Myanmar Spring Chronicle – April 30 Scenes
MoeMaKa, May 01 2023
The situation in Myanmar more than 2 years after the military coup
The military, known as the Burmese Army by the ethnic people, has seized political power three times in more than 70 years since independence. It should be called a total of 4 times, including a time when the coup plot was legitimized by transferring power to the caretaker government. It will be clear that there were four coups d’état; the caretaker government in 1958, the military coup in 1962 under Ne Win named the Revolutionary Council, the military coup in 1988 in the form of Ne Win handing power to General Saw Maung, and the military coup that took place before the 2021 elected civilian government was able to establish the Hluttaw..
The caretaker government of 1958 and the military coup of 1962 were only 4 years apart. In 1958, the goal was not met, so in 1962, there was a military coup. They covered the skin of socialism and established a separate one-country dictatorship under the guise of socialism, which was not a member of China or Russia’s communist group, when communism was strong internationally and throughout Southeast Asia and during the height of the Cold War. So, the power of the military generals was able to hold on for decades without external pressure because the capitalist group led by the United States did not fight, and the interests of the communist leftist countries were not directly affected. Due to the bankruptcy of Burma’s domestic economy, which was closed, and the fact that rice was not allowed to be grown and traded freely for consumer goods, the 8888 Uprising broke out in 1988, leading to the fall of Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). At this time, the Masala government of former generals, completely handed over responsibility to the military and staged a coup d’état with the promise of multi-party elections to the public.
There was one term of the government of the former generals who were elected by the constitution enacted in 2008 that is 25 percent of the military can enter the Hluttaw without having to be elected. After that the NLD, which received the majority of public support, governed another one term of 5 years. In the next election, the military couldn’t wait for another term and took back political power in a coup although the NLD won the election.
In neighboring Thailand, a coup d’état happens every few years. It usually happens once every 6 years for the nearest and 10 to 15 years for the furthest. However, due to the military coup in Thailand, abolishment of the country’s economic, legal, education, etc. and reversals from the bottom up did not happen, so there was no major impact on the economy, employment opportunities, international relations, etc. Myanmar’s military coup has had the effect of reversing the country from the bottom up, causing loss of life, arrests and imprisonment, and increasing the speed of armed conflicts with the emergence of new armed organizations. The military regimes that came to power after the coup often suppressed the opposition to maintain their power for decades, and the number of lives lost due to the coup is much greater than that of Thailand.
The last military coup in 2021 was a military coup with the promise of holding elections like in 1988. But the promise of holding elections in 1988 was given at a time when there had been no multi-party elections for more than 2 decades, and because the result of the existing multi-party election in 2021 was canceled, the public no longer believes in the next election. In this situation, the promise to hold an election can only be understood as a case of canceling one’s match because one cannot win. If he doesn’t win next time, there is a possibility that he will cancel the match next time, so there is no trust in the public at all.
2 years and 3 months after the last military coup, 6,000 to 1,000 people have died in Myanmar, and thousands have been injured and maimed. Tens of thousands of people are being held in prisons, and there are more than 1 million to 1.5 million refugees. Millions of job opportunities have been lost, and millions of Myanmar nationals are legally or illegally going to neighboring ASEAN countries to work. More than half of the country’s population lives below the poverty line defined by the United Nations, and millions of people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Crimes are increasing exponentially, and murders, robberies and killings are happening in many places almost every day. Judiciary and the rule of law are considered by the public to be non-existent, and it has become a situation where they judge themselves. Hundreds of armed groups are emerging, and they are attacking the military council everywhere with weapons such as hand-made weapons, hand-made mines, and hand-made launchers.
It is a country where people are killed without any thought for human life, bodies are dumped, and property is looted, and confiscated.
All these situations are just the consequences of the military coup under the pretext of holding the election again in 6 months.