Responsibilities and Opportunities to Save Myanmar
Responsibilities and Opportunities to Save Myanmar
Anti-regime protesters call for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) from the UN in Yangon on March 7. / The Irrawaddy
14.4k
By Ashley South 10 March 2021
Over the past week or so, the illegal junta which seized power on Feb. 1 has unleashed increasing violence on unarmed protesters, who are demanding justice and democracy in Myanmar. At least 60 people have been killed, and the death toll keeps rising.
The people of Myanmar are demanding protection, but who will provide it? The country’s Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) have crucial roles to play. Bold action now could help redefine the EAOs’ position and prospects, in a rapidly changing Burma.
Do the Myanmar Junta’s New ‘Peace-Making Committees’ Stand Any Chance of Success?
Forging a sustainable nationwide peace was elusive before. It’s even more difficult in the midst of the current crisis.
By
March 04, 2021
A vista of the border region between Myanmar and China’s Yunnan province.
Credit: Flickr/David and Jessie Cowhig
Advertisement
Shortly after seizing power on February 1, the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, immediately reconfigured the committee tasked with negotiating an end to the country’s raft of ethnic conflicts. The new committee comprised seven lieutenant generals led by Lt. Gen. Yar Pyae. A week later, the coup regime formed an interim government called the State Administration Council (SAC), comprising 16 members – eight military generals and another eight handpicked officials.
Your browser does not support the audio element.
BANGKOK
Cash shortages, sporadic access, and pressure on frontline staff are squeezing aid to hundreds of thousands of people in Myanmar’s remote conflict zones, humanitarian groups say, as the fallout from the country’s military coup builds.
Myanmar has been largely paralysed since the military seized power in a 1 February coup, ousting de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the elected government. Security forces killed at least 18 protesters on Sunday in the bloodiest day since anti-coup demonstrations erupted in cities and towns across the country; authorities have arrested at least 1,200 people over the last month.
Myanmar Crisis Hinges on Stance of Ethnic Political and Armed Organizations
Ethnic political and armed actors are natural allies of the anti-coup resistance, but they are ambivalent about Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD.
By
March 01, 2021
Advertisement
More than three weeks after the February 1 coup in Myanmar, in which the military toppled the civilian government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD), all attention is on the struggle between the junta and the disparate Civic Disobedience Movement, which has mobilized hundreds of thousands of (mostly young) people from across Myanmar’s geographical, social, and ethnic spectrum.
The protests have been covered in the international media much in the vein of the various “color revolutions” that have taken place in recent years: as a story of the people vs. the dictator. But a decentralized protest movement is not an actor, it cannot negotiate, and it is by itself unlikely to topple a regime. T
The protest movement is boosted by rare ethnic solidarity as the nation unifies against the coup.
February 27, 2021
Demonstrators wave flags of different ethnic groups during a protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021.
Credit: AP Photo
Advertisement
From the streets of Yangon to the mountain strongholds of ethnic peoples, the diverse peoples of Myanmar are forging a rare unity in their nationwide mass protests against the February 1 military coup.
Junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing had not expected his surgical coup, which toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government and shut down parliament, would unleash one of the biggest civil disobedience movements of all time, and the largest general strike in the country’s history