Gains by Rebel Groups in Northern Burma/Myanmar

4 August 2024

The struggle in Myanmar has dropped out of the news, but it goes on.

I visited Myanmar in 2017-18. There were almost two societies. The people said very little and seemed about 80% of the population. They obviously hated the army but no one said so. The army and their ilk seemed to be about 20%. They knew that they were hated, but were defiant and aggressive.

The government was theoretically under the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Ky, the Nobel laureate, but the army had kept all the major portfolios so she could not act much. Arguably the Junta had accepted her 2015 win only because of sanction pressure on the country.

Yangon (ex-Rangoon), was a pretty dirty 3rd world city, with almost no expensive hotels and diesel generators outside even modest hotels, shops and restaurants because of the unreliability of the power. As the old capital, Yangon had a building that should have been the Parliament, but the capital had been moved north 3 hours drive to Naypyidaw, away from the population centres.

Naypyidaw was a very modern city with 6 lane modern roads and almost no people, built largely with Chinese money. You could have played tennis on the main highway. There were a number of big modern 5 star hotels in an enclave away from where the locals lived which were remarkably cheap, around $US25 a night and had almost no guests at breakfast and few lights in the rooms in the evenings. The ‘National Library’ was small, modern and served by a infrequent bus service. There was almost no one there. The staff spoke good English but did not say much beyond information about the library.

In Mandalay, the second city, there is an old and not-well-maintained palace in a large fortified compound complete with moat. Tourists are vetted at the gate by surly military and may only walk up the central drive to the palace- all the rest of the compound is for the military and it is mostly neglected lawn.

They were trying to develop a tourist industry and there were a lot of new vehicles, mostly right hand drive in a country where they drive on the right. i.e. the drivers are on the wrong side. This was apparently because cheap cars were available from Japan. This industry has largely collapsed since.

There was an election in November 2020, which resulted in a huge victory for the National League for Democracy and Aung San Suu Ky, but there was a military coup immediately after. Aung San Suu Ky was arrested on trumped up charges, one of which was having walkie-talkies for her staff that were not able to be eavesdropped by the junta. Some people were killed in ensuring demonstrations but more systematic military resistance has continued ever since. There are a lot of different ethnic groups and unity within the country is a long-term problem that no one wants to talk about, but they all oppose the military junta and are cooperating against it.

www.irrawaddy.com/news/war-against-the-junta/myanmar-junta-surrenders-third-town-to-tnla-in-northern-shan-state.html