Singapore’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the move to exclude junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was a “difficult, but necessary, decision to uphold ASEAN’s credibility” | AP/file
Singapore’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the move to exclude junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was a “difficult, but necessary, decision to uphold ASEAN’s credibility”.
Southeast Asian countries will invite a non-political representative from Myanmar to a regional summit this month, delivering an unprecedented snub to the military leader who led a coup against an elected civilian government in February.
The decision taken by foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at an emergency meeting on Friday night, marks a rare bold step for the consensus-driven bloc, which has traditionally favoured a policy of engagement and non-interference.
Singapore’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the move to exclude junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was a “difficult, but necessary, decision to uphold ASEAN’s credibility”.
The statement cited a lack of progress made on a roadmap to restore peace in Myanmar that the junta had agreed to with ASEAN in April.
A spokesman for Myanmar’s military government blamed “foreign intervention” for the decision.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told the BBC Burmese news service that the United States and representatives of the European Union had pressured other ASEAN member states.
“The foreign interventions can also be seen here,” he said. “We learned that some envoys from some countries met with U.S. foreign affairs and received pressure from EU.”
More than 1,000 civilians have been killed by Myanmar security forces with thousands of others arrested, according to the United Nations, amid a crackdown on strikes and protests which has derailed the country’s tentative democracy and prompted international condemnation. The junta says those estimates of the death toll are exaggerated.
ASEAN’s current chair Brunei said a non-political figure from Myanmar would be invited to the Oct. 26-28 summit, after no consensus was reached for a political representative to attend.
“As there had been insufficient progress… as well as concerns over Myanmar’s commitment, in particular on establishing constructive dialogue among all concerned parties, some ASEAN Member States recommended that ASEAN give space to Myanmar to restore its internal affairs and return to normalcy,” Brunei said in a statement.
It did not mention Min Aung Hlaing or name who would be invited in his stead.
Brunei said some member states had received requests from Myanmar’s National Unity Government, formed by opponents of the junta, to attend the summit.
‘Justified Downgrade’
ASEAN has faced increasing international pressure to take a tougher stand against Myanmar, having been criticised in the past for its ineffectiveness in dealing with leaders accused of rights abuses, subverting democracy and intimidating political opponents.
A US State Department official told reporters on Friday that it was “perfectly appropriate and in fact completely justified” for ASEAN to downgrade Myanmar’s participation at the coming summit.
Singapore in its statement urged Myanmar to cooperate with ASEAN’s envoy, Brunei’s second foreign affairs minister Erywan Yusof.
Erywan has delayed a long-planned visit to the country in recent weeks and has asked to meet all parties in Myanmar, including deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained in the coup.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said this week Erywan would be welcome in Myanmar, but would not be allowed to meet Suu Kyi because she is charged with crimes.
Malaysia’s foreign minister said it would be up to the Myanmar junta to decide on an alternate representative to the summit.
“We never thought of removing Myanmar from ASEAN, we believe Myanmar has the same rights (as us),” foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah told reporters according to Bernama state news agency.
“But the junta has not cooperated, so ASEAN must be strong in defending its credibility and integrity,” he added.
Anti-coup protesters march before a crackdown by riot police on Feb. 27 in Yangon, Myanmar. Hkun Lat/Getty Images
“No, I can’t get much time for my idols. … I have to invest my life in the revolution,” said Kelvin, a 19-year-old democratic activist in Myanmar. (Like others in this piece, he is being referred to here by a pseudonym for his safety.) The erstwhile K-pop superfan first learned strategies for social media organizing and amplification via tireless campaigns to get his idols to trend on Twitter.
Now, he devotes all of his time—and digital coordination and influence skills—to fighting online for free speech and democracy in his home country. He and fellow activists live in constant fear of being kidnapped in the middle of the night by the military junta, but they continue to organize tens of thousands of people to spread awareness about ongoing injustices across Myanmar.
This article is part of the Free Speech Project, a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech.
“No, I can’t get much time for my idols. … I have to invest my life in the revolution,” said Kelvin, a 19-year-old democratic activist in Myanmar. (Like others in this piece, he is being referred to here by a pseudonym for his safety.) The erstwhile K-pop superfan first learned strategies for social media organizing and amplification via tireless campaigns to get his idols to trend on Twitter.
Now, he devotes all of his time—and digital coordination and influence skills—to fighting online for free speech and democracy in his home country. He and fellow activists live in constant fear of being kidnapped in the middle of the night by the military junta, but they continue to organize tens of thousands of people to spread awareness about ongoing injustices across Myanmar.
Three characteristics define Kelvin and his fellows. First, they are young. Kelvin and the other administrators of their widely popular social media group, which has a significant presence across Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook, range in age from 17 to 21. Second, they heavily rely on encrypted messaging apps like Telegram for coordination purposes because they consider them more secure—free from the prying eyes of the junta. Finally, and perhaps most uniquely, they are all K-pop stans who have temporarily hung up their fan hats to fight for democratic revolution.
Encrypted messaging apps, particularly Telegram, are currently top of mind for researchers and journalists concerned about disinformation. Telegram had already made a reputation for providing an alternative for extremists chased off more mainstream platforms such as Twitter over the course of 2016–17. Since 2018, Europol has been cracking down massively on ISIS on Telegram. But however, law enforcement officials admit that new groups of various extreme ideologies pop up regularly on the platform. For instance, it captured headlines following the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. Mis- and disinformation on encrypted messaging apps have become particularly dangerous in the global COVID-19 pandemic. In response, WhatsApp, for example, has intervened by limiting message forwarding and notifying users when they’ve received viral messages, though it’s unclear whether this truly limits the spread of disinformation, even if it slows it down. Research does suggest, however, that flagging content as potentially misleading or wrong can deter people from spreading the content further.
But activists in authoritarian countries utilize these platforms to organize in a clandestine manner. Many well-intentioned proposals to limit these apps’ usefulness to extremists and disinformation merchants could also hurt this activism. In our ongoing research, we found that formerly (self-described) apolitical influencers in Myanmar have turned activists and are now leveraging encrypted messaging apps to organize opponents of the military junta but also to find and share legitimate news. Crucially, they bring the tech knowledge they built as fans to bear on a whole new set of issues—and the influence strategies often involve actions a company like Facebook might flag as inauthentic coordinated behavior. In the fight against the global spread of propaganda and disinformation, it is critical to remember there are many places in the world where social media—and particularly encrypted messaging apps and other closed communication services—continue to allow democratic activists and others to organize more safely and securely. The strategies of Myanmar K-pop activists mirror digital information manipulation efforts, which reveals something important: The people who are using these tools, and the ends toward which they use them, matter very much.
This article is part of the Free Speech Project, a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech.
“No, I can’t get much time for my idols. … I have to invest my life in the revolution,” said Kelvin, a 19-year-old democratic activist in Myanmar. (Like others in this piece, he is being referred to here by a pseudonym for his safety.) The erstwhile K-pop superfan first learned strategies for social media organizing and amplification via tireless campaigns to get his idols to trend on Twitter.
Now, he devotes all of his time—and digital coordination and influence skills—to fighting online for free speech and democracy in his home country. He and fellow activists live in constant fear of being kidnapped in the middle of the night by the military junta, but they continue to organize tens of thousands of people to spread awareness about ongoing injustices across Myanmar.
Three characteristics define Kelvin and his fellows. First, they are young. Kelvin and the other administrators of their widely popular social media group, which has a significant presence across Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook, range in age from 17 to 21. Second, they heavily rely on encrypted messaging apps like Telegram for coordination purposes because they consider them more secure—free from the prying eyes of the junta. Finally, and perhaps most uniquely, they are all K-pop stans who have temporarily hung up their fan hats to fight for democratic revolution.
Encrypted messaging apps, particularly Telegram, are currently top of mind for researchers and journalists concerned about disinformation. Telegram had already made a reputation for providing an alternative for extremists chased off more mainstream platforms such as Twitter over the course of 2016–17. Since 2018, Europol has been cracking down massively on ISIS on Telegram. But however, law enforcement officials admit that new groups of various extreme ideologies pop up regularly on the platform. For instance, it captured headlines following the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. Mis- and disinformation on encrypted messaging apps have become particularly dangerous in the global COVID-19 pandemic. In response, WhatsApp, for example, has intervened by limiting message forwarding and notifying users when they’ve received viral messages, though it’s unclear whether this truly limits the spread of disinformation, even if it slows it down. Research does suggest, however, that flagging content as potentially misleading or wrong can deter people from spreading the content further. Encrypted spaces like Telegram and Signal can provide a home for those on the margins.
But activists in authoritarian countries utilize these platforms to organize in a clandestine manner. Many well-intentioned proposals to limit these apps’ usefulness to extremists and disinformation merchants could also hurt this activism. In our ongoing research, we found that formerly (self-described) apolitical influencers in Myanmar have turned activists and are now leveraging encrypted messaging apps to organize opponents of the military junta but also to find and share legitimate news. Crucially, they bring the tech knowledge they built as fans to bear on a whole new set of issues—and the influence strategies often involve actions a company like Facebook might flag as inauthentic coordinated behavior. In the fight against the global spread of propaganda and disinformation, it is critical to remember there are many places in the world where social media—and particularly encrypted messaging apps and other closed communication services—continue to allow democratic activists and others to organize more safely and securely. The strategies of Myanmar K-pop activists mirror digital information manipulation efforts, which reveals something important: The people who are using these tools, and the ends toward which they use them, matter very much.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been ruled almost exclusively by the military since British colonizers left the Southeast Asian country in the late 1930s. From 2015–2021, it had a civilian government, headed by internationally renowned figure Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet this interim period of fledgling democracy failed to last. Free speech in the country continues to be basically inexistent. The online information environment is highly polluted with disinformation and trolling from the suppressive military regime. Meanwhile, sporadic internet shutdowns further corrode the already limited amounts of information.
Because of these things, skilled digital organizers like Kelvin—with their knowledge of anonymity as well as their cross-platform information gathering and amplification abilities—are instrumental in fighting for democracy in the country.
Due to the legacy of Free Basics in Myanmar, an internet initiative that provided users with free (limited) internet in exchange for creating a Facebook account, Facebook still dominates internet use in Myanmar—but that doesn’t make it safe. Moreover, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are now all blocked in Myanmar, so citizens have to hide their IP addresses using virtual private networks in order to use them. “Our administrators organize on Facebook and Telegram,” Kelvin told us. “Telegram is safer for us, so most of the time we always discuss hashtags and taglines on Telegram.” Telegram, meanwhile, does not require a VPN. Bethany said, “I don’t bring my phone when I go out. ’Cause if they check Facebook Messenger, I would be sentenced for life.”
For Kelvin’s group, organizing is multifaceted and multiplatform. He and his collaborators share clear guidelines for their followers on how to use Twitter effectively (including changing location and using a VPN). They create specific hashtags to use in “mass trending parties,” in which they all message at once to make important information trend, and coordinate times for these events. Some Burmese activists do not feel safe using Facebook at all. Bethany said she uses Telegram because she is able to delete messages on her end and the recipient’s end as well, and only uses Facebook with a fake name. Telegram features afford her more safety and security than anything available on Facebook.
BY: ZELLY MARTIN, KATLYN GLOVER, AND CLAIRE COBURN Credit: slate.com
World Bank/Markus Kostner | Boats leave from the shoreline of Myanmar. (file)
The UN Country Team in Myanmar remains “deeply concerned over the humanitarian impact” of the country’s ongoing crises stemming largely from the military coup in February, the UN Spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Updating journalists at the daily media briefing in New York, Stéphane Dujarric cited humanitarians in saying that “conflict, food insecurity, natural disasters and COVID-19” have left some three million women, children and men in urgent need of life-saving assistance and protection.
“This includes one million people who were in need at the start of the year, plus an additional two million people identified as needing help after the military takeover on 1 February”, he said.
At that time, following a general election in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won by a landslide, the military seized control of the country and declared a year-long state of emergency.
As protesters took to the streets, security forces imposed curfews and other restrictions, leading to widespread alleged human rights abuses, thousands of arrests, and hundreds of deaths.
Displaced and vulnerable people
Since then, clashes between Myanmar Armed Forces, different ethnic armed organizations and people’s defense forces have left some 219,000 people newly displaced, said Mr. Dujarric.
This comes as a recent wave of COVID-19 has exacerbated the dire humanitarian situation. At the same time, floods in Rakhine and Kayin states, have left tens of thousands without water and sanitation.
“The UN once again calls on parties concerned to ensure that aid can be scaled up to reach people affected by the continued armed conflict”, said the Spokesperson.
Despite conflict and COVID, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners have been able to reach more than 33,000 people with water and sanitation supplies.
Mr. Dujarric also said that UNICEF continues to help nearly 150,000 internally displaced people and others in Kachin, Northern Shan, Rakhine and Sagaing.
Families flee
Meanwhile, the agency on Monday posted a detailed account of the deteriorating situation in Mindat – located in the southern Chin state of western Myanmar – which has been under martial law since May.
According to a UN humanitarian report, Mindat is one of the worst affected places in the country, with residents there urgent need of support.
Amid continuing armed clashes and a devasting third wave of the pandemic, UNICEF told the story in a blog post of Hay Mar and her husband, who, like many others, decided to flee the violence, forced to leaving behind some of the most vulnerable – including elderly relatives, and heavily pregnant women.
“My mother-in-law could have run with us, but she said she didn’t want to. She wanted to stay in her home”, said Hay Mar.
The family fashioned makeshift shelters in the forest, which left them with little protection from the monsoon rains.
Future of uncertainty
Two weeks after Hay Mar and her family left, she began to worry about her mother-in-law.
With her three children in tow, she decided to return to the town.
Although her youngest was petrified as they re-entered, she said that he is now slowly showing signs of overcoming the trauma and is returning to the lively boy he once was.
While Hay Mar is happy to see positive changes in him, she is unsure how long this period of peace and calm will last.
Like most of the other children in Mindat, her 12 and 17-year-olds have been out of school for almost two years – first because of the pandemic and then due to the life-threatening security crisis.
“If we live in this situation, how will my children grow? I’m very worried about their future. I just want to live in peace”, she told UNICEF.
Royal Australian Navy sailors throw heaving lines from a submarine returning to Fleet Base West near Perth, Australia, on March 19, 2020. AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE
The bloc is struggling to preserve unity—and can’t decide what to do about the new U.S.-China rivalry.
For about two decades after the end of the Cold War, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) enjoyed a golden age. The organization’s 10 member states as well as China and the United States saw the bloc as key to the region’s security and economic integration. ASEAN as a collective entity worked hard to put itself at the center of regional architecture through a complex web of security institutions and relationships. At the height of its golden age, ASEAN believed it was in the driver’s seat of the region’s fortunes.
That golden age is over. Last week, ASEAN, which usually needs unanimous agreement to function, was struggling to preserve unity. After an emergency meeting about the crisis in Myanmar on Oct. 15, the bloc excluded Myanmar’s junta leader from an upcoming ASEAN summit, a rare move for the organization. As a loose organization without a clear strategic vision of its own, it is floundering as individual members break ranks and realign in the new U.S.-China rivalry. The recent announcement of the new so-called AUKUS military and technology pact among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States has raised the region’s geopolitical stakes even further, casting yet another spotlight on ASEAN’s strategic paralysis.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. In one of the world’s most dynamic regions, a system led by either the United States or China would be untenable; ASEAN therefore made its virtue out of its desire to stay out of superpower conflicts. Because of its multilateral nature, consensual decision-making, and lack of strategic ambitions beyond its borders, ASEAN was seen as an honest, neutral broker. For the region’s diplomats, so-called ASEAN centrality—that ASEAN will speak for the region as a whole when outside powers are involved—became an article of faith.
In recent years, however, the edifice of centrality has crumbled. As former Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan argued, the great powers are fine with ASEAN centrality as long as it serves their interests. Individual member states have also made a mockery of the bloc’s unity by cutting their own deals with outside powers and blocking joint ASEAN action.
The first notable crack in ASEAN’s armor came in 2012. Cambodia, which held the organization’s rotating chair at the time, torpedoed an important ASEAN communiqué because drafts had mentioned the dispute between several member states and China in the South China Sea. Phnom Penh is seen to be closely aligned with Beijing.
But it’s not just China that’s working around ASEAN to achieve its goals. The Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy espoused by Australia, India, Japan, and the United States is a case in point. The strategy has innocuous-sounding principles: freedom of navigation and overflight, adherence to international law, and regional connectivity. But its power is it highlights principles China rejects. Most ASEAN members are maritime states and would strongly support these principles, but supporting the U.S.-led strategy publicly would rile China. For fear of enraging Beijing, ASEAN has struggled to take a collective position.
The same goes for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—known as the Quad and formed by those same four states—which ASEAN countries fear is another red flag to China’s bull. Although the Quad, innocuously enough, is working on tangible deliverables—such as vaccine delivery, climate measures, and emerging technologies—it can also bring power to bear in and around the South China Sea in the form of joint military exercises and training. In August and October, the four Quad members’ navies conducted maritime exercises in the Philippine Sea and the Bay of Bengal, respectively. As a testament to these drills’ growing importance, the United States announced plans to possibly include Britain’s Royal Navy in the future. That non-ASEAN powers in the region are moving forward in the critical area of maritime security highlights ASEAN’s failure to push back against Chinese assertiveness.
But nothing has shaken ASEAN as much as AUKUS. The new pact announced last month involves the United States and Britain supplying Australia’s navy with nuclear technology to power a new generation of attack submarines that could definitively shift the region’s balance of power.
By: William Choong, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and the managing editor of Fulcrum, and Sharon Seah, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and the coordinator of its ASEAN Studies Centre.
Displaced people flee violence near the town of Tabayin in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region on 2 July 2021. Farmers say the February coup has worsened food insecurity. (REUTERS)
Khin, a 59-year-old rice farmer, faced a distressing choice at the height of Myanmar’s monsoon season three months ago: sell a cow, a prized asset for agricultural households, or go hungry.
She sold the animal for half its value. The proceeds went to buy food for her family and inputs for her small rice farm in the Dry Zone – a drought-prone region in the country’s centre where farmers and agricultural experts say falling income and rising costs are worsening hunger.
“We’re just eating whatever is available,” Khin told The New Humanitarian by phone.
Months after the 1 February military coup, poverty and food insecurity are soaring in Myanmar’s Dry Zone and Ayeyarwady Delta regions – the country’s agricultural heartland – sparking warnings of a hidden crisis in the making as farming households struggle out of view of most humanitarian aid plans.
Khin blames her family’s plight on political instability since the coup and a devastating third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Costs for critical inputs such as fertiliser have soared, but crop prices have fallen.
“I’m very worried because I have no idea where to go or how to survive if things worsen,” she said. “Other farmers are in the same boat.”
The coup has upended lives across the country, exacerbated its numerous conflicts, and sent the economy into free fall. The Asian Development Bank recently predicted Myanmar’s GDP would shrink by 18.4 percent this year. The currency lost 60 percent of its value in September, Reuters reported, putting even more pressure on food and fuel prices.
The economic crash is worsening food insecurity across the country. However, the Dry Zone and Delta regions are traditionally off the aid radar, mainly because they are not in border conflict zones where humanitarian needs have typically been the most pressing.
Yet poverty is rapidly rising. The percentage of Delta households considered “extremely poor” rose from 18 percent last year to 30 percent in July, according to the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). A recent paper predicts that 60 percent of Myanmar’s “newly poor households” in the coming months will be in the Dry Zone and Delta.
“Aid agencies are still mostly working in more remote conflict-affected areas, albeit with some shift to urban populations obviously made poorer by COVID and the political situation,” said Derek Headey, a senior research fellow at the institute.
“But there is a lot of new poverty in the Delta and Dry Zone too, and these are major agricultural production centres and large population areas. So we’re very concerned there’s an emerging crisis in these zones that’s going under the radar.”
In interviews with The New Humanitarian, nearly a dozen Myanmar Delta or Dry Zone farmers, or aid staff who work in these areas, said that families were dipping into savings and selling long-term assets to make ends meet.
Some farmers said they’re not sure how they will continue to feed themselves over the long term. Many are taking on greater debt, while cutting back on food.
“Rising input prices and falling output crop prices [are] a double whammy that is squeezing farmers tighter and tighter,” said a Myanmar development worker who has spoken to hundreds of farmers since the coup.
Myanmar farmers and aid workers who spoke to The New Humanitarian requested that their full names not be used for fear of the military.
Under the radar
The Dry Zone and Delta regions are crucial for Myanmar’s overall food security, accounting for more than 80 percent of Myanmar’s cropped area, according to IFPRI. The two areas together account for about a third of Myanmar’s population.
But in the coup’s aftermath, more farming families are joining the ranks of the newly poor.
Aung, 45, who grows rice, maize, and pulses in the fertile Ayeyarwady Delta in the country’s south, said farmers are squeezed because traditional sources of credit – such as seed and fertiliser companies and banks – are not available.
“We can’t get loans or borrow money, which means you have to sell what you have. So we have to be very frugal,” he said. “Everything is more difficult this year.”
Kyaw, a 49-year-old farmer in Sagaing Region, part of the Dry Zone, said he has resorted to pawning and selling his wife’s jewellery to buy food for his family of eight.
“We’ve been surviving by farming and working as hired labour, but it’s not enough,” he said. “We’re now using up leftover rice from the previous years, and our savings and gold.”
Others have it worse, he added: “In some homes, they no longer have old stocks of rice left. We are trying to help each other.”
Analysts say there is an urgent need to expand food assistance to rural families in the Dry Zone and Delta.
“To overlook the food-insecure rural households in the Delta and Dry Zones would be to overlook almost half the food-insecure rural households in Myanmar,” said Duncan Boughton, a professor of agricultural, food, and resource economics at Michigan State University who was also part of the team behind the IFPRI paper.
Stephen Anderson, Myanmar country director for the World Food Programme, said the UN agency is trying to find out more about the situation in these major farming regions.
“We would be ready to step in in those instances where we see acute food insecurity developing. If there are needs, we’re ready to consider them,” he said.
The February coup has already pushed humanitarian groups to expand food aid, though the military junta continues to impose heavy restrictions. A UN-backed response plan, revised in July, tripled the number of people targeted for food security assistance – including expanding food distribution to urban areas of Yangon, Myanmar’s main commercial centre.
As in many aid operations, however, donor funding has fallen short.
“We’ve received more funding now than we had in all of last year, it’s just that the needs are outstripping the available funding,” Anderson said.
Violence and the coronavirus
Humanitarian needs are growing in areas that have typically been spared the brunt of Myanmar’s conflicts, but post-coup violence is still escalating.
In some areas, there are regular clashes between the junta’s troops and local resistance forces who have teamed up with ethnic armed groups that have been fighting for autonomy for decades. Bombings and targeted assassinations in major towns and cities are becoming more common.
Kyaw, the 49-year-old farmer, said soldiers have been raiding many villages in his part of Sagaing, looking for residents suspected of being members of the local resistance forces.
“I can’t even explain how cruel they are,” he said. “Whenever they come, they just arrest whoever they see. So now everyone flees when they come.”
COVID-19 is adding to the farmers’ woes. Positivity rates have dropped from 37 percent in late July to 6 percent in mid-October, but the virus continues to spread. Healthcare delivery has been severely constrained since the coup; only about 15 percent of the population have received a COVID-19 vaccine dose – well below rates in most other countries in the region.
Labourers are falling ill, said Yin, an office worker from a farming family in southern Mandalay Region, which forms part of the Dry Zone.
“A lot of people said they came down with the flu but the illness sounds very similar to COVID-19 because people were losing their sense of smell,” she said.
“In our villages, planting is still being done by hand, so it was really difficult for farmers to hire people, and it means you cannot finish preparing the land or planting in time,” she added.
The rising food insecurity and poverty in the Delta and Dry Zone could have far-reaching repercussions in Myanmar, which has a largely rural population and relies heavily on the agricultural sector, said the development worker.
Poverty and food are immediate worries. But the farmers struggling today also need help to adapt to longer-term threats exacerbated by climate change – more volatile floods and drought, erratic rains, and more risks from pests and crop diseases.
“That critical support and focus on the environment has fallen off the radar,” the development worker said.
“I would ask aid agencies to not abandon Myanmar at this time, even though it might be tempting since it is such a difficult operating environment,” she added.
Mr. President: There are many consequences of COVID-19 that have changed the existing landscape due to the cumulative effects of personal behavior. For example, the decline in the use of automobiles has been to the benefit of the environment. A landmark study published by Nature in May 2020 confirmed a 17 percent drop in daily CO2 emissions but with the expectation that the number will bounce back as human activity returns to normal.
Yet there is hope. We are all creatures of habit and having tried teleconferences, we are less likely to take the trouble to hop on a plane for a personal meeting, wasting time and effort. Such is also the belief of aircraft operators. Add to this the convenience of shopping from home and having the stuff delivered to your door and one can guess what is happening.
In short, the need for passenger planes has diminished while cargo operators face increased demand. Fewer passenger planes also means a reduction in belly cargo capacity worsening the situation. All of which has led to a new business with new jobs — converting passenger aircraft for cargo use. It is not as simple as it might seem, and not just a matter of removing seats, for all unnecessary items must be removed for cargo use. They take up cargo weight and if not removed waste fuel.
After the seats and interior fittings have been removed, the cabin floor has to be strengthened. The side windows are plugged and smoothed out. A cargo door is cut out and the existing emergency doors are deactivated and sealed. Also a new crew entry door has to be cut-out and installed.
A new in-cabin cargo barrier with a sliding access door is put in, allowing best use of cargo and cockpit space and a merged carrier and crew space. A new crew lavatory together with replacement water and waste systems replace the old, which supplied the original passenger area and are no longer needed.
The cockpit gets upgrades which include a simplified air distribution system and revised hydraulics. At the end of it all, we have a cargo jet. If the airlines are converting their planes, then they must believe not all the travelers will be returning after the covid crisis recedes.
Airline losses have been extraordinary. Figures sourced from the World Bank and the International Civil Aviation Organization reveal air carriers lost $370 billion in revenues. This includes $120 billion in the Asia-Pacific region, $100 billion in Europe and $88 billion in North America.
For many of the airlines, it is now a new business model transforming its fleet for cargo demand and launching new cargo routes. The latter also requires obtaining regulatory approvals.
A promising development for the future is sustainable aviation fuel (SAP). Developed by the Air France KLM Martinair consortium it reduces CO2 emissions, and cleaner air transport contributes to lessening global warming.
It is a good start since airplanes are major transportation culprits increasing air pollution and radiative forcing. The latter being the heat reflected back to earth when it is greater than the heat radiated from the earth. All of which should incline the environmentally conscious to avoid airplane travel — buses and trains pollute less and might be a preferred alternative for domestic travel.
Coronavirus vaccines have been sent to Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Iran according to the government’s decision to resume their supplies, the Ministry of External Affairs said
Coronavirus vaccines have been sent to Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Iran according to the government’s decision to resume their supplies, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the government has decided to send the supplies to the neighbourhood initially.
India, the world’s largest producer of vaccines overall, suspended exports of COVID-19 vaccines in April to focus on inoculating its own population following a sudden spike in infections.
Last month, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya announced that India will resume the supplies abroad.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi said recently at the UN General Assembly that India will resume supply of coronavirus vaccines. We have decided to start with the neighbourhood,” Bagchi said.
“As far as I know, vaccines have already gone to Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Iran. We are constantly monitoring and reviewing the situation,” he said.
Bagchi said the decision on further supplies will be based on India’s production and demand.
“We will decide on further supplies based on our production and demand,” he said.
A pause in development assistance has led to a foreign exchange crunch in Myanmar [File: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg]
Myanmar is battling a plunging local currency amid an unprecedented dollar shortage, driving up the cost of imports and worsening the economy’s struggle with dual challenges of the pandemic and post-coup financial isolation.
The kyat has tumbled about 50% since the military seized power in February that triggered a freeze on parts of Myanmar’s foreign reserves held in the U.S. and suspension of multilateral aids — both key sources of foreign currency supplies. Restrictions on cash withdrawals have fueled worries about the safety of money in banks, prompting people to seek more widely used currencies such as the U.S or Singaporean dollars or Thai baht, analysts said.
The Central Bank of Myanmar’s efforts to quell the rush for dollars, including stepping up foreign currency supplies and ordering exporters to repatriate earnings within 30 days, have failed to stem the kyat’s slide. The currency may plunge further to 2,400 to a U.S. dollar by the end of this year and 3,200 by end-2022, according to Jason Yek, senior Asia country risk analyst at Fitch Solutions.
The currency sell-off is the latest crisis to hit the country that’s still grappling with street protests following the ouster of the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Nationwide Covid restrictions and a civil disobedience movement by Suu Kyi’s followers have hit normal economic activities, shrinking exports of everything from textiles to agricultural commodities, another source of foreign exchange.
“It is really hard to predict when this financial crisis will end,” said Khine Win, a public policy analyst focusing on economic governance in Myanmar. “Only the restoration of democracy and a legitimate government will unlock the international assistance Myanmar needs to address this crisis, but it’s really hard to see that happening.”
The plunging currency is already taking its toll on Myanmar’s economy, with some businesses shutting down as they are unable to cope with rising costs of imports and raw materials. The economy is estimated to have contracted 18.7% in the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, according to the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office. While the official exchange rate for a dollar was at 1,965 kyat last week, local money managers were quoting 2,200-2,300 kyat, Fitch Solutions’ Yek said.
Though the central bank doesn’t divulge its foreign reserve levels, the recent slide in kyat suggests that “it has likely fallen to a precariously low level” after trying to prop up the currency for months, Yek said.
The currency volatility is expected to ease soon due to recent steps taken by the authorities and higher export earnings seen in November and December, Win Thaw, a deputy governor at the Central Bank of Myanmar, said Monday.
Myanmar’s reserves dwindled after the U.S. froze $1 billion held in the New York Federal Reserve days after the coup, while the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund suspended funding for projects. To preserve the foreign currencies onshore, authorities last month suspended imports of passenger cars and amended the forex law last week.
But putting more controls will further undermine investor confidence in Myanmar and exporters will find ways to keep hard currency offshore, said Vicky Bowman, director of Myanmar Center for Responsible Business.
“The fundamental cause for forex crunch is the collapse in investor confidence in Myanmar and the suspension of development assistance since February,” Bowman said. “Without a political solution which leads to the resumption of lending and restores confidence in the country, it will be difficult for the kyat to recover.”
Foreign direct investment into Myanmar had dwindled with multinational companies becoming increasingly wary of doing business with the military regime and some heading for the exit. Reversing that trend will be key to reversing the kyat’s fortunes.
“We don’t see any FDI coming in and the trend for kyat depreciation may prolong as long as the military remains in power,” Khine Win said. “This could drag more middle class people below the poverty line.”
Demonstrators protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, February 17, 2021 [Stringer/Reuters]
The Burman majority is finally understanding the abuse ethnic minorities have long been experiencing at the hands of the military.
The Myanmar people’s struggle against dictatorship has undergone a long journey since the February 1 military coup in the country. As an activist who has been fighting against fascism and standing for peace and the rights of oppressed minorities for 10 years, I believe we are now in a better place than ever before to come together as a nation to resist ethnic nationalism, destructive political polarisation and the military’s attempts to scare us into submission.
My own views on what an anti-fascist revolution in Myanmar could and should look like have also changed in the eight months since the coup.
During the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy’s (NLD) five-year rule between 2015-20, I devoted much of my activism to speaking out against their abandonment of democratic and human rights standards and failure to promote peace in areas of the country populated by ethnic nationalities, where conflict between ethnic armed organisations and the military has been ongoing for more than seven decades. I even boycotted the November 2020 general election, which delivered the NLD a second sweeping victory.
So when the coup happened, I initially was not sure where I should stand. While I was disturbed and angered by the military’s power grab, I did not want to put my support behind the NLD, ignoring its past treatment of minority communities, political opponents and activists. But I ultimately decided that the coup is more than a political dispute between the NLD and the military – it represents the forceful suppression of the people’s will, and should be resisted.
I demonstrated from February 6, the day anti-coup protests began in Yangon, through the second week of March, when the junta added my name to its arrest warrant list for “sedition” and raided my house and office. My family and I narrowly escaped. Knowing that our lives were in danger, my wife and children fled the country, and I took shelter in the territory of an ethnic armed organisation.
Having been sued twice during the NLD’s term in power for supporting ethnic struggles for self-determination and rights, I believed that I understood the perspectives of oppressed minorities in my country.
But staying in their villages, where I listened to people’s stories and learned about their daily realities and struggles, I realised how superficial my understanding of ethnic issues in Myanmar had been.
Although I had a conceptual awareness of what it is like to live as a small-scale farmer in an area affected by civil war – where children commonly walk for hours to get to school, and it can take days to walk to the nearest clinic – it was very different to witness first-hand the toll of war on communities.
Since the coup, fighting between the military and armed resistance groups across the country has displaced at least 230,000 civilians, many of whom fled military air strikes and heavy-weapon attacks. I have passed close to clashes and seen the remnants of landmine explosions. I have also visited displacement camps where people are struggling to meet their basic needs.
But none of this is new for ethnic minority communities in Myanmar. Indeed, Burmese soldiers have been tormenting these communities for decades – looting and burning their villages, conducting arbitrary arrests and committing acts of sexual violence against them. My hosts told me that they rarely build strong houses, because they know that they may need to flee at any time.
Despite standing with oppressed ethnic minorities in my country for over a decade, I only realised the depth of their suffering, and more clearly understood why so many of them see armed resistance as their only option, after this experience.
As my own perspective has shifted, so, too, has the direction of the national protest movement.
In mainland cities where most people are from the ethnic Burman majority, protesters had initially focused on freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and elected officials, pressuring the military into accepting the results of the election, and convening parliament.
But as the military began terrorising people in urban areas, it opened people’s eyes to the rights abuses other ethnic groups have long been facing. As a result, protesters started broadening their ambitions.
Many from the Burman majority began apologising for their prior ignorance or denial of the military’s atrocities against non-Burman ethnic people, including the Rohingya, and calling for justice.
As ethnic armed organisations took a leading role in protecting fleeing dissidents and fighting against the regime, urban youth began trying to learn about ethnic political struggles too.
By the end of March, the leading protest groups were demanding an overhaul of the military-drafted constitution and the establishment of a federal democracy, in line with the calls ethnic nationalities have been making since long before the coup.
With few alternatives, the people have also started to increasingly see armed resistance as the only way to overthrow the junta, and have joined forces with ethnic armed organisations and formed new civilian defence forces and urban guerrilla movements.
On May 5, the National Unity Government (NUG), a body of elected lawmakers, activists and members of civil society in exile who are operating a government in opposition to the junta, announced that it had established a People’s Defence Force (PDF) as a precursor to a federal army, bringing armed resistance groups under a central command.
And on September 7, the NUG declared a nationwide “people’s defensive war” against the military junta, calling on all citizens across the country to join in a “necessary revolution for building a peaceful country and establishing a federal union.”
Now, we face a critical juncture in our revolutionary journey, and I worry that the people’s strength and unity may diminish if we cannot continue to build trust and maintain communication between the predominantly Burman resistance groups and ethnic nationalities.
For the revolution to succeed, we must continue our efforts to come together over a shared vision that benefits not only the Burman majority, but also promotes the self-determination and rights of other ethnic people within the country.
The NUG must do its utmost to engage with the country’s diverse ethnic communities and place non-Burmans in leading roles, and its PDF must join forces with ethnic armed organisations and sincerely commit to their political objectives.
It is also imperative that the NUG initiate a national apology process for the atrocities and inhumane treatment committed by successive governments towards minorities, including the Rohingya.
The majority must create an inclusive platform and collaborate with all ethnic people to build together a new federal democracy based on freedom, justice and equality.
The UN chief’s urgent call for a united international and regional response indicates that with ASEAN’s slow movement, Guterres feels it is time for broader international action as well
The United Nations chief is urging unified regional and international action to prevent the crisis in Myanmar from becoming a large-scale conflict and multi-faceted catastrophe in the heart of Southeast Asia and beyond.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in a report to the U.N. General Assembly circulated Wednesday that the opportunity to prevent the army from entrenching its rule could be narrowing and said it is urgent that regional and international countries help put Myanmar back on the path to democratic reform.
When Myanmar’s army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, it claimed with scant evidence that the general election her party won last November in a landslide was marred by widespread fraud. The takeover almost immediately sparked widespread street protests that security forces tried to crush. The pushback has left more than 1,100 people dead, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and right groups.
The United Nations has supported a five-point plan adopted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, that calls for stopping violence, constructive dialogue, appointment of an ASEAN special envoy as mediator and humanitarian aid. It took until early August for ASEAN to pick Brunei’s Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof as their special envoy, and he is reportedly still negotiating with the military on the terms of a visit.
In the report, Guterres welcomed Yusof’s appointment, called for timely and comprehensive implementation of the five-point consensus to facilitate a peaceful solution, and strongly encouraged ASEAN to work with the U.N. special envoy.
His urgent call for a united international and regional response indicates that with ASEAN’s slow movement, Guterres feels it is time for broader international action as well.
The risk of a large-scale armed conflict requires a collective approach to prevent a multi-dimensional catastrophe in the heart of Southeast Asia and beyond, the secretary-general said. Grave humanitarian implications, including rapidly deteriorating food security, an increase in mass displacements and a weakened public health system compounded by a new wave of COVID-19 infections require a coordinated approach in complementarity with regional actors.
He said it is imperative to restore Myanmar’s constitutional order and uphold the results of the November 2020 election. He suggested neighbouring countries could leverage their influence over the military to have it respect the will of the people and to act in the greater interest of peace and stability in the country and region.
Guterres said the international and regional effort must be accompanied by the immediate release of Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other government officials as well as immediate humanitarian access and aid, especially to vulnerable communities, including some 600,000 Rohingya Muslims still in northern Rakhine state and the more than 700,000 who fled a 2017 military crackdown and are now in camps in neighboring Bangladesh.
The report, covering the period from mid-August 2020 to mid-August 2021, said that since the military takeover, security forces have engaged in wide-ranging brutal repression, especially of those protesting Suu Kyi’s ouster, sparked a political crisis with wide implications for the region, and carried out serious human rights violations.
Those expressing opposition to the military and joining democratic movements, as well as their relatives and associates, have been subject to arbitrary killings and detentions, disappearances, night raids, intimidation and torture, Guterres said. There have also been numerous reports of sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by the security forces.
Between February 1 and late July, he said, there have been at least 150 instances in which security forces reportedly used lethal force against unarmed protesters.
Guterres said students and education staff have been primary targets of repression, pointing to reports by the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation that at least 70 students and five teachers have been killed by security forces, that 775 students and 76 teachers have been detained, and that more than 125,000 teachers and 13,000 school staff in higher education institutions have been suspended or dismissed.
The secretary-general said there have also been numerous reports of violence targeting security forces as well as killings of individuals suspected of collaborating with the military.
