The captors come in the night. Then Myanmar’s military moves out to arrest democracy activists. Many of them now have sleepless nights, constantly changing their location to avoid being arrested. At least 400 arrests have already been confirmed, the “Association for the Support of Political Prisoners” said on Monday.
The army is also tightening its pace in other ways in order to break resistance to the military coup. In Mandalay, the country’s second largest city in the center, security forces fired to drive away demonstrators. How many victims there were was initially unclear. And in other cities, too, more and more soldiers are marching at the demonstrations – including dreaded divisions that have brutally suppressed uprisings in the past. In addition, the junta passed an overnight ordinance that could face up to 20 years imprisonment for acts directed against the military.
“Security complex sees itself surrounded by enemies”
Nevertheless, the resistance continues. Many officials are still on strike and again tens of thousands of opponents of the regime protested in numerous cities – although fewer demonstrators were seen on Monday than on the weekend. They also demand recognition of the elections won by the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the reinstatement of the appointed head of government, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Please save our lives
WE ARE NOT SAFE#Feb15Coup#WhatsHappeningInMyanmarpic.twitter.com/Z4n6MjW2j2?? Htet (@SakiWmzk) February 15, 2021
“We just want our lives back before the coup,” said an activist of the German “taz”. At the same time, he stressed that police officers and soldiers would have to switch sides for the uprising to be successful. “Without them we have no chance.”
While some police officers have openly shown sympathy for the demonstrators, this has not yet been the case with soldiers. And even if some ordinary soldiers may sympathize with the protest movement, the chances are slim that there will be a split at the top of the army. “In the decisive moments, the generals have always closed the ranks,” says the political scientist and Myanmar expert Marco Bünte from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg of the “Wiener Zeitung”. This has a lot to do with the history of the country and the fighter and bunker mentality of the military, whose motto is “One blood, one voice, one order”.
Only in the past ten years has a tentative democratization set in; before that, the military had consistently ruled the state since 1962. It was constantly confronted with uprisings – from communist rebels to democracy movements to ethnic minorities fighting for more rights. Since independence in 1948 there has never been complete peace in Myanmar, until today there is fighting in the multiethnic state in some regions – and like military leader Min Aung Hlaing, the entire army leadership was right at the front.
“A security complex has formed that sees itself surrounded by enemies,” explains Bünte. And who has obviously internalized as an opinion: Politics is decided by struggle and not by compromise. Those who do not show unity are weakened.
In addition, during its decades of rule, the army penetrated the entire state and formed large economic conglomerates in the process. Bünte says, however, that economic reasons for the coup were not decisive – rather, these companies, which are active in the banking, tourism and real estate sectors, would have benefited from the opening of the country. “It’s about political supremacy.”
The military feared the advance of civilians
And the army apparently saw this endangered. In accordance with the 2008 constitution, she still had the security apparatus in her hand. But the administration came more and more under civilian control. In addition, Suu Kyi, who led the parliamentary majority, had secured more influence through clever moves than the generals had intended. And with the overwhelming election victory, Suu Kyis NLD had again received an overwhelming mandate from the people.
The army canceled the election on the pretext of electoral fraud. She presented herself as the guardian of a disciplined democracy. In Myanmar, what democracy is apparently still determines the military.
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