Living the ‘nightmare’ that is military-ruled Myanmar, two-years after coup

Somehow discovered in their hideout by Myanmar’s brutal military, a group of young women fled.

“The military stormed their camp. They had enough people, but they didn’t have any weapons, they didn’t have any arms, and as they couldn’t resist any more, they had no choice but to disperse,” says Jonathan, a Myanmar-New Zealander, who knows one of the women.

“But, being girls, when one of them got shot in the leg, they didn’t want to leave her behind.”

Nine were arrested in the November raid of the camp. Local media Myanmar Now has reported each were given 12-year prison sentences under a counter-terrorism law, after some, or all, received beatings during interrogation. Three others arrested in the raid were reportedly tortured to death.

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Jonathan, 38, is a former refugee from Myanmar living in Upper Hutt, whose family was close with the family of one of the nine, a 20-year-old woman. Stuff has agreed not to publish his last name due to concern for his family’s safety back in Myanmar.

The young woman was serving as a medic for the People’s Defence Force, one of the tens of thousands of people who have joined the rebel army to fight Myanmar’s military junta for a government in exile, the National Unity Government (NUG).

More than 2900 people have been killed in the civil war, according to a local Myanmar-based activist group, and more than 13,000 have been detained.

“We thought the country was heading towards, you know, a democratic country and all our sufferings can be forgotten, so long as the country headed in the right direction and people have freedom, freedom of religion … We were very happy,” Jonathan says.

Two years ago this week, Myanmar’s military, called the Tatmadaw, reclaimed rule of the country in a coup that deposed a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize Winner’s political party, the National League for Democracy, had overwhelmingly won popular support in an election contested by military’s political wing, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, three months earlier.

The return of military rule shattered a brief spell of democracy, and for many of Myanmar’s citizens, particularly its young people, a glimpse of a better life. The Tatmadaw had ceded total control and began to open up the country in 2008 after decades repressively ruling the country, and in 2015 an election that resembled real democracy had inspired hope.

The junta has this week renewed a state of emergency to retain power until a promised election later this year. But there’s little confidence the military-run election will be transparent or democratic.

There’s also little hope Myanmar can get back on the path to democracy, as the junta ignores the demands of its neighbours, and countries including to New Zealand, to return Myanmar to civilian rule.

Jonathan says with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine the international community has forgotten about Myanmar and the ”nightmare” its people are living.

“The military has been killing, torturing, raping, all sorts of cruelty. Nobody knows about it … and the military are taking advantage of that.”

Last month, he says, the military burnt 90 houses some three villages away from his.

It’s upsetting, and he tears up talking about it. He says in the immediate aftermath of the February 2020 coup, frustrated by immigration delays and pandemic restrictions keeping his wife from New Zealand, he thought of returning to fight.

But, with a baby now on the way and a job at a government agency, such ideas have been pushed aside. Instead, he’s trying to raise money for his community back in Myanmar. He’s also had to stop watching videos of the horror on social media of the chaos.

“I try really, really hard not to get emotional, even at home, but sometimes you just can’t stop yourself. You know, things that you hear, things that you see, things that your family tells you, it’s just horrendous.”

Inside Myanmar, a young man who once studied in New Zealand is working to strengthen the country’s weak civil society organisations that, its hoped, could help rebuild a democratic country if the junta relent.

“My country has been destroyed, you know, very largely destroyed by the junta. So, you know, we have lost a lot of human resources, which is very, very critical to build, you know, a country.

“The current condition will not change for some period … This election is bullshit, it’s nonsense.”

Stuff has agreed not to name the man and to obscure the region he lives in due to concerns for his safety.

As with swathes of the country, there’s an uneasy, unstable situation where he lives. The Tatmadaw have control of the more developed areas, but an ethnic army controls much of the territory.

The military and ethnic army run parallel governments and are often in open conflict. Many have been killed. The rule of law is weak, making way for robbery, theft, and murders.

He no longer seeks official permission to work with organisations, as what was an easy process has now been made difficult by the junta. Moving around is difficult, as there are checkpoints everywhere and vehicles, bags, cellphones are searched. He’s deleted all his social media accounts, and keeps a low profile.

“I try to survive that way. I work for my community, I don’t stop, you know, I never stop working.

“I try to apply the strategy, appear and disappear … if the tension happen, I try to move to a place, you know, where I think I’m safe.”

Ross Wilson, chairman of UnionAID, a Wellington-based non-governmental organisation that has long been involved in Myanmar, says the country faced an “absolute ongoing crisis, which has largely been ignored”.

“This is like an occupying army waging war against the population. The difference with Ukraine is that actually this is a country’s own army, which is waging war.

He says the junta had treated the international community’s efforts to return the country to civilian rule with “contempt”.

A “five-point consensus” plan for this, put together by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and supported by New Zealand, showed “no prospect” of producing a peaceful settlement, Wilson says.

He believed countries that claim to want democracy in Myanmar should help the NUG to defeat the junta.

“They do need assistance, and really, you know, that’s the only logical avenue for a return to democratic government.

“I don’t think that the people of Myanmar … no matter how hard it gets, and can’t get much harder than at the present time, will now ever accept that the return of some sort of phoney, military, quasi-democracy government.”

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta met, virtually, the NUG foreign minister Zin Mar Dung in October 2022.

“We had a very useful conversation around her perspectives about the situation, but also what it would take to try and get things moving forward,” Mahuta says.

New Zealand has not recognised the legitimacy of the junta regime, and quickly suspended all high-level political and military contact with the country after the coup.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) diplomats are negotiating with neighbouring countries, as others in the wider international community are, to push for a solution, Mahuta says.

“The ideal is that there is a democratic fear and transparent election within Myanmar, to be able to assume a government that can be recognised.”

Humanitarian aid continues to be funded in the country, with assurances that it doesn’t touch the junta’s hands, and the Mfat sent a charge d’ affaires, Stephanie Lee​, to Yangon, the country’s commercial capital, to resume diplomatic representation in the country.

“[She’s] acting in that ambassadorial role,” Mahuta says, “she meets with officials and oversees our aid programme … she doesn’t engage with the military or political leadership”.

The Government is also considering what further sanctions it could place on Myanmar’s military junta – however its ability to place sanctions, outside of the United Nations regime, is limited under law.

Tin Ma Ma Oo wants New Zealand to do more. The organiser of Democracy For Myanmar, in 2021 she helped organise a petition which swamped Parliament’s website asking the Government to formally recognise the NUG.

But, dissatisfied with a lack of progress and, as she sees it, a lack of response from the Government, her advocacy group has now disbanded.

Particularly frustrating was a seeming unwillingness from the Government to consider creating a visa pathway for those fleeing Myanmar with family in New Zealand – when such visas were made available in comparable circumstances for crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine.

She is headed to Thailand’s border with Myanmar, to assess for herself how those fleeing across the border can be helped.

“What we want now is to have a sit down opportunity, again, with the Government, after I’ve done all my research on the ground and say, ‘Can we have a visa?’.

“It could be a working visa, it could be a student visa, for these families members of New Zealanders who are stranded in a war torn country or in the border, having no security and no livelihood at all.”

Jonathan, in Upper Hutt, has walked the path those fleeing the country now face. By the time he arrived in New Zealand in 2008, he had been spent two years in Malaysia without proper documentation and worked his way through the United Nations refugee agency process.

“Although two years without any proper documentation was long, in comparison to other people who have waited for years and years, I must say I was one of the lucky ones,” he says.

“We came to New Zealand because life was too difficult, and if it hadn’t been for military government – Myanmar’s a rich country – we would be more than okay.”

* UnionAID will hold a symposium at Victoria University, Wellington, on Myanmar, on Friday, March 31, 2023.