizations, to end the military junta, achieve fully fledged democracy and to rescind the 2008 military-drafted Constitution and write a new Constitution based on federalism. Building on this, the CRPH must come together with EAOs and ethnic political party leaders as equal partners, in forming policy to combat the military junta and develop a roadmap with a new vision for Myanmar that is inclusive and truly democratic. This must also include meaningful consultations with the Civil Disobedience Movement, Generation Z, General Strike committees and civil society organizations. The long standing and underlying root causes of the civil war, such as inequality and Burmanization policies, must be remedied to build trust, genuine national reconciliation, social cohesion and harmony, address the essential issues of justice and accountability including holding perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes to account, and recognizing the identity and restoration of Rohingas’ citizenship rights. Thus, ethnic and religious communities must not be lost in the crowd of voices – especially Rohingya and those that have been marginalized and persecuted by the same military throughout history, including under the NLD-led government. Coalitions must be formed in solidarity towards establishing a genuine and inclusive federal democracy and to defeat the illegitimate junta once and for all.
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[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.
Resources from the past week
Statements and Press Releases
Open Letter to Apparel Brands Sourcing From Myanmar: Ensure Protection of Worker Rights
By 40 Human Rights and Labor Rights Organizations
Announcement No 1/2021 by Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations
By Acting Union Minister of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations
By Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
သတင်းနှင့် ပြန်ကြားရေး ဗျူရို တိုးချဲ့ ဖွဲ့စည်းကြောင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်
By All Burma Federation of Student Unions
Letter to UN: Arbitary arrests of Rohingya refugees in India
By Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights
ADB Statement on New Developments in Myanmar
By Asian Development Bank
By Amnesty International
Burma Campaign UK Welcomes Korean Arms Embargo on Burma
By Burma Campaign UK
Violence and brutality Increase While the International community Fails to Protect Peaceful Protester, BHRN Condemns Military’s Persecution of Muslim NLD Members
By Burma Human Rights Network
BROUK calls for the immediate release of 150 Rohingya refugees detained by police in India
By Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
CPJ calls for immediate release of AP’s Thein Zaw, all other journalists detained in Myanmar
By Committee to Protect Journalists
ခေတ္တ ဒုတိယသမ္မတ ခန့်အပ်တာဝန်ပေးခြင်း, စစ်ကောင်စီကို တရားစွဲဆိုရန် ဥပဒေအကြံပေး ငှားရမ်း,
By Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw
International Partners Must End all Cooperation with the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission
By CSO Working Group on MNHRC Reform and 56 Local and Regional CSOs and Networks
Leading MEPs on latest developments in Myanmar, 9 March 2021
By European Parliament
Arbitrary Detention of Rohingya Refugees in Jammu and Kashmir
By European Rohingya Council
By Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development
Global Witness response to military crackdown on independent Myanmar media outlets
By Global Witness
သပိတ်တိုက်ပွဲဝင် လူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံပြည်သူလူထုကြီးသို့ပန်ကြား၊ အကြံပြုလွှာ ကြေငြာချက်အမှတ် ၆/၂၀၂၁
By General Strike Committee
ရှေ့ဆက်ခရီးလမ်း – အလွှာပေါင်းစုံဖိနှိပ်မှုများ ဆုံရပ်တော်လှန်ရေးမှ လွတ်လပ်သောအနာဂတ်ဆီသို့
By General Strike Committee of Nationalities
Myanmar: Urgently Investigate NLD Official’s Death in Custody
Myanmar: Facial Recognition System Threatens Rights
By Human Rights Watch
By International Campaign for the Rohingya
Myanmar: More journalists detained, media offices raided in Yangon
By International Federation of Journalists
By India Representative
Myanmar military-controlled businesses & associates that require targeted sanctions
By Justice for Myanmar
Condemnation of Attack on Freedom of Press
By Karen Human Rights Group
KWO Statement on International Women’s Day “Choose to Challenge”
By Karen Women’s Organization
International Day of Action for Rivers and Against Dams
By Karen Rivers Watch
Statement on Karenni National Women’s Organisation’s 28th Anniversary
By Karenni National Women Organization
Korean Government’s Measures on Situation in Myanmar
By Korean (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Junta Terrorists, Beyound Condemnation from the Youths
By Milk Tea Alliance Indonesia
By Peace Process Steering Team
Southeast Asian Women Stand with Myanmar for Freedom and Democracy
By Southeast Asian Women’s Watch
By Special Advisory Council for Myanmar
Statement on the situation in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, 11 March 2021
By Thailand (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Statement on International Women’s Day 2021
By United Nations Myanmar
By United Nations Security Council
Statement by Thomas H. Andrewsy, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar
By UN Human Rights Council
By UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar
Statement by the President of the Security Council on Myanmar, March 10, 2021
By United States Mission to the United Nations
By UN Women
United States Targets Family Members Profiting from Connection to Burmese Coup Leader
By U.S. Department of the Treasury
Promoting Accountability and Responding to Violence against Protestors in Burma
By U.S. Embassy in Burma
Women Challenge Military Dictatorship
By Women’s League of Burma
Myanmar Women Human Rights defenders sent appeal letter to Global Women Leaders
By WLB, GEN, WON, CAM and AGIPP
By မြန်မာ့အမျိုးသမီးသမဂ္ဂနှင့် အလုပ်သမားအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ
Reports
Myanmar Situation Update (1-7 March 2021)
By Asian Network for Free Elections
AAPPs February Report Burma’s Spring Uprising
By Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Daily Briefing, Detention and Fatality Lists (8 March 2021, 9 March 2021, 10 March 2021, 11 March 2021, 12March 2021, 13 March 2021, 14 March 2021)
By By Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
By ALTSEAN-Burma
TIMELINE: Post-Coup Situation Updates on Political Developments in Myanmar’s Chin State
By Chin Human Rights Organization
Undermining Freedom of Expression Amid the Myanmar Coup
Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thomas H. Andrews
By UN Human Rights Council 46th session
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Actions in Response to the Coup in Burma
By U.S. (the White House)
Progressive Voice is a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 transitioning to a rights-based policy research and advocacy organization called Progressive Voice. For further information, please see our press release “Burma Partnership Celebrates Continuing Regional Solidarity for Burma and Embraces the Work Ahead for Progressive Voice.”
