Myanmar Spring Chronicle – August 25 Scenes
MoeMaKa, August 26 2022
All News is Bad News
There is a Western proverb about news that says, “No News is good news.” After the coup, so much news are reported every day as there are plenty of incidents. At first, we heard news of protests and government members being detained almost every day, and after that, there was news of cracking down on the protest and breaking barriers with tear gas, sound bombs and gas guns, news of people’s resistance with shields, Molotov and slingshots, and news of arrests. And then, the loss of lives started to happen consecutively. In the beginning, losing one or two lives was still big news, but later it is not big news anymore. After about a year, the incidents that cost dozens of lives have become big news. News of bank robberies, which had not been heard about for years previously, became news that seemed to be heard on a weekly or monthly basis. Reports of being robbed and killed, assassinations with guns, and bomb explosions are happening all over the country every day and if it’s happened to ordinary people, it’s not even considered big news anymore, and it’s become news that readers and listeners ignore.
In a local newspaper, you will see that the news headline “explosion in —-cities and some townships, shooting happened” has been there without any change almost every day. In the daily section, the news only describes shootings, explosions and whether there are casualties and, it doesn’t include why, which group or who did it. It is becoming like a daily occurrence, and it is a situation where the news readers understand that there is no longer a situation to delve into the cause and reveal the truth.
Again, in recent months, we have seen reports of looting, killings and burglaries every day. If you look at the news today, there was news of cutting the victim’s face with a knife to steal a motorcycle in Mandalay, news of a robbery at a diamond shop in Hledan, Yangon in the afternoon and reports of robbery and murder by some online news pages in Myitkyina. Similarly, almost every day, there are news of the military council army setting fire to houses in a village that they believed to be against them, news of villagers being arrested and killed, and news of PDFs assassinating ward administrators, 100-houses heads and those who were suspected as junta informants. As news readers, even though they see the news headlines, they don’t think it’s so strange that such incidents happen every day.
In cities like Yangon and Mandalay, robberies are happening every day, and in villages and towns where there is conflict, there are news of looting valuables during the owners were fleeing by the junta troops when they clear the area, news of robberies and murders unrelated to armed groups are becoming daily news.
The news of losing the lives of a person or more than a person is seen every day and even the news is expressed on the pages, it is seen that audience show no special response. Together with the news of killings and robberies, the news of rises in commodity prices are also reported daily. There are news reported daily which are the news of increase in the price of edible oil reaching up to almost tens of thousands Kyats per viss, the news of an unprecedented increase in the price of fuel and the news of increase in the prices of goods imported from abroad to an unprecedented level due to depreciation of Kyat. In the news, the headline about the price increase is no longer a special headline, and what is special is the news that the price has reached a record that has never happened before.
Today, August 25, was the day on which ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army) armed forces started attacking the border police stations in the areas bordering Bangladesh in northern Rakhine State 5 years ago. That day was also the day when the incident occurred when the ARSA armed forces massacred nearly 100 people in the village where Hindus lived called Khamaung Seik. A few days after the initiated attack by ARSA armed forces, the Myanmar government military committed genocide under the excuse of a brutal area clearance operation.
This Rohingya issue in Rakhine state is not only a case of genocide, but also a refugee problem that has not been resolved even after 5 years, and nearly 7 lakh to million have fled and taken shelter to neighboring countries. The military and the government with political power at that time, the NLD government, had faced trial at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) a few years before the military coup. Till now, the court case has not finished and nearly 1 million refugees are still taking shelter in the neighboring countries.