Myanmar Spring Chronicle – June 30 View
(MoeMaKa, July 1, 2025)
The Destruction After the Coup
On social media this week, it was reported that garbage collectors in Yangon’s bustling Chinatown discovered the lifeless body of a newborn baby, wrapped in rags and abandoned in a trash pile. Other distressing incidents have also come to light: an elderly person in poor health was reportedly dumped near a cemetery, and a toddler, unable to speak yet, was left behind in a crowded public space. While such incidents are not entirely new to Myanmar, the frequency and severity of these cases in recent times are striking.
Four years after the military coup, such tragedies have become normalized. Across the country, economic collapse, death and injury from war, amputations, and long-term displacement have become common. In urban areas, murders and robberies are on the rise. In rural villages, the military and aligned militias kill anyone suspected of sympathizing with the resistance, loot valuables, and burn homes.
Access to firearms has become widespread, and law enforcement agencies like the police are either absorbed into the war effort or themselves engaged in bribery and extortion. This erosion of legal authority has contributed to rising crime.
Violent crimes such as murder and armed robbery—once rare and severely punished—are now rampant. Today, even individuals with no prior criminal history are committing such acts. The scarcity of employment and a lack of criminal investigations make it easier to justify such behavior in people’s minds. Countless recent murders and heists have gone unresolved, encouraging a further rise in crime.
In addition to these, widespread extortion at military checkpoints has become the norm. Travelers and traders alike are forced to pay arbitrary fees. Following the reactivation of military conscription laws, forced recruitment and financial extortion have become commonplace in junta-controlled areas.
A recent report stated that travelers from Myitkyina to Mandalay were required to pay tens of thousands of kyats despite having proper identification, and up to 500,000 kyats if lacking documents. This highlights the immense difficulties ordinary people face in simply moving about the country.
Checkpoint tolls have become another source of exploitation. For example, a passenger on the Myitkyina–Mandalay route may need to pay around 50,000 kyats, while goods transport trucks are charged tens of thousands more. On the 100-mile route from Myawaddy to Mawlamyine, a pickup truck can be charged up to 800,000 kyats, and a 12-wheeler may pay as much as 3 million kyats. Across these roads, both the junta and resistance forces have set up checkpoints, levying tolls ranging from 3% to 7% of goods’ value.
Junta forces are pocketing these fees illegally, while ethnic armed groups and PDF units say they use the funds to sustain their forces and purchase ammunition. In this way, the general population is being forced to shoulder the costs of the war.
Meanwhile, the junta tolerates its own troops’ extortion and abuses. In the legal system, bribery runs deep—from police and prosecutors to judges. Claims of “security measures” are used to justify extortion on roads and waterways across the country.
The combination of economic collapse, ethical breakdown, rising crime, and unchecked corruption—all worsening since the coup—has led to widespread devastation. When or how Myanmar will recover from this deep societal decay remains painfully uncertain.