Myanmar Spring Chronicle – January 28 Scenes
MoeMaKa, January 29 2023
Fields that have obviously deteriorated after the military coup
With just a few days left to complete 2 years of the military coup, when we look back at a 2-year period, there are many losses in the socio-economic field and other fields in addition to the political events.
When the armed military seized power from a politically elected government, just as the administrations in the political field lost their accountability and responsibility, so did other civil departments.
The amount of loss and damage in areas such as the tax department, municipal, immigration, tax collection, company licenses, health, education, environmental conservation, drug control, labor rights, corruption reduction, etc., is so much that it is not easy to measure and record.
In cities like Yangon, Mandalay, Monywa, Mawlamyine, Dawei, Sittwe, Myitkyina, etc., robberies and murders are taking place, but it seems that no one can be held accountable. In big cities like Yangon and Mandalay, motorcycle robberies, gold shop robberies, bank robberies, and killings in houses are frequently happening, and if it happens 10 times, it is common to hear that only one arrest of the culprits was made and the remaining 9 cases were not arrested.
During the past 2 years, the situation has reached such a state that, although the country is not in a broken state, there is no more rule of law, and these big cities are not at war, but the military council that is said to govern them is no longer able to protect them. Under this situation, the people in those cities are said to be more fortunate than the people in the villages of Sagaing Division, Chin State, Kayah State, and Karen State, who are fleeing because of the war, but they are living in a situation where they have to accept the fact that anyone can be robbed or killed any day.
In another field, i.e., education, there have been millions of students who cannot go to school. The teachers who are going to teach are not in a condition to teach, and those who are going to learn are involved in the crisis of political conflict, so they have lost the right to learn, the chance to learn, and a good environment to learn in.
Regarding the loss of the right to education and its opportunity, there may be differences in opinions among those who view it from a political perspective and those who look at the future consequences of the loss of education and the right to education. But, in the current situation on the ground, in addition to having a wish to learn or not, even if they want to learn, they are not in a situation to do so, and there are increasing regions of war-torn areas.
The third field I want to talk about is health care system. The anti-coup movement of health-care staff, particularly doctors, which started the first momentum of the CDM movement after the military coup, has spread to other departments, and the public hospitals had nearly ceased operating. There were many hospitals and areas where it was difficult to get treatment even in an emergency situation, and even now, we are in a situation that not every hospital can handle. The military council is still suppressing and arresting CDM doctors, ordering the suspension of SAMA so that they are unable to earn a living, prohibiting them from working in private hospitals, and forcefully closing the hospitals that accept them. While public hospitals were unable to operate, it coincided with the spread of the worst infection of COVID, the virus strain delta variant, which can cause death. In the 3 months of July, August, and September 2021, tens of thousands of people lost their lives, and they had to go through a terrible time.
The loss of that period is invaluable, as tens of thousands of people in various layers, such as important professionals, elders, and the middle aged, have lost their lives. I think we will be able to withstand this infectious disaster and reduce the number of deaths to some extent.
Another field that is lost outside of health and education is the moral area. Following the military coup, the responsibilities that we had been trying to build up have been deteriorated and were destroyed, and they are now redirected to the previous military regime’s state of corruption, bribery, unaccountability, and lack of transparency. Almost all public services have turned back to bribery and corruption.
In the political field, while the revolutionary forces are trying to overthrow the military council that had seized power, the departments in the administrative and judicial fields are falling into corruption. The impacts of armed conflicts on the one hand, and corruption on the other, are causing a sea of problems for civilians to suffer.