Myanmar news and discussions

weatheriscool
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Myanmar news and discussions

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Myanmar puts Suu Kyi on trial on charges critics call bogus
Source: AP

By GRANT PECK

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial Monday on charges that many observers say are an attempt by the junta that deposed her to eliminate her as a political force, erase the country’s democratic gains and cement the military’s power.

Suu Kyi’s prosecution poses yet another major setback for Myanmar, which had been making slow progress toward democracy when a February coup prevented elected lawmakers from her National League for Democracy party from taking office following last year’s landslide victory.

Human Rights Watch said that the allegations being heard in a special court in the capital, Naypyitaw, are “bogus and politically motivated” with the intention of nullifying the victory and preventing Suu Kyi from running for office again.

“This trial is clearly the opening salvo in an overall strategy to neuter Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy party as a force that can challenge military rule in the future,” said Phil Robertson, the organization’s deputy Asia director.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/government-a ... 7be6f8362a
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caltrek
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Flower Protests Mark Aung San Suu Kyi's 76th Birthday
June 19, 2021

(DW) Protesters across Myanmar wore flowers in their hair as they protested against the detention of the country's elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on her 76th birthday Saturday.

The flowers were of special significance as the Burmese leader is often seen with flowers in her hair. Supporters replicated her signature floral hairstyle and uploaded pictures to social media platforms calling for her release.

Supporters across the country marched holding signs that read "freedom from fear," "Happy Birthday Mother Suu. We are right behind you" and pictures of the leader.

Suu Kyi was ousted on February 1 when the country's military leaders staged a coup, cutting short a decade of progress in democratic reforms after years of military rule.

The army leveled allegations of fraud against Suu Kyi after her party's landslide election victory last November. The party denied the allegations, and international monitors have maintained that the vote was fair.
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caltrek
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United Nations Assembly Condemns Myanmar Coup, Calls for Arms Embargo
June 18, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/un-assem ... s-embargo/

Introduction:
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — In a rare move, the U.N. General Assembly on Friday condemned Myanmar’s military coup and called for an arms embargo against the country in a resolution that demonstrated widespread global opposition to the junta and demanded the restoration of the country’s democratic transition.

Supporters had hoped the 193-member U.N. General Assembly would approve the resolution unanimously by consensus, but Belarus called for a vote. The measure was approved with 119 countries voting “yes,” Belarus voting “no” and 36 countries abstaining including Myanmar’s neighbors China and India, along with Russia.

U.N. special envoy Christine Schraner Burgener warned the General Assembly after the vote that “the risk of a large-scale civil war (is) real.”

“Time is of the essence,” she said. “The opportunity to reverse the military takeover is narrowing and regional threat increasing.”

The resolution was the result of lengthy negotiations by a so-called Core Group including the European Union and many Western nations and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations known as ASEAN, which includes Myanmar.
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Massive tragedy for Myanmar, if these figures are even partially true.

Really highlights the difference between rich and poor countries.

Could this pandemic turn out even worse than 1918...?

----------

‘Everyone is dying’: Myanmar on the brink of decimation

Myanmar desperately needs an international health intervention but its military regime seems content to let the people die

July 17, 2021

[...]

One estimate provided by public health experts in Myanmar predicts that 50% of Myanmar’s 55 million people will be infected within three weeks by either the Alpha or Delta variant of Covid-19.

One very reputable public health specialist expects that the population will be decimated by at least 10-15 million by the time Covid is done with Myanmar.


[...]

I have worked in and on Myanmar for more than 30 years. Everyone I know there is either infected or caring for an infected person. No hospitals accept patients anymore, not even the priciest private ones.

Some of the Covid-infected die on the steps in front of hospitals that reject them. They undoubtedly go untested, with death certificates likely reading “pneumonia” as cause of death.

[...]

One does not need to be an epidemiologist, statistician or econometrician to see where this is going. The public health system, to the degree it still exists, will utterly collapse, at this rate of infection, probably within two weeks.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/07/everyone- ... ecimation/
weatheriscool
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Myanmar junta leader declares himself PM as election timeline stalled
Source: The Guardian
Myanmar’s military leader has declared himself prime minister and said he will lead the country under the nation’s state of emergency until elections are held in two years’ time – vastly extending the timeline given when the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi six months ago.

“We must create conditions to hold a free and fair multiparty general election,” Gen Min Aung Hlaing said on Sunday during a recorded televised address. “We have to make preparations. I pledge to hold the multiparty general election without fail.”

He said the state of emergency would achieve its objectives by August 2023. In a separate announcement, the military government named itself “the caretaker government” and Min Aung Hlaing the prime minister.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... -elections
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Myanmar Opposition Leader: We Need More Help From Biden to Defeat the Military Junta
by David Corn
August 5, 2021

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... joe-biden/

Introduction:
[(Mother Jones) Dr. Sasa cannot tell me where he is located. On a Zoom call last week, he seems to be in a sparse office space. Wearing a gray suit and blue tie, Sasa, a slim fellow with close-cropped dark hair who smiles easily, is sitting at a desk, next to a bookshelf that holds a few volumes, including a Bible. There is nothing on the pale yellow wall behind him. He won’t say what country he is in. Or even what hemisphere or time zone. “Security,” he explains. He will only note that he has to change his location frequently—and this has been the case since he fled Myanmar in the wake of the brutal military coup in February that ousted the recently elected democratic government.

Sasa is one of the leaders of the National League for Democracy, the political party that won the national election in November and was overthrown by the military. Many of his colleagues, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the NLD, were arrested and remain detained. (U Nyan Win, an NLD spokesperson arrested by the military, died last month of COVID-19 contracted in a notorious Myanmar prison.) But Sasa managed to avoid arrest and escaped. So the task of representing the deposed government to the rest of the world has fallen to Sasa, a medical doctor and political novice, and he has a message for the Biden administration: The citizens of Myanmar need more help than Washington has so far provided.

Sasa, who grew up in a remote jungle village in Chin State in the western part of Myanmar, was in Naypyitaw, the capital city on February 1, when the military seized control and declared a state of emergency. He was due to become a senior official in the new NLD-led government. “I saw I had to escape,” he recalls. As NLD officials were being rounded up, his party colleagues told him that he should flee if he could. Sasa went into hiding and looked for a way out of the city. He packed a bag and disguised himself as a taxi driver. He approached other drivers, told them he was a driver from Chin State, and asked to be transported to a location he won’t now identify.
/quote]
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caltrek
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Myanmar’s Rogue UN Ambassador Vows to Fight on After Assassination Plot
by James Reinl
August 10, 2021

https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/u ... tion-plot/

Introduction:
(The National) Myanmar’s UN ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun says he will not be cowed by an assassination plot against him and that he will continue resisting efforts by the military leadership back home to take his seat at UN headquarters in New York.

In an exclusive interview with The National, Kyaw Moe Tun, the UN envoy for Myanmar’s ousted civilian government, said he is “safe” thanks to round-the-clock security from US guards and that the fight for people power in Myanmar continues.

“We are resolute,” Kyaw Moe Tun said, adding he would fight until the military regime is brought down.

Since seizing power in a February 1 coup, the military has repeatedly tried to replace Kyaw Moe Tun with a loyalist. The envoy said he will not step down and urged the UN’s credentials committee to take his side when it meets next month.

“This seat is important for the people of Myanmar,” he said.
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Myanmar Collapses into a COVID-19 Nightmare
This is a short blog post, since I will have more later in the week on how the newest wave of COVID-19 is shattering Southeast Asian public health systems, causing massive decimation, and upending politics from Indonesia to Malaysia to Thailand. The region had, in 2020, been cited as a major success story in the battle against the pandemic. Vietnam alone had been one of the most impressive public health stories, and even poorer countries in the region like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar had relatively few COVID-19 cases in 2020. That has now all changed. Indonesia and Malaysia have become two of the centers of the current COVID-19 wave, most of the countries in the region save Singapore have vaccinated few of their people, and even the biggest former success stories, like Thailand and Vietnam, are now suffering massive spikes in caseloads.

Perhaps no place in Southeast Asia, though, is suffering more than Myanmar. Indonesia and Malaysia have been hit exceptionally hard, but in Myanmar the newest wave of the pandemic has spread through the country even as, after the February 1 coup, the country’s entire public health system and social welfare system has utterly collapsed. Longtime Myanmar expert Mary Callahan, of the University of Washington, has released a thorough and despairing piece on the enormous toll of the pandemic in Myanmar. It is worth a read in full here.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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caltrek
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ASEAN Mulls Downgrading Myanmar Representation at Summit
October 5, 2021

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021 ... ummit.html

Introduction:
(Kyoto News) The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is considering whether to downgrade Myanmar's representation at ASEAN's summit meeting later this month due to its lack of cooperation with the group in ending the military-ruled country's political conflict, its special envoy said Wednesday.

ASEAN ministers are discussing whether Myanmar be represented at the Oct. 26-28 summit and, if so, who is going to represent it, Brunei's second foreign minister, Erywan Yusof, who was appointed as special envoy in August but has been unable to visit Myanmar to fulfil his mandate, said in an online press conference from his country's capital.

There have been some proposals on the matter, but no consensus has been reached yet, he said.

"We are also consulting with our dialogue partners as to how they feel about it," he said, referring to such countries as Japan, the United States, China, Australia, India and Russia.

He said ASEAN members are concerned that there has been "very limited" progress on implementing a five-point consensus agreed at an ASEAN summit in April in Jakarta.
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ASEAN Envoy Aborts Visit to Myanmar, Straining Relations
October 15, 2021

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14461535

Introduction:
(AP via The Asahi Shimbun) BANGKOK--Myanmar’s military-installed government said Thursday that a special envoy appointed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations abruptly canceled his visit this week after it told him he would not be able to meet with ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others he had proposed.

The visit’s cancellation is likely to have fueled sentiment among some members of the 10-nation regional body, known as ASEAN, to punish Myanmar for hindering the envoy’s work. Malaysia had already proposed that Myanmar’s leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, not be allowed to attend an ASEAN summit later this month.

A hastily scheduled virtual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers will consider the issue on Friday night, said two Southeast Asian diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release such information.

Myanmar had agreed to allow this week’s visit by the special envoy, Brunei Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof, but he canceled after being informed by his hosts that he would not be able to meet all those he wanted to, said a statement issued by Myanmar’s foreign ministry.

The statement did not mention whom Erywan sought to meet, but he said last month that it included Aung San Suu Kyi. Her elected government was ousted by the military in February, precipitating widespread and volatile popular opposition.
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