Ongoing Crisis in Myanmar
People protesting against the military coup in Myanmar| Source: Wikimedia Commons People protesting against the military coup in Myanmar
The Supreme Court in Myanmar has rejected Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeals against her convictions in six corruption cases on October 6. Independent analysts and her advocates insist that the charges are merely an attempt to defame her and invalidate her authority while justifying the military coup that occurred in 2021.
On February 1st, 2021, Tatmadaw—Myanmar’s military—led the military coup and replaced Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration with Min Aung Hlaing—commander-in-chief of the military junta—and his faction. Aung San Suu Kyi, a former leader of the state and the National League for Democracy (NLD), was imprisoned with a 27-year sentence after the military coup under the convictions of six corruption cases including bribery and authority abuse. In order to maintain its regime and authority, Tatmadaw has been extending its state of emergency, holding perfunctory open elections, and most importantly, violently suppressing the civil rights movement via the “four-cuts approach”.
The four-cuts approach refers to military tactics of completely isolating the non-State organized armed groups and other non-military armed groups from the resources starting from food, technology, aid, and recruits. This approach is commonly done via either one or multiple of the following methods: indiscriminate airstrikes, artillery shelling, razing villages, and denial of humanitarian access. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated, “Two years after the military launched a coup, the generals have embarked on a scorched earth policy in an attempt to stamp out opposition.”
The UN Human Rights Office reported that there were at least 2,940 deaths and 17,572 arrests by the military and its affiliates since the coup in the span of 1 year from 1 February 2022 to 31 January 2023. These series of indiscriminate murders and arrests perpetuated by Tatmadaw not only harmed humanitarian rights in Myanmar but also caused its economy to fail, paving the way to transform Myanmar into a failing state.
There were several international attempts to cease Tatmadaw’s dictatorship—such as the sanctions imposed by the United States and the five-point peace agreement made by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). However, Min Aung Hlaing remains a dictatorial leader with the continuation of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.