Myanmar Military coup: What it’s really about
One week ago, Myanmar joined the growing list of democracies in recent years to backslide into autocracies. The military carried out a coup over unfounded claims of widespread election fraud (sound familiar, America?) and arrested leaders of the democratically-elected party. On this episode, we follow the rise and fall of democracy in Myanmar and discuss its repercussions on democracy at large.
Episode Transcript
Anita Kirti (00:00):
For the past week or so, I have been in correspondence with a youth activist in Myanmar who was coordinating a civil disobedience campaign against the military coup. I was scheduled to have a interview with them this morning at 1:30 AM, but by the time of the interview, the military had shut down the internet in Myanmar. So instead of having that in this episode, I wanted to go ahead and have a two-parter situation.
Anita Kirti (00:28):
In this first part, we're just going to do a backstory of all the things you need to know historically, to understand what's happening today. As of right now, I am trying to find different ways to circumvent the internet shutdown and I'm hoping that I will be able to talk to this person and give them a platform to tell their story and talk about from their perspective, what is happening. So I ask that you keep these people in your thoughts because I'm not exactly sure what's happening.
Anita Kirti (00:59):
I apologize if I am not as upbeat in this episode, it's been a hard week for democracy to say the least. I'm going to go ahead and get started. This is The World We Inherit and I'm your host Anita Kirti. Thanks for listening.
Anita Kirti (01:24):
Okay. Let's start at the relative beginning when Myanmar got independence from the British in 1948. Following independence, there were a few attempts at governance for 14 years. So until 1962, when the military finally took control of the country. This military control lasted from 1962 to 2011, so until very recently. But that period of time was not an uneventful one. There were several movements for democracy, each of which was aggressively shut down.
Anita Kirti (02:01):
In some instances, thousands of people were killed by the military. As a result of suppressing pro-democracy movements, the country became almost a pariah in the international community. It was hit with sanctions and international condemnation, all that to say that the military control of the country from 1962 to 2011 did not happen without pushback internally and externally.
Anita Kirti (02:30):
Before we move on to why the military control ended in 2011, there was a particular instance, which is going to be important for later in the story, that happened in 1990, when the military decided to have elections within the country. During those elections, a newly formed political party called the National League of Democracy won 82% of parliamentary seats. The leader of the National League of Democracy, or the NLD, was Aung San Suu Kyi.
Anita Kirti (03:03):
After winning by a landslide, the military refused to allow them to convene. They took Aung San Suu Kyi and put her under house arrest. It was during this point in time that she rose to global prominence because she was this icon for democracy that was being silenced. So in 1991, she wins the Nobel peace prize and she becomes beloved by Western democracies, who also end up putting international sanctions on Myanmar after she was arrested. So keep her in the back of your mind because she is very important for the rest of the story.
Anita Kirti (03:42):
Let's go back to 2011, what happened. In the years leading up, the military decided to start democratizing the country. Now, there are a lot of theories as to why they decided to do this, and I am not going to get into all of that. Just know that the military decides that they're going to liberalize the country and move towards democracy. So in the year of 2011, they give amnesty to political prisoners. They release Suu Kyi, they relax press censorship, so they're moving towards a more democratic government.
Anita Kirti (04:17):
To encourage them, a lot of nations ease sanctions. The U.S. secretary of state at the time, Hillary Clinton goes to Myanmar and, this sounds almost miraculous, that this military is willfully giving up their power and moving towards a democracy. As you would expect, there is a hitch. In the constitution that is rewritten to be more democratic, the military reserves a quarter of the seats of both houses of the parliament. 25%, so they maintain power over any constitutional changes. The constitution cannot be amended without them.
Anita Kirti (05:00):
They also write in that the ministries of defense, home, and border affairs all need to be headed by military appointees. Even beyond the constitution, in the economy of Myanmar, there is a web of companies that exist in many industries that are controlled by the armed forces. So even though on the face of it it appears to become a democracy, the military has maintained a significant amount of control, both in the economy and in the government.
Anita Kirti (05:35):
Later on in 2015, they have their first openly-contested general elections. That is since 1990. Remember when we talked about the rise of the National League of Democracy. 25 years later, they finally have another round of general elections where they allow all parties to run. In 2015, the National League of Democracy does better than they did in 1990 and gets 86% of parliamentary seats. And Suu Kyi becomes Myanmar's foreign minister and their de facto civilian leader, kind of like their prime minister.
Anita Kirti (06:11):
In 2015, Myanmar peaks. The people of Myanmar, as well as nations across the world, are all hopeful that the 2015 general elections is an indication of a successful transition from military rule to democracy. I said peak for a reason. Because, the following years, you start to see a devolution of what seemed to be this miraculous transformation of the country. In late 2016, 2017, now that the military has handed off the day-to-day operations and the work of running a country off to the National League of Democracy, they don't just twiddle their thumbs. They take their time to begin a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority in Myanmar.
Anita Kirti (07:04):
In 2017, the United Nations reports that 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh and as of today are still residing in refugee camps. To put that into perspective, in the start of 2017, there were 1 million Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, of which 700,000 had to flee. More tragically, a vast majority of the people who were fleeing to Bangladesh were women and children, with more than 40% of those who left being under the age of 12.
Anita Kirti (07:40):
Now, I'm not going to divulge what was in the UN report on the Rohingya genocide, because it's very graphic and triggering for a lot of people. So I will say that it is horrific human rights abuses. Now, you must be thinking to yourself, "Well, okay, if the military is doing this, they're still a government in power that could be putting a stop to this." That they are the majority of the parliament, they're the de facto leaders of the country.
Anita Kirti (08:13):
Well, that's where it gets interesting. Our Nobel Laureate, Suu Kyi, essentially turns a blind eye to what's happening to the Rohingya people. It's for one of two reasons. One, as I had mentioned earlier, the military still holds a significant amount of control in the country. Two, the majority of people in Myanmar see the Rohingya people as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh at best, and terrorists at worst. So there's no real domestic appetite to be standing up for this minority of people. It doesn't serve her politically to stand up against the military and protect the Rohingya people.
Anita Kirti (08:55):
If you think some kind of international condemnation will make her change her tune, it does not. A case was heard in 2019 in the International Court of Justice on the Rohingya genocide. Suu Kyi actually testifies. Throughout her statement, she refuses to even say the word Rohingya, and essentially says that there may have been excessive use of force, but that's a domestic problem. And the military was only acting against a terrorist group.
Anita Kirti (09:32):
Now that we've seen both the rise and fall of Suu Kyi, let's fast forward to the general elections of last year in November of 2020. The National League for Democracy again wins by a landslide, with 396 out of 476 seats being won by their party. Which, compared to the military-backed party called The Union Solidarity and Development Party, which only won 33 seats. So it was a clear mandate from the people that they wanted to have another five years of the NLD party. That's when something a little familiar to Americans happened, the military starts to make claims that there were millions of irregularities on voter lists in 314 towns, which allowed for voters to cast multiple ballots and commit other "voting malpractice."
Anita Kirti (10:33):
A few months later, it's February 1st, 2021, a day before the new term of the parliament. On this day, the military very surgically detained Suu Kyi and leaders of the National League of Democracy, as well as activists and filmmakers. It shuts down the internet. It grounds flights and declares a year-long state of emergency. All on the basis that an improper election was conducted. There was a lot of tension in that people were wondering, will there be further detention? will the internet come back? Will there be a harsher crackdown?
Anita Kirti (11:09):
But that's not what happens. By the evening, the internet comes back. There are no more further detentions, and Suu Kyi gets released back to her home. Then there is the expected international response from countries like the U.S. and the G7, that all call on Myanmar to respect the results of the elections. In the most absurd fashion, a few days later, the military announces that Suu Kyi was found to have at least 10 walkie-talkies that were illegally imported for which she is facing up to three years in prison.
Anita Kirti (11:47):
According to reporting in the days following, some people took down their National League for Democracy flags. Others did small acts of civil disobedience, like banging pots and pans, or honking their horns to protest the coup. There were some healthcare workers that walked off the job for the day. How the people responded is the missing piece that I would like to have our guests speak more on in part two. But it seems as though the agitation on social media prompted the military to shut down the internet completely.
Anita Kirti (12:23):
Okay. Before we wrap this up, I wanted to have a little bit of a discussion as to what this means internationally, because no country lives in a vacuum and democracy is a very fragile experiment. The fall of democracy in one country affects really everyone. First, I want to address that this is horrendous for the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya people, because the military now has full control of the country. Two, to the backsliding of the Myanmar democracy is part of what experts refer to as a larger wave of autocratization, which has been happening since 1994 and has been gaining momentum in recent years. You can see that in countries like Brazil, India, Turkey, and the United States, some of the most populous countries.
Anita Kirti (13:22):
Two shared characteristics amongst these countries that are experiencing this backslide is rising authoritarianism and right-wing populist groups winning elections. To say the obvious, that is seen with the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, with the rise of Modi in India, and the rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil. So to see Myanmar join this group of countries is troubling because, in the past few years, it had been seen as one of the few countries that were moving closer to democracy. Especially in Asia, when you're seeing countries like Cambodia and Thailand that have reverted to authoritarianism, and the Philippines, which has recently seen an increase in authoritarian populism. And a huge democracy like India that is experiencing a rise in authoritarianism. So on both the regional and global level, the devolution of democracy in Myanmar points to a troubling future for democratic values that many of us hold very dear.
Anita Kirti (14:35):
Okay. That is all of the historical and international contexts that you need to know before you hear the story of our guest in part two. Again, please keep the safety of the Myanmar people in your thoughts and prayers. I'm hoping that we will be able to speak to this young activist and hear their story. That is it for today. Please make sure to subscribe. This is The World We Inherit and I'm your host Anita Kirti. Thanks for listening.
Works Cited
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Bünte, Marco, Patrick Köllner, and Richard Roewer. “Taking Stock of Myanmar’s Political Transformation since 2011.” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 38, no. 3 (December 2019): 249–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1868103420905140.
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Win, Pyae Sone. “Myanmar Election Commission Rejects Military's Fraud Claims.” AP News, Associated Press, 29 Jan. 2021, apnews.com/article/aung-san-suu-kyi-elections-myanmar-cc1b225b806c27dda748d3ab51d0e47f.