Myanmar Spring Chronicle – July 05 Scenes
MoeMaKa, July 06, 2023
Cities in Myanmar with deteriorating rules of law
Even in big cities like Mandalay, incidents such as people’s phones and wallets being robbed while walking or riding a motorcycle have occurred soon after the military coup and are now getting worse day by day. Now that more than two years have passed, the rule of law has deteriorated to the point that many people consider these incidents to be a daily occurrence. Robberies and murders are also frequent in Yangon and Mandalay, and the perpetrators are rarely caught. Attempts to arrest perpetrators of some bank robberies that are believed to be politically connected, are often conducted, but attempts to arrest perpetrators of non-political crimes are rare.
Recently, robberies on motorcycles, endangering people and looting property, which usually occur in big cities like Mandalay, where motorcycle riding is allowed, have already occurred in the suburbs of Yangon. It is happening more in South and North Dagon townships, Shwepyitha, and Hlaingthaya townships.
It’s a situation where people don’t go to the police station to complain about robbery cases, and they have to leave it like this after being robbed. If we talk about the rule of law, the ruling military council itself is biased without respecting the law, ignoring the actions of the military supporters and members of their armed organizations from a political perspective, so the rule of law has been broken since the beginning, and the crimes suffered by the people are no longer taken into account.
The military council clearly cannot prevent or disclose crimes by looking at the fact that it has been able to identify and arrest only a few of the targeted assassinations of people who support the military, those who have served in the military, and those involved in ward/village administration, and most of them have not been arrested.
The incapability to investigate and take action in the military council may be the main reason, rather than the assumption that the crimes were deliberately allowed to be committed, and the armed movement and anti-coup movement were deliberately aimed at disillusioning the public and decreasing support for them.
There are assumptions that crimes have increased because prisons often release those who commit robberies, thefts, and snatching by order of the Chair of the Military Council.
It is also assumed that more crime is due to the fact that arrests of political opponents by the military council exceed the acceptable number of prisons, and 70-80 percent of pardons involve those arrested and convicted of crimes.
As a consequence of the military coup, lawlessness is getting worse, and it can be said that people are living and working in fear in cities and villages. In some villages and towns where the war broke out, when the residents had to flee, leaving their homes, the armed groups that entered took their valuables and destroyed the rest as enemy property, so they have already faced the worst lawlessness than those living in cities.
Though it is not comparable to the experience of looting and killings that occurred when the British administration retreated during the Second World War and before the establishment of the BIA administration that came in with Japan, I don’t think it’s wrong to say that Myanmar is experiencing the worst law and order situation since World War II.
It cannot be said that the whole country is facing such a situation, but according to the territory of Myanmar, more than half of the cities and villages are facing it. In a big city like Yangon, it is relatively not bad in the crowded townships, but in the suburbs, it is not like the downtown of the city.
Should we consider this situation as a sign of the fall of the military council’s administration and the worse it gets, the closer it is to the fall of the military council? Or will the public help each other and mobilize to prevent crimes from increasing in a public way? It is a difficult question to answer, and it seems like a question that will be a test for the anti-military council forces.