Myanmar: Tragedy in Southeast Asia
Robert Cole
Sunday marked Armed Forces Day in Myanmar, a holiday that has become symbolic of the treasonous hypocrisy the Burmese military has inflicted on the people they are supposed to protect. The holiday began as a celebration of Burmese resistance to the Japanese occupation during World War II and was known as “Resistance Day” for this reason. Pro-democracy advocates such as Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) Party still use some variation on this name for the holiday, which is now known as Armed Forces (or Tatmadaw) Day officially. This transition from celebrating the fight against fascism to an emphasis on glorifying the military should be indicative of the Tatmadaw’s current role and ironic accidental recognition that it has become almost as brutal and authoritarian as the Japanese occupiers once were.
I have covered the political situation in Myanmar in several posts since the February 2021 coup as it has escalated into one of the most violent struggles on Earth. While the military crackdown and resulting civil war has made accurate numbers all but impossible to obtain, thousands have been killed and tens of thousands wounded or imprisoned at a minimum. Close to half a million people have been displaced by the conflict, which has become increasingly intractable. Indeed, during Sunday’s military festivities, junta leaders promised to “annihilate” opponents of their unlawful coup, calling them terrorists with whom they would not negotiate. This sinister proclamation came on the anniversary of one of the most violent days in the conflict so far, when hundreds of anti-junta protesters were killed. The various ethnic militias and forces aligned with the exiled NLD government, now known as the National Unity Government (NUG) are also unlikely to lay down their arms any time soon, in light of recent violence such as the Christmas Eve massacre of civilians by government forces, in which Tatmadaw soldiers burned men, women, and children alive in their vehicles in Kayah State.
Beyond the horror all people should feel upon hearing of such atrocities, more attention should be put on the conflict for its global implications. The Russian government, currently engaged in its own war crime ridden campaign of destruction in Ukraine, is a close partner of the military regime in Myanmar and its number one source of arms. While China also continues to sell weapons to the junta, it appears that the Tatmadaw prefers Russian weapons for their superior quality and because it is a much closer partner. China has long meddled in Burmese domestic affairs, promoting and selling arms to friendly militias and the government at the same time. It is also far closer geographically than Russia and therefore poses much more of a threat to the regime itself. As sanctions on Russia tighten, its trade with Maynmar, which often pays for arms in raw materials, will be an important avenue for supplying itself and maintaining its ability to engage in aggressive conflict in the face of international pressure.
Moreover, the civil war in Myanmar also has implications for the international drug trade. Many of the armed groups involved, including the junta, regularly engage in drug production and trafficking to fund their operations, a practice that has “surged” since the coup. Local people too rely on the revenue from methamphetamine and opium production to survive, particularly as the formal economy is shattered by violence. This will in turn likely exacerbate existing trends in drug abuse from Bangladesh to the United States, which is in the midst of a massive increase in meth-related fatalities. The world has witnessed the impact of drug trafficking on regional conflicts from South America to Afghanistan, and it is clear that unless aggressive action is taken to stem the tide of violence and curtail consumption, the flow of drugs out of Myanmar will only exacerbate the violence within.
Despite the concerning ties to Russia and potential implications for regional security, not enough has been done to stop the Tatmadaw’s abuses. Japan continues to offer training to Burmese officer cadets, a practice that cannot be allowed to continue. The US has recently begun to increase pressure on the regime, formally accusing the military of war crimes in its genocide of the Rohingya Muslim community beginning in 2017. Additionally, the US, UK, and Canada imposed joint sanctions on key Burmese military officials on Sunday as well as a number of arms dealers. If the US is serious about serving as a counterbalance to the anti-democratic influences of Russia and China in Southeast Asia, it must lean on important regional players, particularly Japan, India, and Thailand, to take similar measures that will have a more direct effect on the military junta. Myanmar must not be allowed to continue to spiral into chaos and authoritarianism. Allowing it to do so only opens the door to increasing Chinese and Russian meddling at the cost of the suffering of millions. If the last few months of international news have proven anything, it is that allowing authoritarians to go unchecked will never end well, and in the modern world regional problems rarely remain strictly regional for long.