BANGKOK – Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages despite international pressure on the military four years after it seized power from an elected civilian government.
The political situation remains tense with no negotiation space in sight between the military government and the major opposition groups fighting against it.
Recommended Videos
The four years after the army's takeover on Feb. 1, 2021, have created a profound situation of multiple, overlapping crises with nearly half the population in poverty and the economy in disarray, the U.N. Development Program said.
The U.N. Human Rights Office said the military ramped up violence against civilians last year to unprecedented levels, inflicting the heaviest civilian death toll since the army takeover as its grip on power eroded.
The army launched wave after wave of retaliatory airstrikes and artillery shelling on civilians and civilian populated areas, forced thousands of young people into military service, conducted arbitrary arrests and prosecutions, caused mass displacement, and denied access to humanitarians, even in the face of natural disasters, the rights office said in a statement Friday.
“After four years, it is deeply distressing to find that the situation on the ground for civilians is only getting worse by the day,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk said. “Even as the military’s power wanes, their atrocities and violence have expanded in scope and intensity,” he said, adding that the retaliatory nature of the attacks were designed to control, intimidate, and punish the population.
The United States, United Kingdom, European Union and others criticized the military takeover in a statement that also called for the release of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
They said nearly 20 million people need humanitarian assistance and up to 3.5 million people are displaced internally, an increase of nearly 1 million in the last year. They also expressed concern about increased cross-border crime in Myanmar such as drug and human trafficking and online scam operations, which affect neighboring countries and risk broader instability.
“The current trajectory is not sustainable for Myanmar or the region,” the countries said in the joint statement that also included Australia, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.
The status of the fighting
The military's 2021 takeover prompted widespread public protests, whose violent suppression by security forces triggered an armed resistance that has now led to a state of civil war. Ethnic minority militias and people’s defense forces that support Myanmar’s main opposition control large parts of the country, while the military holds much of central Myanmar and big cities including the capital, Naypyidaw.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the repression of the military government, said that at least 6,239 were killed and 28,444 were arrested since the takeover. The actual death toll is likely to be much higher since the group does not generally include deaths on the side of the military government and cannot easily verify cases in remote areas.
Aung Thu Nyein, director of communications for the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar think tank, told The Associated Press that Myanmar's current situation is at its worst with peace and development being pushed back.
“What’s worse is that the sovereignty which ever-proclaimed by the military is losing, and the country’s borders could even shift,” Aung Thu Nyein said in a text message.
Myanmar’s army suffered unprecedented battlefield defeats over the past year, when a coalition of ethnic armed groups won victories in the northeast near the Chinese border and in the western state of Rakhine.
The ethnic rebels were able to quickly capture several towns, military bases and two important regional commands, and their offensive weakened the army’s grip in other parts of the country.
The ethnic minorities have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government and are loosely allied with the People’s Defense Force, the pro-democracy armed resistance formed after the army’s 2021 takeover.
The U.N. Human Rights Office and rights groups including Amnesty International also made rare allegations in recent statements that armed groups opposing the military have also committed human rights violations in areas under their control.
The status of election plans
In pursuit of a political solution, the military government is pushing for an election, which it has promised to hold this year. Critics say the election would not be free or fair as civil rights have been curtailed and many political opponents imprisoned and the election would be an attempt to normalize military control.
On Friday, the military government extended a state of emergency another six months because it said more time was needed to restore stability before the election, state-run MRTV television reported. No exact date for the polls was given.
Tom Andrews, a special rapporteur working with the U.N. human rights office, said it wasn't possible to hold a legitimate election while arresting, detaining, torturing and executing leaders of the opposition and when it is illegal for journalists or citizens to criticize the military government.
“Governments should dismiss these plans for what they are – a fraud,” Tom Andrews said.