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The plight of Myanmar’s people 11 months after military coup
The military has also continued to burn down homes, churches and other buildings across the country, in the same way they destroyed the homes of the Rohingya minority in 2017.
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People from Myanmar who fled a surge in violence sit in lines as they are processed in Mae Tao Phae in Thailand's Mae Sot district near the border, as Thai military personnel look on, on Dec. 16, 2021. (AFP/Metta Charity)
“How many dead bodies does the United Nations need to consider responsibility to protest [R2P] to protect against military crimes against humanity on its people?” a protester’s sign from Myanmar reads.
About six months after the coup in Myanmar, the Taliban captured Afghanistan, prompting the global media and international communities to express concerns and calls for the evacuation of thousands of Afghans. By Oct. 20, 2021, the United States alone had evacuated nearly 70,000 Afghans.
The world’s response to the plight of the people of Myanmar, who have been made suffer following the military coup 11 months ago, has been quite different.
The coup was launched in the early morning of Feb. 1, 2021, before the resumption of a new parliament session for another term. President U Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected government leaders were detained. The military declared a “state of emergency” for one year to protect the sovereignty from election fraud results; however, no evidence has been found 10 months after the coup.
The coup leader, Aung Min Hlaing, immediately pledged to hold an election, but six months later, he declared himself prime minister and called for an election by 2023. Just after the coup, he eliminated his own military retirement age to enable him to hold on to power for life to protect his conglomerates. Moreover, since the coup, the military has been trying to dismantle the National League for Democracy (NLD), the 2020 election winner.
The people of Myanmar experienced economic, social, cultural, religious and political hardship and pains under the military regime from 1962 to 2011, before the experimental democratic transition. Therefore, they demonstrated peacefully by banging pots and pans and marched along the streets and via the civil disobedience movement (CDM) to convey their disagreement with the coup and demand restoration of democracy.
But the military deliberately shot the nonviolent protesters. The UN has been ineffective and failed to respond to the military’s impunity, allowing the military to continue raiding and killing those who resist the coup.
