What’s happening in Myanmar? | Start Here

let's talk about the war in

Myanmar opposition forces are trying to

overthrow the military which has been in

power for decades and it looks like they

may have the

edge all kinds of people have joined the

fight from established armed groups to

students and activists who want

democracy the military if you like is on

the roads he losing significant land

civilan territories mymar is now at the

vert of State failure millions of people

have already been displaced there are

now warnings of famine and reports of

all sorts of atrocities being committed

so what's behind the fighting and could

the military regime really be about to

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fall Myanmar which used to be called

Burma is in Southeast Asia sandwiched

between all these countries and to

understand what's going on there now we

need a quick backstory for decades a

repressive military regime has been in

charge ruling over a very diverse

country made up of more than a 100

ethnic groups Yanmar was heavily

sanctioned and isolated from the world

it was seen as a kind of pariah state

but from about 2011 things started

shifting and led to a period that some

people call myanmar's experiment with

democracy the the ruling generals agreed

to share power With a Civilian

government there were elections in 2015

and a party called the national league

for democracy or nld W it was led by

anang Suchi who'd been the face of the

opposition for decades and had spent

almost 15 years under house arrest in

2020 the nld won again by a landslide

but the military disputed the result

they staged a coup to take back power

anang suuchi was detained and then sent

to prison although it's not clear where

she's being held right now what came

next led to a fullscale civil war that

is still going

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on myanmar's 10-year journey to

democracy appears to be over the

military takeover has sparked the

biggest demonstrations seen in Myanmar

in more than a decade a stark warning

from the UN special Envoy on Myanmar

quote a blood bath is imminent Security

Forces shot more than 100 people dead

peaceful demonstrations were responded

to with massive Violence by the military

this violence made them even more

determent to get the military out of

Politics the people of Myanmar were not

prepared to turn back the clock since

then the the the people have built up

their armed resistance to the milit

and the situation now in Myanmar is

unprecedented after 4 years of fighting

the map of Myanmar now looks like this

the military regime has lost a lot of

territory especially in the last year it

now only has full control of 21% of the

country according to a BBC investigation

but that includes the capital Napa and

other big cities the rest is controlled

by a range of different anti-military

groups you can see there are lots of

them but they roughly fall into two main

categories you've got the ethnic armed

organizations these are groups that

represent different ethnic minorities

and they've been fighting against the

military for more rights autonomy even

Independence for a long time these wars

go back 60 years it's it's it's nothing

new U there have been periods of greater

or lesser uh violence in these wars but

they have been continuous since the

military became the dominant power in

Myanmar in 196 too every minority in

Burma has their own stories to tell you

how much they are suffering so that is a

main driving force for this minorities

they feel that we must protect ourself

as well as the ethnic armed groups the

other main category on the anti-military

side are the resistance groups that

emerged in response to the 2021 coup

when many of the protesters decided to

pick up weapons with the goal of ending

military rule and restoring democracy

you had all sorts of volunteers joining

the fight students lawyers Medics and a

lot of them have been trained by those

ethnic armed groups in secret jungle

camps and over time they've become a

more effective and better equipped

fighting force a lot of Mama citizen

they've been donating money to the

resistant movement eventually they they

grow uh exponentially one of the things

that's made a huge difference in the

last 6 months is weapons the

pro-democracy force have seized from

military bases they've overrun the main

resistance group are the people's

Defense Forces or PDF these are the

areas they control the PDF are

essentially the boots on the ground for

a rival opposition government that was

set up after the coup called the

national Unity government now while the

PDF have been pretty effective it's

really the ethnic groups that have been

making the difference much as the nug

would like to claim this military

success of the resistance as its own

what's happening on the battlefield in

Myanmar is primarily being driven by the

ethnic armed groups for example one

group known as the arakan Army is now in

full control of the border with

Bangladesh after pushing the military

out in this video you can see soldiers

waving White flags and surrendering

there are lots of reports of how the

military have been struggling to get

enough people to fight for them there is

massive number of surrenders uh to the

people's Revolution site we know that

morale is very low that they have

introduced conscription and are are

literally kidnapping young men to fight

in the military sending them to the

front line using as a human shield this

is the biggest crime going on in Burma

so you've got this situation where the

military which used to be all powerful

is really Under Pressure could the

regime actually fall though well plenty

of people are predicting that it's only

a matter of time this illegal C attempt

by the military now we can say for sure

as has failed one of the very reason is

because of the very uh unwavering

determination and resistance resilience

of the MMA people the especially the

young Generations are absolutely

Resolute in their fight to end this

military operation once and for all we

should not be surprised uh if sudden and

dramatic change comes to mymar maybe I

wouldn't predict it but we shouldn't be

surprised when it happens or if it

happens a lot would still need to happen

for the regime to finally go one big

Advantage the military has is air power

and it uses these weapons brutally and

uh basically adopts a scorched Earth

policy to seek to obliterate The

Villages towns and even cities that it

has lost in the fighting on the ground

the military also still controls the

major city ities the PDF and ethnic

groups would have to Stage a pretty

major offensive to take those cities but

there are big questions about whether

they're all United enough to make that

happen keep in mind the ethnic armed

groups are more focused on achieving

autonomy in their own regions some are

even fighting each other the ethnic

armed groups do understand that if this

current military is left in power in the

center they will never be at peace but

whether that translates into a

willingness to expend enormous resources

uh and lose uh you know a huge number of

lives by marching on the central cities

that's another question intirely so what

about pressure from other countries that

could shift the balance of power well

just as Myanmar isn't really in the news

much there's not a great deal of

diplomatic attention focused on it

either the main player here is China but

Beijing seems to be hedging its bets

China is the only country that has been

putting significant

effort uh to address the

issue but on the other hand that was uh

mainly for protecting its own interest

but rather than resolving the issue in

Myanmar China traditionally has tried to

play all sides uh it has been a

supporter and armor of the military but

it's also armed most of the ethnic

groups directly and

indirectly uh I think China's major

concern is to ensure that whoever wins

the War in manmar China is on that side

and while the world's attention is

elsewhere the people of Myanmar are

suffering A desperate humanitarian and

human rights crisis it's getting worse

parts of Myanmar are cut off with no

internet so it's hard to get information

out but there are reports of atrocities

being committed by both the military and

some of the armed groups in rakine state

for example civilians from an ethnic

minority called the ringa are reportedly

being killed and displaced by the

military and the arakan Army which is

the main ethnic armed group there you've

probably heard of the renga a mostly

Muslim minority who've been persecuted

for years

750,000 fled to Bangladesh in 2017 to

escape what the UN have called genocidal

Violence by the military aside from the

report of attacks on the renga the

broader humanitarian situation in rakine

is particularly bad the UN is warning of

famine there but people all across

Myanmar need help 20 million according

to the UN and nowhere near enough Aid is

getting in 15 million people don't have

enough to eat while Cyclones and floods

have destroyed huge areas of

farmland and that's really impacted

heavily impacted food security now that

the resistance controls so much of the

country including all of the major

Crossing points to Bangladesh India

China LA and Thailand there is no excuse

not to provide massive humanitarian

Relief by land across those land borders

and this is a failure of the

International System and of myanmar's

neighbors not to be undertaking this

kind of humanitarian relief start here

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