Mynamar is a country in Southeast Asia, formerly known as Burma, and has been going through several crises amid the COVID-19 crisis. They were a British Colony up until 1948 (extremely recent) .Mynamar is very populated, housing 54 million people and has been subjected to a plethora of scrutiny due to current governance choices. Mynamar's government has been experiencing a political stalemate in which passing laws that priortize those that are being governed is becoming an extremely tedious process.
Feburary 1st, 2021, Mynamar's turmoil begun. Aung San Suu Kyi is a political icon for Mynamar in which she advocated for human rights and believed in democratic values that would help sustain Mynamar for the long run. She ran for office and led the NLD to victory in Mynamar's first openly contested election in 25 years. She was loved by the majority Buddist population. Democratically elected members of Mynamar's ruiling party, National League for Democracry (NLD) was deposed by the Tatmadaw which is Mynamar's government. Aung San Suu Kyi won political majority from the election, but the military believed that the election was rigged and placed her under house arrest as well as removed her from her office physically. This is a sign of stratocracy in which the power lies in the military hands and not the people.
This event was know as the Mynamar coup and the power dynamics shifted on Feb. 1st in which Mynamar was placed on a year long state of emergency due to the government seizing human rights as well as forcefully trying to dictate the atmosphere of its country. Mynamar has been controlled by a military coup since 1962 which crushed any opposition from the people. The military promised elections in the future, but the people feared returning to the dark days of junta, where power is taken by force by the military and continued to protest, not allowing themselves to be silenced by their government like once before. The military commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, has taken power and is adament on keeping the Tatmadaw in power.
The protests over the coup have been the largest since the Saffron Revolution in 2007, when thousands of monks rose up against the military regime. These were a series of economic and political protests due to the government removing subsidies from the sales price of fuel. With that being said, Mynamar would need substantial amounts of help from diplomatic initiatives in order for their country to be restored back to their former glory.
Yeung, Jessie. “Myanmar to Release 5,600 Prisoners Held for Anti-Junta Protests.” CNN. Cable News Network, October 19, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/18/asia/myanmar-junta-prisoner-release-intl-hnk/index.html.
Cuddy, Alice. “Myanmar Coup: What Is Happening and Why?” BBC News. BBC, April 1, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55902070.
Dr Gareth Price Senior Research Fellow. “Myanmar Faces Perfect Storm as Political Stalemate Deepens.” Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank, July 7, 2021. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/06/myanmar-faces-perfect-storm-political-stalemate-deepens?
“Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar Democracy Icon Who Fell from Grace.” BBC News. BBC, March 5, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977.
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