Myanmar (Burma)

[Max Peck]

Thanks for that perspective. I vaguely knew that Aung had gone from hope to disappointment, but didn't know why.

Would you like to know more?

She was once seen as a beacon for human rights - a principled activist who gave up her freedom to challenge the ruthless army generals who ruled Myanmar for decades.

In 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while still under house arrest, and hailed as "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless".

In 2015, she led her National League for Democracy (NLD) to victory in Myanmar's first openly contested election in 25 years. But she was deposed by a coup in 2021 when the military took control and arrested her and the political leadership around her.

While her image had suffered internationally due to her response to the crisis that befell Myanmar's mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, she remains hugely popular with the country's Buddhist majority.

[Little Raven]

Should we really just sit and watch as the Junta massacres Myanmar?

Since Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup on February 1, an initial sense of shock has given way to vibrant protests, and most of the ire has been concentrated on the junta: Hundreds of thousands of people in towns and cities from the foothills of the Himalayas to the far southern border on the edges of the Andaman Sea have marched in defiance of an armed force known for its durability and cruelty. Members of Generation Z, who have reaped many of the benefits of Myanmar’s halting and incomplete democratization experiment of the past decade, have filled the streets with creative rallies and bombarded social media with meme-laden protest art.

In recent days and weeks, however, many people have also expressed a sense of intense anger, betrayal, and despair at the United Nations, and the international community more broadly, for doing too little to help the country. Despite the military’s best efforts to keep Myanmar offline, an array of memes and messages have emerged. In one viral GIF, a grinning cartoon soldier stands with an automatic rifle pointed at a protester holding a sign. A nearby UN official tosses a paper airplane, which bounces harmlessly off the soldier’s hat. The soldier then fires, sending the protester flying out of the frame, an animated blood trail following behind. A widely circulated image features a man holding a handwritten cardboard sign that reads just “700” people killed in “70” days. take your time un. we still got “millions” left.

In an effort to address the unfolding crisis—soldiers have picked off unarmed protesters with devastating head shots; rounded up politicians, torturing some to death; and killed scores of children—foreign governments and international bodies have held meetings, but they’ve taken little action. As the amount of blood spilled has increased, so too have the number of statements from global capitals, expressing varying degrees of “concern,” a favorite catchall of diplomatic jargon—from “serious” to “deep” to “profound.”

Some countries have leveled economic sanctions at Myanmar’s military and their businesses, but they have been far from uniform and largely brushed off. Foreign governments seem split over whether, and exactly how, to engage with a group of elected lawmakers from the ousted administration. Organizations such as the UN have been left looking largely ineffectual and paralyzed by inaction.[/quote[

[Little Raven]

Ladies and gentlemen, Drazzil is in the house.

In the weeks following the February 1 military coup, Andrew joined millions across Myanmar in peacefully demonstrating for a return to civilian rule.

Less than two months later, the 27-year-old was training to kill soldiers with a wooden hunting rifle in the jungles of his native Kayah State on Myanmar’s southeastern border with Thailand.

“Before the coup, I couldn’t even kill an animal,” said Andrew, who in common with other resistance fighters interviewed by Al Jazeera preferred his name not be disclosed for security reasons. “When I saw the military kill civilians, I felt really sad and troubled… I came to the mindset that I’m fighting for the people against evil military dictators.”

Andrew is among growing numbers of civilians across the country, many of them young, who have taken up arms to bring down a military that has killed more than 860 people, mostly in anti-coup protests, arrested more than 6,000, and used tactics including torture and enforced disappearances since it seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Good luck. I'm one of those guys who actually believes that you can cripple a nation with IEDs and AR 15s, even against a modern military....but I'm under no illusions about the cost. What a mess.

[noxiousdog]

This would put my political anxiety at a ten.

[Max Peck]

A turning point in Myanmar as army suffers big losses

The military-installed president of Myanmar has warned that the country is in danger of breaking apart if the government cannot control fighting which has broken out in Shan State.

Former General Myint Swe, who was appointed after a coup in 2021, was speaking at an emergency meeting held by the ruling military council to address a series of co-ordinated attacks by anti-military insurgents which have inflicted serious losses on the armed forces.

Three ethnic insurgent armies in Shan State, supported by other armed groups opposing the government, have overrun dozens of military posts, and captured border crossings and the roads carrying most of the overland trade with China.

It is the most serious setback suffered by the junta since it seized power in February 2021. After two-and-half years of battling the armed uprising it provoked with its disastrous coup, the military is looking weak, and possibly beatable.

The government has responded with airstrikes and artillery bombardments, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes. But it has been unable to bring in reinforcements or recover the ground it has lost. Among hundreds of troops killed is believed to be the commander of government forces in northern Shan State, Brigadier General Aung Kyaw Lwin, the most senior officer killed in combat since the coup.

What makes this attack even more significant is that it marks the first time that the well-armed insurgents operating in Shan State have explicitly aligned themselves and their military operations with the wider campaign to overthrow the junta and restore democratic rule.

However, there are other factors at play. These three insurgent groups have long-held ambitions to expand the territory they hold. And crucially China, which normally acts as a restraining influence on all the groups along its border with Myanmar, has not prevented this operation from going ahead.

That is probably because of its frustration over the military government's inaction over the scam centres which have proliferated in Shan State. Thousands of Chinese citizens and other foreigners have been forced to work in these scam centres. The insurgents say one of their aims is to close them down.