Photo : Messenger
Posh bars and restaurants have opened around Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon (formerly Rangoon) in recent months.
The military regime’s tireless efforts to make city life look "normal" despite authoritarian rule to crush angry dissent and war engulfing much of the nation. Surprisingly, any police or soldiers are hardly seen on the streets of Yangon, writes Nikkei Asia.
On the third anniversary of the Myanmar army (Tatmadaw) takeover on February 1, there is a pervasive sense among sources in Yangon that some kind of change is looming.
Myanmar’s human rights situation worsens as the military lashes out indiscriminately amid losses since pro-democracy resistance armed groups coupled with ethnic guerrillas are giving a hard time to the military dictator.
The Myanmar military regime has hammered the country’s independent media – thereby jailing journalists, and forcing many to go into exile or undergrounds.
Despite the threat of jail, frontline dangers, and loss of salary, many media workers have shown great resilience and determination to keep reporting and documenting the stories that matter – the ongoing civil war, the military’s war crimes, mass displacement, the collapse of the economy, and the effects on the daily lives of civilians, writes Phil Thornton, a journalist and senior adviser to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in Southeast Asia.
Three years after the military launched a coup, Myanmar’s ever-deteriorating human rights crisis is now in freefall, with insufficient world attention paid to the misery and pain of its people, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
Far less certain is what that will mean for the regime, the myriad ethnic groups now tasked with managing areas they have captured, the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) and the global companies clinging to their interests.
“Amid all of the crises around the world, it is important that no one is forgotten. The people of Myanmar have been suffering for too long. Since the end of October last year, their situation has deteriorated even further as a result of the long-established tactics of the military to target them,” he said ahead of the anniversary of the coup on February 1.
“Pitched battles between the military and armed opposition groups have resulted in mass displacement and civilian casualties. As the military has suffered setback after setback on the battlefield, they have lashed out, launching waves of indiscriminate aerial bombardments and artillery strikes.”
Hundreds have died in the civil war, thousands are homeless due to the conflict, and many more are suffering in pain and agony. About two-thirds of Myanmar is estimated by the United Nations to be mired in conflict. More than 2.6 million people are displaced, including many hundreds of thousands who fled after several ethnic resistance groups launched Operation 1027, a series of sweeping coordinated attacks across the north and northeast in late October.
The rebel offensive received the implicit backing of China, which wanted to crack down on clusters of scam centres that were operated by Chinese-linked criminal gangs on the Myanmar side of their border and had been tolerated or even protected by the military, writes journalists Gwen Robinson and Yuichi Nitta of Nikkei Asia.
As of January 26, credible sources had documented the arrest of nearly 26,000 people on political grounds – of whom 19,973 remain in detention, some reportedly subjected to torture and abuse, and with no hope of a fair trial. Over the last three years, some 1,576 individuals have died while being held by the military, according to the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva.
The resistance's gains from Operation 1027 have been credited to ethnic armed groups seeking autonomy.
A small number of urban units in the big cities are also staging assassinations against regime officials and carrying out drone and bomb attacks on official facilities.
The attacks galvanised other resistance forces across areas dominated by both ethnic minorities and the majority of Bamar, also known as Burmans. At least 34 towns have fallen to the rebel groups, and several more are under threat.
The NUG and its network of People's Defence Force units, which are aligned with the deposed civilian government of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, are fighting alongside the ethnic armed groups and also operating separately in the Bamar heartlands centered on Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay. Nobel laureate for peace Suu Kyi is sentenced to imprisonment and presently remains under house arrest.
The resistance's gains from Operation 1027 have been credited to ethnic armed groups seeking autonomy. The Alliance captured many towns and hundreds of the military regime’s bases, and hundreds of its troops surrendered, leaving a vast number of weapons and munitions behind for the Alliance.
“Military tactics have consistently focused on the punishment of civilians who they view as supporting their enemies,” said Türk. On Friday, January 26, fighting between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military reportedly left at least 12 Rohingya civilians dead and 30 others wounded where inhabitants are trapped between the two warring parties. The Arakan Army allegedly positioned its troops in and around this Rohingya village, anticipating the military’s attacks.
Rakhine State has been particularly hard hit since fighting restarted there in November. Many communities, especially the Rohingya, were already suffering from the impacts of Cyclone Mocha and the military’s months-long limitation of humanitarian access and provision of assistance. There have now been several reports of Rohingya deaths and injuries amid the military’s shelling of Rohingya villages.
The Rohingya refugees, trapped in dire humanitarian conditions in camps in Bangladesh and with no safe prospect of return, are again risking desperate and dangerous journeys by sea, finding few ports or communities in the region willing to accept or welcome them.
"Deepening violence, rising poverty levels, and deteriorating living conditions are having a devastating impact on people's lives," stated the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in a report in January.
The World Food Programme estimated last June that 25 percent of the population was suffering from food insecurity, and nearly a third needed humanitarian assistance.
The economy is likely to grow by only 1 percent this year, according to the World Bank, and inflation has exceeded the bank's estimate of 20 percent, judging from the prices of staples such as rice and fuel in Yangon.
“I commend the courage and resilience of Myanmar’s civil society and democratic movement, representing all ethnic communities, and urge their inclusion in any political process to restore democracy and respect for human rights in Myanmar.”
Nearly 3,000 army soldiers surrendered in the northeastern town of Laukkai, near the Chinese border, in late 2023.
Maj. Naung Yo of People's Goal, which is supporting military defectors, claimed that more than 6,000 of the junta’s soldiers have joined the resistance forces and many thousands more have surrendered or deserted.
“I commend the courage and resilience of Myanmar’s civil society and democratic movement, representing all ethnic communities, and urge their inclusion in any political process to restore democracy and respect for human rights in Myanmar.”
The international community must redouble efforts to hold the military accountable, the UN Human Rights Chief said, recalling the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice for Myanmar to take "all measures within its power" to protect the members of the Rohingya group from all future acts that may amount to genocide and to take effective measures to ensure the preservation of evidence related to the alleged acts.
“This crisis will only be resolved by insisting on accountability for the military’s leadership, the release of political prisoners and the restoration of civilian rule,” Türk said.
The writer, an award-winning journalist, is Deputy Editor of The Daily Messenger. An Ashoka Fellowship and recipient of the Hellman-Hammett Award.
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