Starving Myanmar for War
“Neither myself nor the people in Myanmar lose hope in our resistance. We are resolute to end the military dictatorship and build a federal democratic union.”
As the Myanmar military junta faces significant setbacks on both military and economic fronts, its attempts to grip on to power persist through a relentless campaign of force and violence against civilians. This has plunged the country into economic turmoil, worsening people’s financial burdens and struggles to meet their basic needs, which in turn further exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
Myanmar’s economy has nosedived from erratic measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Myanmar military’s violence since the failed coup attempt and its blocking of local communities’ support to the people’s revolution. As the military junta desperately seeks hard currency to fund its campaign of terror, including purchasing supplies such as weapons, gas, and aviation fuel, it has been dragging the entire population into deeper poverty and plunging the country into economic turmoil. Inflation is soaring, the national currency is depreciating, and the cost of living has skyrocketed, intensifying the daily struggle of the Myanmar people to meet their basic needs.
In the latest in a series of arbitrary measures to control commodity prices, the junta has imposed price ceilings on rice, setting the retail price at 70,000 Myanmar Kyats (approximately USD 15) for a 48-kilogram sack of standard rice. To enforce this, the junta cracked down on rice traders at the end of June, including inspections of shopping malls and outlets in Yangon. Rice business executives, wholesalers, and warehouse staff were among those arrested. Eleven businesspeople, including a Japanese national, were sentenced to three years in prison for alleged price gouging, while additional 24 executives face fines and increased taxes. Similar methods taken last August also caused turmoil, as the junta failed to offset surging prices.
In addition, the junta has imposed fixed prices for gold, and intensified its crackdown by arresting 21 gold merchants accusing them of destabilizing the market. The junta also announced plans to prosecute 10 other prominent gold dealers in Yangon and Mandalay Regions. Since late May, several gold shops have therefore either closed temporarily or ceased trading altogether in response to the junta’s invasive crackdown on the gold market.
Facing a foreign currency shortage, over the past two weeks the junta has frozen 39 bank accounts linked to “hundi” cash transfer services, which are widely relied on by migrant workers. This is in addition to the junta’s order of mandatory remittance last September, requiring overseas workers to send 25% of their earnings back to Myanmar through junta-approved banks, which usually give lower exchange rates as part of the junta’s exploitation of Myanmar migrant workers to fund its war of terror.
The recent World Bank report highlighted that the junta’s measures aimed at balancing foreign exchange supply and demand by regulating official exchange rates have failed to alleviate persistent shortages of foreign currency. Rather, it seems the junta is putting on a full display how to destroy a country’s economy. The report also noted that prices continue to trend upwards, with the World Food Programme’s index indicating a 27 percent increase in food prices between October 2023 and April 2024, particularly affecting basic commodities such as rice, meat, edible oil, and vegetables.
These appalling figures are illustrating the dire struggle of Myanmar people to make ends meet, especially given that a daily wage of 5,800 Kyats (USD 2.76)—which has remained stagnant since the failed coup—is deplorable and insufficient to live compared to the soaring average food prices. The hardest hit is predominantly the lower-income population, bearing the brunt of this exploitation while struggling daily to survive amidst skyrocketing inflation, currency depreciation, and a doubling of food prices. To make matters worse, the junta arrested at least 10 business owners in Yangon for attempting to alleviate the living costs of their employees by increasing their salaries. During these times of hardship, adversity and emotional distress, mental health among the public in Myanmar is worryingly deteriorating, as evident in a surge in suicide rates after the coup attempt.
All measures taken by the junta are for the sole purpose of squeezing money out of every single individual in Myanmar. Not only is it to accumulate wealth among the military and their cronies’ circle, but also—and most prominently— it is to fund its war of terror and aggravate collective punishment against people’s resistance movement across Myanmar.
Despite living in extremely impoverished conditions and starvation, compounded by the junta’s violence, the Myanmar people remain resolute to build a new Myanmar with a system that guarantees social security, equality, justice, and freedom from economic ruin. As Ambassador U Kyaw Moe Tun reiterated, “Neither myself nor the people in Myanmar lose hope in our resistance. We are resolute to end the military dictatorship and build a federal democratic union.”
The international community must rally behind the Myanmar people and their efforts to end the crisis and suffering inflicted by the junta and build a new Myanmar by taking urgent and decisive action. This includes coordinating new targeted sanctions and robust enforcement of imposed sanctions; ending relationships with Myanmar’s military-controlled financial institutions, and junta-affiliated businesses and individuals; as well as conducting investigations into entities involved in the weapons trade, as reported by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. Cycles of Myanmar military violence, tyranny, and impunity must come to an end for the Myanmar people to ensure justice and accountability, and to build a federal democracy that protects their rights, freedom, dignity, and livelihood.
[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
By 89 Civil Society Organizations
By 89 Civil Society Organizations
By 228 Organizations
Myanmar: Promised investigation into senior monk’s shooting must actually take place
By Amnesty International
By Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Former Political Prisoners, Political Prisoners Network – Myanmar, Women Organization for Political Prisoners, Karenni Political Prisoners Association, Eat My Heart, ထောင်ဝင်စာပို့ကြမယ်, နွေဉီးတမန်နိုင်ကျဉ်းကူညီထောက်ပံ့ရေးအဖွဲ့
Joint Statement on the Unlawful Treatment of Female Political Prisoners by Daik-U Prison Authority
By Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Former Political Prisoners, Political Prisoners Network – Myanmar, Women Organization for Political Prisoners, Karenni Political Prisoners Association, Eat My Heart, ထောင်ဝင်စာပို့ကြမယ်, နွေဉီးတမန်နိုင်ကျဉ်းကူညီထောက်ပံ့ရေးအဖွဲ့
New Report: The Intensifying Rohingya Genocide
By Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
Argentine Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrants for Rohingya Genocide
By Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
By Human Rights Foundation of Monland
Myanmar: Junta Evading International Sanctions
By Human Rights Watch
ကရင်နီအမျိုးသမီးအစည်းအရုံး (KNWO) ၏ သမိုင်းကြောင်း
By Karenni National Women’s Organization
MSF suspends medical activities in northern Rakhine state, Myanmar
By Médecins Sans Frontières
On Pride Month: LGBTQIA+ asserts genuine liberation; vow to strengthen solidarity
By Milk Tea Alliance -Friends of Myanmar
By Myanmar Campaign Network
Australian and US Sanctions on Myanmar Banks Proving Effective, Yet Critical Gaps Remain
By Myanmar Campaign Network
By UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
By United States Mission to the United Nations
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ WFP ၏ သိုလှောင်ရုံအား ဖောက်ထွင်းလုယက်ခြင်းနှင့် မီးရှို့ခြင်းအပေါ် ရှုတ်ချခြင်း
By World Food Programme
WFP condemns looting and burning of its warehouse in Myanmar
By World Food Programme
Reports
The Intensifying Rohingya Genocide
By Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
June 2024 Bulletin of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
By Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ လွတ်လပ်သော စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးမှုယန္တရား၏ ဇွန်လထုတ် သတင်းလွှာ
By Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
Banking on the Death Trade: How Banks and Governments Enable the Military Junta in Myanmar
By UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar
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.”
