“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.” – Emma Lazarus
As Burma/Myanmar won its independence from Britain after the trials and tribulations of Japanese occupation during the Second World War, the Burmese leader General Aung San, father of the now sadly discredited democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, had a vision of a federal Burma, where the many different ethnic groups could be given autonomy in a federal Burma and live in harmony together. That dream died with Aung San when he was assassinated on 19th July 1947. From 1962 onwards Burma has been dominated by a brutal military regime, using murder and terror to retain a centralised control of the country.
News from the Bangladesh border
This month marks four years since the military coup in Burma poured more pain on the long-suffering people of Burma and the nightmare still continues. More alarming news came out of Burma at the end of January, with the revelation that 36 Rohingya refugees were detained on 5th January by the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) on the western border of Burma and forced back to Burma. Six days later, at least 58 Rohingya refugees were picked up by the BGB as they were trying to cross from Burma with the help of people smugglers. Getting over the border to Bangladesh, even to the squalid refugee camps there, has long been an escape route for beleaguered Rohingya Muslims, who have been living through a terrible crisis since the Burmese army’s genocidal attacks on the Rohingya in late August 2017.
This was never easy, as the Rohingya have been stuck in limbo without citizenship for four long decades, since they were stripped of their citizenship, during which time the Rohingya have been stateless, without the documents required to travel and unable to cross borders legally. With the borders closed, the Rohingya are trapped in Burma.
The following was reported in The Guardian on 22nd January: “In the dim light of his home in Arakan, Myanmar, Mohammed is talking above the wailing of his youngest child. All three of his children are hungry, he says. The 32-year-old Rohingya man’s parents, leaning together against the wall, are just visible as Mohammed speaks on the video call.
“He fears for his safety too much to allow his surname to be used – Rakhine state is a dangerous place to be after four years of Myanmar’s civil war.
“We are struggling just to survive,” he says. “Food is scarce, clean water is a luxury, and every day feels like a battle to protect my family from the horrors unfolding around us.
“But after the events this month against our people in Bangladesh, we have lost all hope,” he adds.”
The Rohingyas in Rakhine state are increasingly trapped between the murderous Burmese Army and the local Arakan Army, who also terrorise them.
Civil War in Burma
Meanwhile the civil war which has been described as Burma’s ‘forgotten fight for freedom’ rumbles on. The military coup in February 2021 must have looked like another easy victory for the bullies of the military regime, so used to getting their own way as Burma has been ruled by the military for most of the last 63 years since March 1962. However, it hasn’t quite worked out that way.
It has been noted that four years on, resistance to the military regime has flourished, as previously fractious ethnic armies and opposition groups have come together to fight their common foe. It was said in early February that a study by the BBC had estimated that the military junta now controls only 21% of Myanmar’s territory as it battles People’s Defence Force units set up by the national unity government formed from the NLD’s remnants, as well as the ethnic armed groups that have long fought the brutal military regime.
The junta still controls the main cities of Yango, Mandalay and the capital Naypyidaw, but large areas of rural Burma to the west, to the east in Shan State, and in the lands of the Karens and Karennis are now beyond their control.
The war has further impoverished an already desperately poor people with The Guardian noting on 4th February that, “more than 4 million people are displaced and half the population has been forced into poverty. Less than half has access to electricity. The UN says Rakhine state is at imminent risk of acute famine and Rohingya Muslims there are particularly vulnerable, trapped between the military – which has forcibly conscripted men – and the Arakan Army, which accuses them of siding with the junta”.
Meanwhile civil society groups in Burma are fearful that President Trump’s attacks on the National Endowment for Democracy, mean that much needed funds to help build a free and fair democracy in Burma will not be available and indeed it has been stated that the “freeze on US Aid operations has already seen medical care withdrawn from 100,000 refugees in Thailand.”
Zoya Phan from Burma Campaign UK commented: “After decades of dictatorships, we finally have a chance of freeing ourselves from military dictatorship. People are paying a great price to win their freedom, with more than four million people forced to flee their homes, 21,000 political prisoners, and a desperate humanitarian crisis. We need everyone to lobby their MP and lobby their government to do more to cut off the flow of arms and money to the military dictatorship.”
Caught between fear and hope
It is a strange time in Burma; great fear and deprivation is mixed with genuine hope that the insurrection will finally see the end of the murderous military rule in Burma. There are still fears that a post-junta Burma could collapse completely. However, there is also hope that the opposition groups, who themselves have committed atrocities, can still work together and develop a federal Burma, which can finally live at peace with itself and Aung San’s vision can at last become a reality.
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