Military Rule Returns to Myanmar: Was it Ever Truly Abolished?

Opinion Analysis by Johnny Achkar, Contributor

February 23rd, 2021

In a coup d'état on February 1st, Myanmar's military overthrew the country's weak elected regime, arresting civilian officials, taking down the internet, and cutting off transportation. After a brief period of quasi-democracy that started in 2011, when legislative elections and other changes were imposed by the military, which had been in force since 1962, the coup returned the country to absolute military rule. The move came after the generals of Myanmar protested about irregularities in the elections of November 8th, citing proof that is contested. Though military leaders said they took authority under emergency powers given to them in the constitution for one year, the coup looks likely to reverse hard-won political changes that the United States sought to foster under the Obama administration.

Myanmar has wrestled with military government, a civil war, exclusion from global affairs, and pervasive poverty during its decades of independence. For several years after it achieved independence from British colonial control in 1948, a military junta governed Myanmar. Like most of its newly autonomous neighbors on the Indian subcontinent, the Union of Burma emerged as a representative democracy. Nevertheless, representative government existed only until 1962, when, for the next twenty-six years, General U Ne Win led a military coupand retained power. The military junta that had ruled the country for decades disbanded in 2011, giving way to a transitional military-installed government and ushering in what many felt would be a new age for the Southeast Asian republic. President Thein Sein initiated a series of reforms starting in 2011, including the granting of amnesty to political prisoners, the relaxation of media censorship, and the implementation of economic policies aimed at encouraging foreign investment. Moreover, in 2015, Myanmar held its first multi-party national elections. Aung San Suu Kyi's long-standing opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), subsequently secured majorities in both legislative chambers. However, many areas of domestic policy have been continuously influenced by the military, known as the Tatmadaw. The country’s 2008 constitution reserves a fifth of the seats in parliament to the military. The supremacy of the military reaches beyond the firepower of its half a million troops, venturing in banking, insurance, hospitals, gyms and the newspapers. In the region, it is the largest landowner. It is no coincidence that after telecommunications were interrupted nationwide by the coup; the Mytel mobile network was the first to come back to life on Monday. Mytel is partially military-owned.

Myanmar held its second national election under civilian rule in 2020, which was overwhelmingly won by the NLD party. Although Human Rights Watch and other groups said the elections were flawed because of the Rohingya's disempowerment and other problems, there is little dispute that a massive victory was achieved by the NLD. In the poll results, the military suffered a major setback. As parties loyal to the military gained a mere 33 of 476 seats, while the NLD achieved 396. Military officials suspected voter fraud, and in February 2021, after the country's election commission dismissed the allegations of the military, it staged a coup. The military arrested and charged Suu Kyi, placed under house arrest lawmakers from the NLD and other groups, and declared that during a yearlong state of emergency, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing would take control of Myanmar. No one should be stunned by the coup. The generals believe that they can get away with it. The current U.S. administration is obsessed with fitting in, although the attention of the European Union and much of the world is on battling the pandemic. Additionally, because of her acquiescence over the Rohingya crisis, Aung San Suu Kyi no longer catches the global imagination as she did during the 1990s. One of the numerous ethnic minorities in Myanmar is the Rohingya. The highest number of Muslims in the nation are the Rohingya, with the rest residing in the state of Rakhine. A campaign of continuing persecutions by the Myanmar government of the Muslim Rohingya people began in October 2016. However, persecution of this group commenced decades ago. A report revealed in August 2018 that more than 24,000 Rohingya individuals were killed by the Burmese military.

The demonstrations against the military coup in Myanmar swelled to hundreds of thousands of protesters in a matter of days, from a few dozen. Students, workers, physicians, and clinicians came together in droves to proudly protect their country's democratic values, even though the police shot into protesters, often using live weapons and sometimes plastic bullets, and used tear gas and water cannons. The demonstrators have called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and for the generals to stand aside. The crowds have taken on an almost celebratory atmosphere as the protests have expanded. In the evening, households defiantly banged on pots and pans, a common way to drive evil away, creating a large uproar in response to the coup. Around 8 p.m., the ritual is now conducted nightly. Throughout the nation. Many have held up the three-finger salute, a sign from the “Hunger Games” series embraced last year in Thailand by anti-government demonstrators.

There has been a diverse range of international reactions regarding the coup in Myanmar. Many major world leaders, who are demanding that Myanmar’s military promptly release Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the other arrested government officials as well as respect the outcome of the November election, quickly criticized it. In recent years, China, which borders Myanmar, has been the largest trade partner of the Burmese state and its nearest political ally. As part of its Belt and Road Program, China has funded transport and energy projects in Myanmar. Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, said, "We hope that all parties will properly handle their differences under the Constitution and legal framework to maintain political and social stability.” Beijing has used its UN Security Council position to protect Nay Pyi Taw from foreign scrutiny and to prohibit measures such as a substantive weapons embargo from taking place. President Biden, who sought to raise human rights as a foreign policy priority, declared on Wednesday that he would place sanctions on Myanmar's military leaders who led the coup that deposed and jailed its elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and others. The President further added that the United States would work with its partners to “support democracy and rule of law”.

The estimation of the coup leaders might well be sound. However, the burden will not be borne by the Buddhist monks, several of whom have incited violence against the Rohingya, nor by the army, which continues to wage battles within Myanmar on many fronts, nor by Aung San Suu Kyi, who finds herself in detention and with reduced foreign assistance. Myanmar's long-suffering people, whose common aspiration for a democratic state has once again been derailed, will bear the real cost. For their sake, to help revive the democratic process in Myanmar, the international community must do what it can.