Another Year of Revolution Brings More Gains and More Sacrifice
Given the ongoing grave human rights violations and atrocity crimes by the military, along with its decades-long brutality, which has only worsened since Min Aung Hlaing’s illegal coup attempt, the Myanmar people have made it crystal clear that the Myanmar military’s involvement in politics cannot continue and this murderous institution must be dismantled.
As 2024 comes to an end, the revolutionary forces in Myanmar have continued to grind down an increasingly desperate, demoralized, and brutal military junta. At the same time, the Myanmar people are building the new Myanmar from the ground up, expanding liberated areas and setting into place the building blocks of federal democracy with local administrations and public services, despite the junta’s campaign of terror against them. It is vital, therefore, that international actors do not follow China and ASEAN’s current approach in supporting the junta’s sham election plan – which will only keep Myanmar trapped in the cycles of the Myanmar military’s violence and extend the suffering of the Myanmar people. Rather, support to the democratic resistance actors is imperative to bring a swifter downfall of the murderous junta, and hasten the formation of a federal democracy and establish sustainable peace.
The military junta has continued to lose territory throughout the country in 2024. For the first time ever, a regional military command – Northeastern regional military command (RMC) in Lashio, northern Shan State, fell to the ethnic Kokang, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army – a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BHA). In other parts of Shan State, another 3BHA member, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, has taken control of key towns and territories, including the ruby-mining hub of Mogok. In Kachin State, the Kachin Independence Army has made dramatic gains, taking control of the lucrative rare earth elements mining areas from the junta ally, the New Democratic Army-Kachin. Much of Rakhine State is now in the hands of the Arakan Army, including the border area with Bangladesh and a second RMC in Ann Township. Earlier in 2024 saw the brief but symbolic liberation of the large border town of Myawaddy in Karen State, by the Karen National Union, whilst resistance forces in Chin, Karen, and Karenni States and Magwe, Sagaing, and Tanintharyi Regions continue to make gains, reclaiming and/or holding territory and establishing and strengthening administrations.
Put bluntly, 2024 is the year that the Myanmar military has seen some of the most dramatic and unprecedented battlefield losses in its history of terrorizing people. In its desperation, it has succumbed to forcibly conscripting young men and women to send to the frontlines to try and block resistance victories. This has led to even more people fleeing the country or joining the resistance movement instead. Meanwhile, the cash-strapped junta is attempting to squeeze every last Kyat from migrant workers as it possibly can, placing exploitative policies on remittances in order to replenish their rapidly depleting reserves of foreign exchange.
Yet despite these clear signs of significant deterioration, the junta is stubborn in clinging on to what remains of its diminishing power. This is in no small part to its backers in the international community – particularly Russia and China. China has been pressuring the resistance forces to stop their offensives, giving technical and diplomatic support to the junta, and selling it weapons. Russia and India have also been major sources of weaponry, particularly the aircraft that the junta is increasingly using to bomb liberated towns and cities, while Vietnam has been a key supply node for the junta’s aviation fuel that enables its continued airstrikes on civilian areas. In this regard, China, Russia and some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are not only complicit but are aiding and abetting the junta’s atrocity crimes.
Added to this is Chinese and other regional support for the junta’s sham election – a deceptive exercise in self-preservation that it is hoping the international community will buy into. Nothing about this plan will bring peace or democracy to Myanmar. It is a clear attempt to stymie the revolutionary forces whilst neutralizing international criticism of its illegal attempted power grab and brutal violence.
What draws a clear line here is whether or not international actors have genuine political will to see durable peace in Myanmar. If they genuinely want to see durable peace in Myanmar, they must then lend support to the bottom-up local governance systems that are already manifest in liberated areas. In places such as Karenni State, the Interim Executive Council of Karenni State is practicing inclusive, participatory, and legitimate interim government by developing new institutions to integrate with previously existing forms of Karenni governance. In other parts of the country, interim governance bodies and consultative councils have emerged and established the building blocks of federal democracy. They are instituting grassroots governance and administration, working side-by-side with ethnic resistance organizations and their longstanding structures and functions of service provision and governance. While challenges remain inevitable, including the need for greater coordination among revolutionary leaders and for effective accountability mechanisms for those in the revolution that do commit human rights abuses, there is a political will among these forces to address such issues — a political will that has never existed and never will exist with the military junta and its sham election plan. Instead, its sham election plan will only be entrenching the military’s impunity and its reign of terror. Any solutions for the future must be people-led and people-centered, and necessarily exclude the Myanmar military.
Not only should international actors support these legitimate, bottom-up democratic bodies but they must do more to cut the flow of weapons to the junta. A global embargo on arms, aviation fuel, and dual-use goods to the Myanmar military, complete with coordinated and well-enforced targeted sanctions is imperative to at the least limit or ideally stop the junta’s ability to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. Additionally, the international aid community must take responsibility to stop the junta’s weaponization of humanitarian aid which is in violation of international humanitarian law. The pitiful, self-serving response of the junta to the devastation caused by Typhoon Yagi and subsequent flooding this year following its blocking of aid to respond to the devastation of Cyclone Mocha in 2023 should again demonstrate that narratives around “needing to partner with the junta to ensure delivery of aid” have proven to be not only deeply flawed but extremely unethical. Rather, aid provision must be directed through trusted, frontline responders and community-based groups through locally led cross-border channels which are the most effective and legitimate way of giving aid to those in most need and saving lives. Furthermore, more countries must extend their support to the case against Myanmar for genocide against the Rohingya at the International Court of Justice, as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgium and Slovenia have just done, following The Gambia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the Maldives. It is also essential that the International Criminal Court urgently issues an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing for crimes committed against the Rohingya in response to the Chief Prosecutor’s application.
Given the ongoing grave human rights violations and atrocity crimes by the military, along with its decades-long brutality, which has only worsened since Min Aung Hlaing’s illegal coup attempt, the Myanmar people have made it crystal clear that the Myanmar military’s involvement in politics cannot continue and this murderous institution must be dismantled. The people of Myanmar have been fighting determinedly and with great sacrifice to achieve this. Solutions centering the junta will simply not work, as history has proven. It is clear that Min Aung Hlaing and his cronies will not give up of their own volition. Thus, the international community must make concerted efforts to hold these perpetrators to account under international law for their crimes against the Myanmar people, not propped up by a sham election or any kind of externally imposed quick fix ‘peace’ deal that brings the junta back to power.
It has been nearly four years of determination and sacrifice by the people, especially the young generations from all Myanmar’s diverse communities amid this historic people’s revolution. As seen in the recent victory of resistance forces in Syria, revolution can be a long-term process. But the momentum in Myanmar is going one way, and that is victory for the Myanmar people. A clear and conscious decision followed by concrete action therefore needs to be made by international actors – to be on the right side of the history of humanity, to listen to and support the aspirations of the Myanmar people for federalism and democracy and protection of human rights for all, or to continue to prop up a dying regime and stretch out the bloodshed and brutality of the junta.
Thank you for your support and we look forward to continuing our work with you in the coming year as the people of Myanmar strive for federal democracy and freedom. Our Weekly Highlights will take a short hiatus but will return with our regular schedule in January 2025. We wish you a safe and joyous holiday and all the best for 2025.
In Solidarity,
The Progressive Voice Team
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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
By 174 Myanmar Civil Society Organizations
By 311 International and Local Revolutionary Groups and Civil Society Organizations
Civil society urges GANHRI members to remove the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission
By CSO Working Group on Independent National Human Rights Institution (Burma/Myanmar), Asian NGO Network on National Human Rights Institutions (ANNI)
By Human Rights Foundation of Monland
By Karenni Human Rights Group
KNU Human Rights Committee Statement on International Human Rights Day
By Karen National Union
ကေအဲန်ယူ−လူ့အခွင့်အရေးကော်မတီ၏ အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးနေ့အပေါ် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေငြာချက်
By Karen National Union
By Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF
By Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF
Reports
Civil Society Position Paper: Addressing ASEAN’s Goal of a “Myanmar-Owned and -Led Solution”
By 260 Civil Society Organizations
Impunity across borders: Junta’s TNR stalks Burmese communities abroad
By ALTSEAN-Burma
Forced to Enlist: The Impacts of Military Conscription in Southeastern Burma
By Human Rights Foundation of Monland
By Karenni Human Rights Group
By Network for Human Rights Documentation-Burma
By Network for Human Rights Documentation-Burma
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.”
