00:00This Sunday, February 1st, will mark five years since the military retook control in Myanmar, also known as Burma,
00:08a coup that ended a brief period of more democratic rule, ousting elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and setting off a bloody civil war.
00:15The military celebrated the anniversary by declaring a sweeping win for their political party in the country's three-phase general election,
00:22a vote widely denounced as a sham, marked by repression and with large parts of the population excluded from voting.
00:28The UN reported Friday that at least 170 civilians were killed by military airstrikes during that election period.
00:36Well, for some insight, we can speak to Mark Farminer, director of the NGO Burma Campaign UK.
00:41Good morning and thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
00:45Good morning.
00:46I was thinking you could perhaps start by giving us your overall feeling about this anniversary.
00:51The military has been back in control for half a decade now.
00:54What's your level of hope for the future of democracy in Burma?
00:59Well, I think a lot of people in Burma will be arguing that the military are not back in control,
01:05that this was a huge miscalculation by the military.
01:09They thought this coup would put them back in complete control of the country
01:14after a period where they have shared power with an elected government.
01:18And it went horrifically wrong for them.
01:22They were met with mass protests.
01:24When they cracked down on those protests, they were met with armed resistance.
01:29The students that have been protesting in the streets,
01:31they went into the jungles and mountains on the borders of Myanmar,
01:36where there have been long-standing ethnic resistance organisations
01:40who have been fighting the Burmese military because of the repression they're facing.
01:46They received training.
01:47They received arms.
01:48And the Myanmar military lost control of more than half the country.
01:53At one point, they were down to complete control of only 20% of the country.
01:57So these elections that they've been holding over the past month,
02:03they're part of a desperate strategy for the military to try to regain some sort of credibility and legitimacy
02:10because they're in deep trouble.
02:12You know, they've been unleashing all the weapons of war they have against the people of Myanmar.
02:20They've detained 20,000 political prisoners.
02:22They've been conducting airstrikes on a daily basis, killing thousands of people.
02:29And it hasn't worked.
02:30The people of Myanmar are still resisting.
02:33They've rejected this election.
02:34They know it's a complete sham.
02:36And they vowed to continue resisting military rule.
02:39Can you talk a bit more about what that resistance looks like?
02:43I mean, is it a unified resistance or is there sort of a danger of fracturing in the country?
02:50It's mixed.
02:51So there is a national unity government that was established partly by elected representatives from the 2020 election.
03:00And they have these people, defence forces across the country.
03:05Some of them are under their control.
03:07Some of them are independent.
03:08And then you have longstanding ethnic armies, the Karen National Union, the Kachin Independence Organization and others,
03:16who have been administering their own territories for a very long time and resisting military rule.
03:23So you now have multiple sort of local administrations being built across the country.
03:28A kind of bottom-up democracy where there is a level of coordination on a more informal level, sometimes more formal.
03:36I don't think there's really a risk of Myanmar fracturing.
03:40The organisations that are fighting the Burmese military, they're all agreeing to stay part of the country.
03:46But what they want is more.
03:48They want human rights.
03:49They want more autonomy.
03:51They want control over their local natural resources.
03:53And for the first time now, we are seeing in the parts of the country no longer occupied by the Myanmar military.
04:01You're seeing people being consulted about how they want to be ruled and governed, what kind of laws they want in place,
04:08how natural resources should be used for their own benefit.
04:11And these local administrations are providing health and education services.
04:16And I think this is something the international community really needs to get behind.
04:21They worry about, as you're saying, Myanmar fracturing.
04:25But actually, people on the ground are building democracy now.
04:28The election is a sideshow.
04:30So what's really happening on the ground is people, for the first time, having a choice in how they're ruled,
04:37the rules that will govern them after decades of military rule or authoritarian rule.
04:42And speaking of international involvement, I know your organisation is calling out the UK government for its inaction.
04:49What's your message for Keir Starmer and for other officials?
04:51People in Myanmar are incredibly disappointed.
04:56After the coup, there were so many statements of international support from the UK, the USA, the European Union and others.
05:02And initially, there was a response where Western countries were trying to stop the flow of arms and equipment, money to the Myanmar military.
05:11That's just stopped now.
05:13It's been more than a year since the UK or the EU imposed any sanctions targeting the Myanmar military.
05:19And we're seeing airstrikes increasing, deaths, as you're describing, 170 dead just during the election period alone.
05:27The Myanmar military depends on the international community for its funding, for its arms, for its equipment.
05:34It's totally dependent on international support.
05:36A lot of that comes from China, India, Russia.
05:40But there's still many Western companies that are involved in the gas industry there, which funds the Myanmar military.
05:46American tech firms providing services to military-owned companies, which provide huge profits for them.
05:52There's a lot more that can be done by the UK, by Keir Starmer, by the European Union, to chip away at these sources of arms and revenue and reduce the capacity of the Myanmar military to keep killing people.
06:05Why has there been inaction from Western countries like the UK?
06:08Why aren't they doing anything?
06:11It's inexplicable.
06:12We can't get an explanation from the British government.
06:15We keep asking them.
06:16There's cross-party political support.
06:18Officially, all the main political parties in the UK support targeted sanctions to stop arms going to the Burmese military, to stop money going to them.
06:26And there isn't any action being taken.
06:29It's just not being prioritised as an issue.
06:32There's no significant impact on the economies of the EU or the UK if they did take these kind of actions.
06:40There's not any major investment or any risk to jobs in the EU or UK.
06:46It's just that really what people in Myanmar are saying is it seems like they just can't be bothered.
06:52They just don't care.
06:53The way that you describe the elections are sort of a sign of weakness from the military, trying to kind of grasp at power.
07:02Do you think that it's going to be successful, that that strategy could work out for them?
07:06Well, I think the risk is interesting to see.
07:11They've made very little effort to make these elections credible to Western countries.
07:17It seems like they're mainly they're counting on Russia, China in particular to keep propping them up and supporting them.
07:26But the danger is what happens when they form their new proxy governments, because what we saw after the sort of rigged elections that they held in 2010,
07:37a military backed government came in, which had been rejected by Western countries.
07:41But they were very smart in sort of introducing superficial reforms.
07:46They released a lot of political prisoners, but left all the laws that can arrest them on the books.
07:51They gave diplomats and others visas to enter the country after a long period of restriction.
07:57They talked a good talk while actually not making any fundamental reforms.
08:02And what people are afraid of is that the military will try to repeat that trick to promote another fake reform process to try and get sanctions and international pressure lifted,
08:13while in fact they're still holding all the key levers of power.
08:16And so to prevent that from happening, what are you calling for?
08:19What would you say would be the best roadmap going forward?
08:24Well, I think governments need to learn the lessons of history, that they made big mistake before backing a sham reform process,
08:30which when they lifted sanctions, the Myanmar military was able to buy arms, which they're now using to bomb home schools and villages now.
08:39They need to continue the policy that they officially have, which is to systematically identify and sanction sources of revenue, arms and equipment.
08:47That's one of the most effective things they can do.
08:50They need to look at more efforts for international justice and accountability,
08:54like we've just seen happening at the International Court of Justice regarding the genocide of the Rohingya,
08:59but also support the bottom up democracy that people are building in the country.
09:04The local administrations providing services to the people, help them build the capacity to provide those services as an alternative to military rule,
09:13because this is demonstrating that democracy is possible in the country.
09:19They're consulting on how they can build local democracy on the ground.
09:24It might be an unfamiliar form of government to have multiple small administrations across the country,
09:30but it's one that will probably be more effective for Myanmar, which is so ethnically, religiously diverse,
09:36and where decades of central governments trying to impose rules and regulations and laws on people has completely failed.
09:43It's just led to instability and conflict.
09:45Mark Farmaner, thank you again so much for bringing us your insight this morning.
Comments