Six Decades After the ‘Mother of Coups’, Myanmar Military Maintains Its Brutal Grip

By Naing Khit 4 March 2022

The coup staged by army chief Common Ne Win on March 2, 1962 was the mom of a collection of coups in Myanmar and spawned the limitless devastation that may see a fledgling democratic nation fall sufferer to one of many world’s longest-lasting army dictatorships.

On March 2, 2022, 60 years after the “mom” coup, Myanmar’s 55 million individuals nonetheless discovered themselves below an oppressive army dictatorship. It has been a painful destiny.

Ne Win’s coup was adopted by two bloody army takeovers in 1988 and 2021, persevering with the devastation that has been visited on Myanmar and its whole inhabitants for 3 generations, throughout which era its neighboring nations in Southeast Asia, regardless of their restricted political liberty, and even authoritarian or army rulers, have discovered themselves rather more affluent and steady.

Coups are inevitable right here in Myanmar each time the generals worry that the army may be—by revolutionary or democratic means—compelled to return to its barracks and quit its position within the political area. (Right here I don’t depend the army takeover in 1958, as a result of that was thought to be occurring in accordance with the structure; the then ruling elected civilian authorities led by Premier U Nu agreed to switch energy to the army.)

The coups are the foundation explanation for all of the political, social and financial issues of Myanmar—the deterioration in elementary rights, political liberty, democracy and autonomy for ethnic individuals, as properly the decline within the economic system and livelihoods of your entire inhabitants.

Myanmar has all the time been a various nation confronted with a fancy vary of points akin to calls for for autonomy and equality from—and conflicts amongst—ethnic or political teams, even earlier than the coup in 1962. However these issues would have been surmountable had the army and its generals stayed of their barracks with out intervening in politics by power. That range may have even have became a power in constructing a nation if it had been handled from the beginning with respect, integrity and political maturity by negotiations.

Every little thing, nevertheless, went unsuitable when the army and its generals staged a coup and appointed themselves because the nation’s rulers in opposition to the desire of the individuals. Because the first day, nothing has been proper; nothing has been simply; nothing has been honest.

The mom of the coups was the primary and most important supply of all of the ills which have introduced Myanmar down.

However the Myanmar individuals have all the time resisted the generals, refusing to allow them to rule as they want. They’ve repeatedly struggled to remove the horrible army dictatorship over the previous six many years. Anti-regime protests and even nationwide uprisings have occurred even below the generals’ iron-fisted rule. However ultimately these makes an attempt had been all the time crushed because the generals’ brutal mindset and sheer army may prevailed.

The one issues that preserve the ruling generals in energy are their cruelty, their undemocratic mindset and actions, and, in fact, their lethal weapons. The principle justifications they provide for preserving the army’s position in politics and their takeovers are all the time the identical: the necessity to protect sovereignty, and to stop disintegration and overseas invasion.

The final coup in February 2021 was based mostly on a blatant lie—that the ruling Nationwide League for Democracy led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi dedicated electoral fraud. The declare—espoused solely by the generals led by their chief, coup chief Min Aung Hlaing—flies within the face of the truth that the NLD received greater than 80 p.c of the votes within the election of November 2020.

Over the generations, of their efforts to remove or reform the ruling generals, most Myanmar individuals have chosen the trail of nonviolence, taking to the streets in opposition to the varied regimes over the previous six many years. Some took up weapons within the perception that solely armed wrestle can terminate dictatorial and ruthless regimes. That’s one of many causes we discover so many ethnic and political armed teams alongside the nation’s borders, having fought consecutive regimes.

However after final yr’s coup, issues are completely totally different. Most individuals in Myanmar have come to imagine that solely combating again in opposition to the army or eliminating the ruling generals led by Min Aung Hlaing will deliver an finish to this vicious circle of army rule.

That’s a significant distinction from the previous. After the junta’s indiscriminate crackdowns in opposition to every kind of individuals within the wake of its coup on Feb. 1, 2021, we’ve seen unprecedented resistance from individuals in all walks of life, from younger college students to professionals. Resistance to the regime has taken numerous kinds from guerrilla-style nonviolent protests in city areas to the brand new younger armed resistance teams, usually calling themselves Folks’s Protection Forces, which have mushroomed over virtually your entire nation from Yangon and Naypyitaw areas to Chin and Kayah states.

By no means earlier than have we seen such diverse and powerful resistance in opposition to a army regime. Whereas it’s nearly inconceivable to see how that resistance will be capable to defeat the highly effective army, one spectacular factor is that the resistance forces and boycotts in opposition to the regime have in some ways managed to disrupt its rule. To this point, the regime can’t management the nation, regardless of its extreme restrictions and crackdowns in opposition to its opponents and your entire inhabitants.

I believe the resistance forces and opponents will maintain out so long as they will. Their backside line in the intervening time is that so long as the regime can’t management or rule the nation, they haven’t misplaced this battle.

Multiple yr after his coup, Min Aung Hlaing ought to know that he merely can’t do what he hoped to do. His rule over the previous yr has produced no victories, solely whole failure and disgrace. However everyone knows that he’s a shameless normal.

The explanation he’ll fall on the finish of this battle is his personal evil. He has no qualms about repeatedly committing crimes and violations of every kind, together with crimes in opposition to humanity and struggle crimes. Each crime he commits brings his personal finish nearer.

All Min Aung Hlaing has performed is to show Myanmar right into a killing area, a extra intense battlefield, a state with much more displaced individuals, a large graveyard for COVID-19 sufferers (particularly throughout the third wave final yr when the well being care system failed), a failed economic system, a way more corrupt state suffering from cronyism—the listing goes on and on. Myanmar has turn into an absolute pariah state once more below his rule, inside a yr. Nothing good has come about for the reason that coup; it has had solely horrible penalties.

All he has performed is to dig his personal grave.

The truth that he’s evil and nothing however a prison, and that his regime is the enemy of all that’s good, are the very causes that this regime and he himself will lose this battle. It is just a matter of time for him and the six-decade-long army dictatorship he continues.

Lose early or lose late.

Naing Khit is a commentator on political affairs.

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