Burma – Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans

04/08/2024

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

09/11/2023

Burma/Myanmar Sportswashing

9 November 2023

I visited Myanmar (Burma) in December 2017.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace prize winning daughter of the founder of modern Burma, who was immensely popular with the people had been elected in a landslide in 2015. She and her party had boycotted the 2010 elections as farcical, but the military dictatorship had allowed her to stand in 2015, where she had won with 86% of the parliamentary seats.

Despite this win, the military junta still refused to yield power and kept the critical portfolios in the Cabinet, so she was nominally in charge and trying to change the system but her hands were largely tied. It was hard to get anyone to talk about politics, and few spoke English, but I had enough contacts to let me in on the situation.

It was a third world country trying to develop tourism. It had some relatively modern tourist buses but few hotels of a reasonable standard. (This did not bother me as a lifetime backpacker). Most cars were old, but there were a significant number of modern ones. The only feature of these was that they were right hand drive in a country that drives on the right, so the drivers were on the wrong side when it came to overtaking. It was because Japan had made a number of recent model second hand cars available and these had been snapped up.

Yangon, the biggest city and historical capital had a building that should have been the Parliament and it was in quite good condition but mothballed and currently not used for anything. The city was third world, crowded and prone to blackouts, so many buildings had diesel generators in the street outside, which were turned on when the blackouts came, making pretty bad pollution worse.

The people were friendly and courteous, and keen to develop the new tourism industry that had opened up under the same pressure on the military government that had led to the elections. There was a palpable tension between the population and the military, who moved around with surly expressions as if they knew that they were hated, but were not going to give ground.

This was very evident in Mandalay, the second largest city, which has an old palace in a large fortified area, complete with a moat. The military have taken control of all but the central palace with signs forbidding anyone walking in the extensive (neglected) gardens. They have a large depot within the grounds and a surly military guard post at the gate that inspects passports.

The other major expression of this separateness was in Naypyidaw, the capital. This city was recently built with Chinese money and is in the mountains about 3 hours drive from Yangon, presumably to make it less vulnerable to possible revolution. It is very modern with 8 lane highways with absolutely minimal traffic. The foreigners were in a cluster of large modern hotels, again Chinese-built. The hotels were remarkably cheap for their standard, but I noted that at 9pm there were almost no lights on in any of the rooms and there were only about 20 people for breakfast in our large international-standard hotel. The foreign hotel area was a bus ride from where the people lived, and that was not a large area. The National library was a modern air-conditioned building, not partially large. We were about the only people in it apart from the staff. It was on a bus route, but nowhere near any population centre.

Four years later, in February 2021, there was a military coup and Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested on a number of charges related to national security. She has been in prison ever since on charges that the western countries have called politically motivated. It seems that her major crime was to use a two-way radio phone network that was not accessible to the military junta. Her economic advisor, Australian Professor Sean Turnell was also tried without an interpreter and gaoled. He was released in November 2022 after 21 months in detention and representations from the Australian government. There was some resistance to the coup and some people were killed. Resistance is ongoing and almost certainly widely supported, but it has had minimal publicity in the western or Australian media since Prof Turnell’s release.

The reason for this post is that a soccer team from Myanmar with strong junta connections is to play Macarthur FC in Sydney shortly. This looks like a sportswashing exercise to legitimise the government and lessen its isolation.

I suggest that you write to Penny Wong and ask that they not be given visas www.pennywong.com.au/contact/, and to Macarthur FC and ask that they not play them, email: admin@macarthurfc.com.au. Here is the request from the Australian Coalition for Democracy in Burma:

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