Myanmar Coup
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“Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Myanmar in one of the largest demonstrations yet against the country’s military coup. Businesses closed as employees joined a general strike, despite a military statement that said protesters were risking their lives by turning out.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56150616Despite these challenges to the coup, Myanmar’s military appear still reticent about suppressing it. Perhaps now having been more fully integrated into the world economy than in previous times, the Tatmadaw, have more to lose than before.
I doubt they will ever cede full power but they may return to the status quo with some cosmetic concessions to placate foreign governments and the corporations.
The question is will the Myanmar people be satisfied with a compromise even if the NDL and Suu Kyi might accept a truce.
NLD’s repression comes back to bite them?
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, (AAPP), a Myanmar-based organization, during the NLD’s rule, journalists, critics of the military and the government, and others were charged under colonial-era laws. According to the AAPP, Myanmar had over 700 political prisoners as of Jan. 31, with hundreds being charged during the NLD’s time in power.
Though no longer British, the country retained many of its colonial-era laws, which were “designed in nature to be repressive and silence political opponents,” said Nick Cheeseman, a fellow at the Department of Political and Social Change at Australian National University.
“The National League for Democracy was comfortable leaving repressive laws on the books because in some instances they felt they might be able to take advantage of those laws themselves,” said Ronan Lee, a visiting scholar at Queen Mary University of London’s International State Crime Initiative. “It’s now clear that some of those laws are now going to be weaponized against democracy campaigners in a way that maybe the National League for Democracy didn’t foresee…What the military is trying to do is use the laws to add some legitimacy to their illegitimate grab for power and the NLD gave them an opportunity to do that by leaving old laws intact,” Lee said.
With much to lose, the Tatmadaw mobilise their family and friends.
Well worth a read, the latest blog post
Myanmar Coup…Follow the money…
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2021/02/myanmar-coupfollow-money.html
In the streets the military are using more force. In the factories the workers are resisting with strikes.
https://labornotes.org/2021/02/myanmar-workers-and-unions-front-lines-fight-against-coup
Military increase the violence against demonstrators
Our latest blog post
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2021/02/militancy-v-military-in-myanmar.html
A capitalist paywall blocks this, but the NYTimes is reporting 18 killed in their latest bulletin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/28/world/asia/myanmar-protests.htmlI read somewhere that the coup may have had something to do with divisions inside the military, i.e., it was (inter alia) a coup by one military faction against another. I don’t know how well informed this idea is, but the generals may themselves be divided over the country’s foreign policy orientation.
Myanmar seems to be in the same situation as countries like Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, with alternating periods of military and civilian rule but with the military setting limits and ready to intervene even during periods of civilian rule if the politicians overstep any of those limits.
Perhaps it hopes to become something like its neighbour, where the world’s diplomats have little problem with the military being in charge, as long as the generals appear in public wearing suits and not uniforms, and then ignoring the protests against it to the inside pages and little interest in it by the majority of the population.
But ominously there are more draconian reaction to protests in Myanmar.
Not behind the paywall
18 people have been killed, according to the UN, after security forces in Myanmar used lethal violence against anti-coup protesters.
A reminder that the answer is not a return to the status quo
https://countercurrents.org/2021/02/coup-leaders-aung-san-suu-kyi-betrayed-democracy-in-burma/
“…we must equally demand that Burma embraces true democracy for all of its citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. A good start would be to disassociate Aung San Suu Kyi from any inclusive democratic movement in this country. The Lady of Burma had her opportunity but, sadly, failed.”
…we must equally demand that Burma embraces true democracy for all of its citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. A good start would be to disassociate Aung San Suu Kyi from any inclusive democratic movement in this country. The Lady of Burma had her opportunity but, sadly, failed.”
Now that is what I call infantile Leftist posturing. Socialists knew fine well she would not be able to deliver any more than a modicum of reforms, if even that.
The executioners axe was always behind her and still is so.
Matt, she had a choice to make and she made it.
The article in the current issue of the Standard sums it up
“…Many commentators have excused Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s complicity in the oppression of the Rohingya as a sign that she and her party were never really in charge and that she was obliged to compromise her own democratic ideals in a Faustian pact with the army. If true, the lesson is very clear for all to see now – that those who sup with the devil should have a very long spoon…”
The cure could be worse than the disease
https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-myanmar-sanctions-will-not-stop-the-bloodshed/a-56736649
The first response of the West to the coup was targeted sanctions on leading Tatmadaw generals. However, most of Myanmar’s generals had already been under sanctions because of the Rohingya crisis in 2018.
But this doesn’t mean the West should return to the broad sanctions that were imposed on Myanmar in 1990s and 2000s. Those sanctions only hurt Myanmar’s citizens — already the victims of military rule — while military leadership itself was largely unaffected.
The Tatmadaw Iron Heel begins its work
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56265962
The hoped for defection of the police and army has yet to materialise in effective numbers…perhaps soon
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