6 Reasons Why Myanmar’s Fight for Democracy is a Global Issue
On Feb. 1 2021, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing led the Myanmar military — also known as the Tatmadaw — in staging a coup d’etat on the country’s democratically elected civilian government on unverifiable grounds of widespread voter fraud. Leaders of the winning party, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, were detained and charged with baseless, obscure crimes. Thousands of activists, students, medical professionals, and peaceful protesters have been illegally detained since. Hundreds of unarmed civilians, including women, children, and ethnic minorities, have died at the hands of weapons of war.
Although the crisis may feel distant and isolated to those not in the country, the global community is constantly reminded that Myanmar is a major battlefront in the fight for democratic values and humanitarian causes everywhere. Its shockwaves will be felt around the world. This is why it’s more pressing than ever for the international community to pay close attention to Myanmar and amplify its plight on the global stage.
There are a myriad of reasons why the international community should care about what’s happening in Myanmar that would be difficult to list in just one article. But as a jumping-off point, GM4MD would like to present to you 6 reasons why the fight to restore democracy in Myanmar is a global issue:
- Safeguarding freedom of speech
Press freedom
The fourth pillar of democracy holds a mirror up to society, disseminating truth and holding the powerful to account in the eyes of the public. So when the truth gets ugly, it is no surprise that the powerful come for the necks of media publications and journalists first. On the first day of the coup, the Tatmadaw suspended broadcasts of all TV channels except for state-owned Myawaddy and MRTV, which are the main mouthpieces of the military’s propaganda machine. Shortly after, print media came under attack — the military declared that the media were barred from using the terms “coup,” “junta,” and “military government.” Publications that chose to defy the orders of the junta were reprimanded swiftly: first, bureaucratically through revocation of their license to publish, then criminally by arresting and threatening the lives of journalists like Kaung Myat Hlaing, a reporter for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) who was abducted from his home during curfew hours at the horror of thousands of Facebook live stream viewers. At least 35 journalists have been arrested since the Feb. 1 coup. Only 19 have been released (Reuters).
Despite the hazards, independent media beats on in the form of digital journalism, distributed through Facebook and other social media channels. Local reporters continue to journey out into the front-lines and risk their lives for the truth everyday, as is the case in many other countries where pro-democracy movements have taken hold and threaten the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes. The survival of free press in Myanmar will serve as a testament to the importance of independent journalism in times of crises and uncertainty.
Online privacy and security
In the not so distant past, SIM cards cost thousands of dollars in Myanmar and dial-up internet was the norm for any lucky household that had a computer.
As a result of democratization, accessibility became more affordable — the number of mobile connections in Myanmar as of 2020 was 126% of the total population. About 40% of the population uses Facebook, which is now synonymous with the internet. Just as the people of Myanmar were learning to deal with digital transformation and the ever-present political demons of hate-speech and fake news leading up to election season, we were forced to adapt to a whole other mode of using social media: organizing large-scale online social movements.
As expected, the scale and speed of the digital social movement was met with vehement oppression by the junta. The Tatmadaw shut off internet access for an entire day on Feb. 6, inciting the first wave of mass protests in major cities like Yangon and Mandalay. Since then, ostensibly to prevent “fake news” and unrest, the Tatmadaw has routinely barred civilians from accessing the internet nightly from 1–9am, forced ISPs to block access to mobile data, restricted broadband network capabilities, and administered checkpoints where police officers force passersby to unlock their phones and present their social media profiles to find incriminating evidence of supporting the CDM movement. A “spring revolution” Facebook profile picture frame could land you a few years in jail.
Many have likened the military’s restricting and monitoring of online speech to China’s “Great Firewall” and the broad-reaching national security law passed in Hong Kong to quell pro-democracy activism. It is a fact that these chilling measures passed by Myanmar’s military and oppressive regimes everywhere set a dangerous precedent for who can restrict online speech and why. It could also force social media companies to reevaluate regional privacy and security policies and fast-track safety measures that could benefit users in all corners of the world.
2. Protecting the Rights of Women and Children
In conjunction with the uptick in domestic violence as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, the coup in Myanmar has exacerbated the vulnerability of women and girls during times of conflict. The Tatmadaw has a reputation for weaponizing sexual violence — it has committed sexual violence as an act of war as recently as 2017, targeting women and girls of ethnic minority backgrounds in rural areas in particular. They unabashedly undermine international frameworks that promote and protect women and girls like CEDAW, CRC or UNSC Resolution on Women, Peace and Security.
Despite the risks, women are at the forefront of Myanmar’s revolution. Women in Myanmar have risen to positions of leadership in politics and civil society since the start of the democratization process — more women were elected to Myanmar’s parliament in the 2020 election than ever before. However, their aspirations were swept from under them without any warning, and the women of Myanmar are now seen leading protests and CDM, sacrificing their present safety and security for a future that is free from oppressive military rule.
The children of Myanmar are not only subject to witnessing their mothers suffer at the hands of the junta, but are themselves targets of abuse and violence. The Tatmadaw routinely abducts children from public areas and conscripts them by force — according to the Borgen Project, 20 percent of soldiers in the army are children under 18. Of the over 550 civilian deaths since the first day of the coup, 46 were children. Denied any ounce of normalcy — a basic education, reliable food and shelter, safety and security — children in Myanmar are a harrowing reminder of why protections for the most vulnerable are ingrained into international law and why countries, governments, and corporations alike have a responsibility to uphold them.
3. Holding multinational corporations accountable
Myanmar’s democratization drew in foreign investors from a broad range of industries and jump-started an economy which had been stagnant for decades. The coup in Myanmar shines a harsh light on the ethical obligations of these multinational corporations and their capacity for human rights due diligence. A 2019 UN fact-finding mission delineated the extent to which profits from “crony companies’’ are funding the Tatmadaw’s atrocities and perpetuating widespread corruption — this information and the recommendations that follow it are easily accessible to all businesses operating in Myanmar. However, privately owned companies are largely responsible for their own adherence or non-adherence to recommendations set forth by the UN and other global institutions. And so, an era of Tatmadaw-linked businesses flourished with the backing of foreign executives.
Organizations like Justice for Myanmar, a group which exposes foreign businesses’ commercial ties to the Tatmadaw, have become central to holding corporate leaders accountable. Various Facebook groups and apps have been collating extensive lists of brands to boycott in an attempt to bottleneck the junta’s funds from the ground up. Some brands like Kirin pulled out early, deciding that doing business with the junta was risky and unsustainable. However, oil and gas companies like Total, Chevron, and POSCO have yet to act on calls to divest in joint ventures with the military. Garment workers active in the CDM movement who work at factories that produce for the likes of H&M, Adidas, and Primark have been punished for striking.
In a world where conscious global consumers and shareholders are increasingly demanding companies to take a stand for what’s right, the way that businesses navigate the political crisis in Myanmar will serve as the criterion for international corporate social responsibility.
4. Preventing a Climate Crisis
The Tatmadaw’s notorious penchant for the destruction of the environment for capital gain has put Myanmar in grave danger of a climate crisis. Myanmar has a large variety of fragile diverse environmental areas, mostly in ethnic regions — Himalayan foothills, teak forests, jungle, arid grasslands, large river deltas and unique marine habitats. All these areas have been exploited by the military in the form of illegal mining, deforestation, and projects like the Chinese-backed Myitsone hydropower dam.
Government agencies, international organizations, and universities that had been heavily involved in conservation efforts are now essentially defunct. Groups like the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) which had been carrying out 39 adaptation and mitigation projects in Myanmar have halted all operations due to lack of legal justifications for working with the military, and local organizations have also had to stall their activities on the ground due to paralyzing funding cuts. The undercutting of these kinds of initiatives puts Myanmar, its neighbors, and their vulnerable populations at risk of suffering from the worst effects of climate change in the years to come.
5. Defending democracy in Asia and the Milk Tea Alliance
The crisis in Myanmar underscores the tenuous state of liberal democracies across Asia. Neighboring Thailand underwent its own coup in 2014, with the military usurping power from a popular civilian-led government to safeguard their influence in politics (sound familiar?). The pro-democracy demonstrations that transpired in Taiwan and Hong Kong stood as points of reference and scenes of solidarity for activists in Myanmar. These countries are unified in their affinity for sweet milk tea, unrelenting demands for democracy, and disdain for the sordidness of Chinese influence in their respective nations.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has espoused a laissez-faire approach since the beginning of the putsch in Myanmar. This comes as no surprise though, as the CCP has some serious financial stakes in the country: multiple transnational oil and gas pipelines, key Belt and Road Initiative projects, illegal jade mining, and lumber trade are a few. Also, it is worth noting that any action taken by China through the United Nations might set a precedent for foreign intervention in its own “internal affairs.” This means, for instance, that if China uncharacteristically chose not to veto a UNSC resolution regarding Myanmar’s human rights violations, they might in turn be placing themselves on the roster for UN humanitarian intervention regarding the repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Moreover, the Milk Tea Alliance exists against the backdrop of broader ideological tensions between western liberal democratic values and authoritarianism. Political and economic liberalism, despite its flaws, persists in the hearts and minds of youth in the region because at its core, the fight for democracy is a fight for basic civil liberties and human dignity. Although each country must fight its own fight, the outcome of Myanmar’s struggle for democracy will undoubtedly be a fulcrum for the fate of liberal democratic values in the region.
6. Averting a Humanitarian Emergency
The coup has already caused an increase in the number of displaced people moving towards Myanmar’s borders — Over 15,000 people are now newly displaced. Refugees living just outside of Myanmar’s borders or resettled to third countries were driven out by conflict involving the Burmese military. Since the beginning of March, there have been unrelenting air strikes on the people in the Karen region, who were already amongst some of the most vulnerable ethnic minorities in Myanmar. Some of these displaced peoples are flat out denied entry into bordering nations like Thailand or are being sailed back into war zones with little to no access to food, water, and shelter. Currently there are over 860,000 refugees in Bangladesh, about 110,000 in Thailand, and now over 1000 in India. These numbers will inexorably increase. (If you have the means to and would like to donate, GM4MD has set up a fundraiser for clinics at the Thai/Myanmar border that are urgently in need of supplies).
The military government was also behind the failure to warn or evacuate the Awerwaddy region when Cyclone Nargis killed at least 138,000 people. Indian weather trackers had shared their data, and the military covered it up, and then refused to accept international support. We know that natural disasters are likely to increase and become worse in the coming years, and a military government will exhibit little resolve to save the people of Myanmar when they do.
It is for these reasons that we cannot ignore the struggle for justice taking place in Myanmar. If Myanmar’s military generals are allowed to retake power of the country, the consequences will be felt far outside the borders of the country.
GM4MD thanks special contributor Wendy for this article.
