It was not the most surprising coup in history. The rumor mill had pointed out in the previous weeks the military fed up to the leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the Army spokesman did not deny a imminent riot when asked at a press conference. Four days later, and just hours before the new parliamentary term began, the military Min Aung Hlaing was applied with the most orthodox coup script: he dissolved the chambers, imprisoned political rivals, banned the free press, and crushed the protests.
Burma celebrates the first anniversary since the coup with a terrifying balance. More of 300,000 displaced by violence, 2.200 houses and properties destroyed, almost 1,500 civilians killed and 11,000 arrested, according to accounts from the UN and local human rights organizations. The Military Junta first promised that it would not repeat the excesses of the past and then made an effort to deny it. Shot to kill on urban protesters and has chained outrages in rural areas. In the last one, perpetrated on Christmas Eve, the military murdered 35 neighbors and left their burned bodies on the roads. Among the victims were four children and two workers from the NGO Save The Children.
The military have also threatened those who take advantage of the anniversary to express his anger. Those who join the casseroles, a form of daily protest in the first few months, can be charged with treason and tried under the anti-terrorist law. Some business owners who had revealed on social networks that they would close during the day have been arrested.
flirting with civil war
The country flirts with civil war and no one expects an imminent end. It is a technical draw that experts describe as “balance of chaos”. To one side, the Tatmadaw The army. To the other, a dissident amalgam with more will than means and order. About fifty rebel groups from the Bamar majority make up the People’s Defense Forces and next to one myriad ethnic groups hit the Army wherever they can, especially in the Chin, Shan and Kayin states. The self-proclaimed Government of National Unity (GUN) it is an alleged power in the shadows that arrogates internal legitimacy and seeks external recognition, with little success on both counts.
“The attacks of the resistance groups they are becoming more sophisticated and increasing their cooperation with armed militias, some of which have significant military capabilities,” he recently stated. Richard Horsey, renowned analyst at the International Crisis Group. “But with neither side in a position to deal a knockout blow to the other, a lengthy and increasingly violent confrontation is inevitable,” it concluded.
There is no other outcome than the military one before the sterile diplomacy. The Pressure Y international sanctions they will not convince a Board that resisted for almost half a century with its back to the world. Nor the stubborn division within ASEAN, the regional organization of Southeast Asiaallows optimism. Dictator Min Aung Hlaing has already hinted that he will not respect the Five Point Consensus that it agreed with ASEAN three months after the coup and that it contemplated the calling of elections in the middle of next year. The promise to isolate Burma if it did not comply has already been torpedoed by Hun Sen, the Cambodian leader, in the face of protests from Singapore or Indonesia.
Pandemic devastates fragile economy
The conflict has aggravated the effects of the pandemic and devastated what was already the poorest economy in the area and placed millions of people. His START it contracted 18% in the past year and will barely grow 1% in the next, according to the World Bank. The Burmese await in this dire scenario the improbable return of the leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who chains sentences by a dozen crimes that could lead to up to a century in prison.
There are few reasons for optimism in a country that has paid with oceans of blood for its previous democratic struggles. This generation has tasted democracy and will defend it more vigorously than the previous ones, but one wonders how many more massacres they will endure.