Myanmar Spring Chronicle – August 23 Scenes
MoeMaKa, August 24 2022
The general crisis has not yet reached its worst. Images of the “Dalans” clearing in the city
It is estimated that the general crisis of Myanmar’s economic decline has not yet reached its worst state. It is easy to question how much worse it will be for Myanmar, where problems such as politics, economics and the impact of the international situation are converging, but the answer is not easy.
Myanmar’s military coup has caused political instability, decline in trust, the departure of the businesses from some big countries and no longer incoming of new investments. It can be said that these facts are enough for Myanmar’s economy to decline, employment opportunities to decrease and Myanmar Kyats value to fall. Even before the Ukraine-Russia war in the world and fuel prices rose, there was devaluation of Myanmar Kyats, high fuel prices, increasing electricity outages and the worsening security situation in the areas since the military coup. Due to the above factors, estimates that the economy will decline significantly, numbers of people living below the poverty line and people in need of humanitarian aid will increase by millions have emerged since last year, and the reality also has gradually become more difficult.
The economy has already been affected by the Covid-19 disaster for more than 1 year. When the political crisis, armed conflict and economic sanctions were added, the economic situation of Myanmar was already bad even before the shadow of the global economic recession. As a result, it is obvious that there are hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands of people who want to go abroad as workers. Not only young and middle-aged people from armed conflict areas, but also people from non-armed conflict areas are flocking to overseas jobs where there is an opportunity to earn.
After the start of the Ukraine-Russia war in late February of this year, the rise in global commodity prices, especially the rise in fuel prices, began to hit Myanmar again without exception.
The increase in the price of fuel not only increases the cost of transportation but also the freight cost and the cost of electricity production. So the amount of money people spend on fuel from their income has risen and people are feeling the impact of both falling currency values and rising fuel prices.
Another factor that has fueled this situation is that many regions of Myanmar have become involved in armed conflict, limiting and controlling the delivery of goods and rising costs of transportation services due to the risk of being shot and killed. And this has put more burden on consumers. Limitation and control of rice, food, fuel, goods and the cost of risky trades due to poor security are socio-economic problems that Myanmar is facing currently and will have to face far worse in the near future.
At the same time as they are fleeing to survive, they need food to survive. It can be said that the economic problem cannot be solved without solving the political problem. The proposition is true, and it is important to solve both problems to a certain extent simultaneously. Because long-term political problems cannot be solved overnight, it is also necessary to understand that there are political problems that will take years and time to be solved, and immediate problems that need to be quickly solved and responded to for people’s survival.
Here, it is important to distinguish and solve between short-term priority problems and long-term problems that will take time to solve. Public Policies, Shaping political equality and equity and Building socio-eco transparency & standards related principles that will shape the future are long-term problems and it is important to be able to define people’s survival and easing hardsship of socio-economic situation in order to survive as a short-term problem that requires immediate action.
In this kind of situation, I think that the attitude of sticking together, whether good or bad, fair distribution of charity, the attitude and practice of sharing sympathy with each other are essential between friends, allies, leaders and the public, pro-democracies and people of the same side.
In other news for today, the wrongful killings under the heading of Dalan clearance (Getting rid of military informer) have been happening continuously these days. After the incident that happened the other day in Saw town of Magway, in which a family and a neighbor, a total of 6 were killed, this morning in Mandalay, an incident occurred in which a couple riding a motorcycle were shot and killed. In the latter incident, the husband and wife who died in the incident where they were killed by urban PDFs, thinking they were CID police chief and his wife, were actually ordinary civilians who were not involved with CID and the police. Today, in Pyapon town, after the clerk of the district administration office and a female companion were shot and killed, it is seen that people know them personally are writing comments on social media that the female companion was not a supporter of the military council, but an active participant in the anti-coup protests.
Almost every day, assassinations are taking place in the cities under the title of Dalan clearance, who were considered supporting pillars of military council and on the side of the military council. Myanmar Military may be taking advantage of such events that would destroy the image of PDFs portraying them as terrorists. The PDF might also be thinking their actions could cause disturbance to Military’s administration in such areas. I think we should review whether that objective is practical and whether it does not conflict with the idea that being able to taking over and control cities and villages is more important than just causing unrests and killings.
If not, the killing of supporters of the military council who are not members of the armed groups and wrongfully killing some of their democratic supporters will lower the image of the revolution, the image of NUG and the image of anti-dictatorship movements among international governments and organizations and also to Myanmar unarmed civilians.