By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

More than 100,000 people have been killed across all sides in Myanmar (previously Burma) since a military coup five years ago triggered a deadly civil war (AFP/Agence France Presse, July 1).

Anti-putsch protests were suppressed by security forces, but activists quit the cities to form pro-democracy guerrilla groups, fighting alongside ethnic minority armies which have long resisted central rule.

Since the coup there have been 100,114 conflict related fatalities, according to latest data from monitoring group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), which tallies media reports of violence widely.

However, analysts regard the half-decade civil war as Asia’s deadliest active conflict.

“The pain is just endless, said 49-year-old Thein Aye Nu, whose husband was killed in an air strike in the western state of Rakhine (neighbouring Bangladesh and from where the hundreds of thousands of refugees come from) last month.

“I am deeply resentful and very angry. But I don’t even know who to be angry at anymore. I just have to console myself by accepting it as fate.”

Whole-Country Conflict

After the coup, Myanmar was ruled by diktat for five years by military chief Senior General Min Aung Hliang.

In a calculated move, Hliang retired from the armed forces to assume office as the civilian president in April of this year.

This was after deeply restricted and manipulated elections were totally blocked by rebels from their territory and in which former democratic Aung San Suu Kyi’s party was sidelined.

International and domestic democracy monitors dismissed the vote as a charade to rebrand Min Aung Hlaing’s autocratic rule.

The rebels rejected his call for fresh peace talks as an insincere ploy to launder his international image.

“If there was no coup, children would be studying at schools,” said one man in Myit Chay town in central Magway region, whose teenage son was recently killed.

His son died in combat after running away from home to fight on the side of pro-democracy rebels, he said.

“We didn’t even get a chance to properly chant Buddhist funeral rites. Heavy artillery was being fired,” he said.

“He left so many memories – I am not satisfied with having done so little for him.”

More than 3.7 million people are internally displaced in Myanmar, according to the United Nations, and more than one in five people face acute food insecurity amid a national backslide into poverty.

In the largest city, Yangon, violence can take the form of occasional assassinations.

Other places are riven by entrenched warfare or pounded by daily air strikes by the military’s Russian- and Chinese-supplied jets.

Myanmar was the second most conflict-hit nation in the world last year, according to ACLED, behind only the Palestinian territories.

ACLED has registered more than 1,200 distinct armed groups in the civil war, calling it ‘the most fragmented conflict in the world’.

“It’s deadly, it’s dangerous to civilians, the conflict has spread across the whole country,” said ACLED senior analyst Sun Mon Thant.

The conflict dynamic has shifted many times in favour of both sides.

A combined offensive among some rebel groups starting late 2023 saw them win stunning advances, bearing down on the second largest city Mandalay – with speculation they may even capture this ancient royal capital.

But the tide has turned back in favour of the military, analysts say.

This was after China threw its support behind it and Beijing-backed truces were signed with two of the most powerful ethnic minority armies.

“Sent to Die’

In February 2024, the military activated conscription legislation, aiming to bolster its ranks by forcibly recruiting 50,000 citizens.

“These conscripts can’t do anything, It’s like they are just being sent to die,” said one former military conscript who deserted after serving on the front lines.

“If you don’t die in one place, they send you to another,” said the 20-year-old, anonymous for security reasons (AFP).

The civil war has also had far-reaching consequences internationally, filling camps in neighbouring Thailand and Bangladesh with an exodus of refugees, and creating fertile ground for transnational criminal enterprises.

Armed groups on all sides fill their war chests with profits from the booming production of drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine, according to monitors (AFP).

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s loosely governed borderlands have become a hotbed for on-line scam centres often operating out of fortified compounds guarded by militants.

Myanmar’s military junta has made a complete mess of their country. Unfortunately, the once active Association of South-Eastern Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been unable to do anything to turn the tide.

While Myanmar stays hopeless behind, the other nations of the group are rapidly approaching upper middle class status.

Instead of helping the people themselves, the major powers of Asia – Russia, China and India – have seen fit to prop up the junta and Hliang.

Other countries are following suit.

Myanmar coup chief turned civilian President Min Aung Hliang landed in Laos last Saturday.

This was his first state visit to an ASEAN country since claiming the post of civilian leader (AFP, July 3).

Last month he was feted with state visits to India and China.

Hliang’s new administration is making a push for international legitimacy, including in the 11-mem,ber ASEAN bloc which has largely frozen Myanmar out since the coup.

However, consensus in ASEAN is fraying over how to treat Myanmar’s new administration.

Some nations are seen as open to restarting engagement, seizing on apparent concessions by the new administration – including Min Aung Hliang’s recent personal command that 81-year-old Suu Kyi be moved from prison to house arrest.

Critics say it was a ploy to launder his image, arguing that the former leader is no freer than before – isolated at an undisclosed address in a city opaque to residents and rulers alike.

Vacant Abode

Naypyidaw – ‘The Abode of Kings’ – was named capital in 2005 by General Than Shwe, one of Myanmar’s previous military rulers.

Its central location, removed from the old port capital Yangon and the second city Mandalay reflected paranoia over popular uprisings and foreign interventions.

Built in the early 2000s, it feels both serene and ominous with security forces watching over its colossal empty expanse.

No one knows where she is located.

Suu Kyi’s son Kim Aris (who lives in the UK) said she belonged rightly in Yangon, and any house she was held in was a private prison rather than a residence with home comfort.

In any case, her future role in the country is a huge question mark as she is also getting on in years.

The writer can be reached at: shashimalla125@gmail.com