In the November 2020 Myanmar general election, the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of State Counsellor and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory. However, just hours before the parliament of the newly elected members was set to convene on February 01, 2021, the military staged a coup by fabricating lies of election fraud without any evidence. The military junta arrested Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint, elected members of Parliament, NLD members, and other pro-democracy figures.
People throughout the whole nation protested against the coup in various peaceful forms including Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) of 321,083 government employees. But the junta brutally suppressed those peaceful protests, resulting in deaths, displacements, imprisonments, and physical and psychological damages to millions of Myanmar people. The brutal actions of the junta left no choice for the Myanmar people except to resist and remove the lawless tyranny.
Since then, the National Unity Government (NUG) of Myanmar, which is the only legitimate (interim) Government of Myanmar formed by the committee of parliamentary members elected in the 2020 election, several ethnic resistance organizations, and people throughout the whole nation have consistently strived for stopping the military junta’s crimes and tyranny and restoring democracy and human rights. Yet, the junta continues its inhumane violences on Myanmar people – killing/arresting innocent people, burning houses, bombing the villages, just to name a few.
As per NUG, the junta has killed 5,227 innocent people, arrested 26,817 civilians, and persecuted so many, resulting in 2,482,200 internally displaced persons. It is a tragedy and a failure of the world communities to let it happen. It is an insult to the humanity.
China has been a cunning supporter of the Myanmar military junta due to its lucrative access to Myanmar’s natural resources and a strategic ocean access from landlocked western China. For example, China gains access to heavy rare earth elements from Myanmar which amounts to as much as 50% of the global supply. Any entity supporting a criminal junta is a partner in crime.
The US government has issued Burma Act which allows non-lethal assistance to Myanmar people. Deliveries of these assistances to the needy Myanmar people need to be efficient and transparent. The NUG would be one of the most suitable and reliable entities to consult in providing these assistances.
However, these honorable international efforts will not stop the military junta’s continued persecutions and crimes. International communities including US need to take further concrete actions to stop these inhumane violence, crimes, and tyranny of the junta in Myanmar and its partners in crime!
References:
Myanmar civil war (2021–present)
Myanmar protests (2021–present)
National Unity Government of Myanmar – NUG Myanmar
The BURMA Act in the US: From legislation to liberation – DVB
Myanmar’s Rare Earth Revolution: A Geopolitical Gamechanger – OpEd