Harmony Fest featured the Myanmar Jazz Club and the Lanna Music Band at Bamboo Family Market in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Aug. 10. It was a celebration of music, heritage, unity and “good vibes” according to organizers from the Myanmar Jazz Club, which performed alongside the Lanna Music Band.
Gold prices and kyat exchange rate reaches new record
Gold prices have reached a record high of up to seven million kyat per tical (0.0164 kg) on Friday. The regime’s Yangon Region Gold Entrepreneurs Association (YGEA) set the price for a tical of gold at 4.6 million kyat ($1,416 USD) on Aug. 7 but it reached nearly seven million kyat ($2,155 USD).
“The military [regime] set fixed prices to keep commodity prices from rising but actually it didn’t work out in the market. Some gold shops showed the prices set by the association outside their shops but they made [gold] purchases with other prices,” said a gold shop owner with a store on Maha Bandula Road in Yangon.
In June, the regime arrested 21 gold merchants, accusing them of manipulating gold prices. Several gold shops in Yangon were temporarily shut down. Gold prices have soared since the 2021 military coup. The foreign exchange rate reached a record high of 6,000 kyat per $1 USD on Friday.
NUG representative to India dismissed
The National Unity Government (NUG) Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Salai Isaac Khen, its representative to India, was dismissed on Aug. 1 following an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and exploitation.
The NUG added that its Central Committee for the Prevention of Sexual Harassment, Exploitation, and Abuse ruled that Salai Isaac Khen had “indeed committed sexual harassment.” The committee’s findings were based on documents and witness testimony, according to the NUG.
A spike in violence-related injuries among Rohingya
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, released a statement on Aug. 9 that it had treated 49 people with serious injuries for the first time in a year on this scale. Rohingya were targeted in northern Arakan’s Maungdaw Township on Aug. 5.
“People must not be subjected to indiscriminate attacks and should be allowed to move to safer areas,” said the MSF Country Representative in Bangladesh Orla Murphy. “It is clear that the safe space for civilians in Myanmar is shrinking more each day, with people caught up in ongoing fighting and forced to make perilous journeys to Bangladesh to seek safety.”
MSF treated patients who escaped from Maungdaw into Bangladesh. Rohingya reported being attacked while attempting to find boats to cross the Naf River into Bangladesh. Some Rohingya confirmed to MSF that they saw hundreds of dead bodies on the riverbanks. MSF suspended all healthcare services in northern Arakan on June 27.
News by Region
ARAKAN—The Arakan Army (AA) announced on Aug. 8 that five inmates, including two political prisoners, were killed at Thandwe Prison when the military attacked its “rescue” operation in southern Arakan. A total of 372 inmates, including 43 political prisoners, were freed by the AA.
The AA stated that the 43 political prisoners have been returned to their families. It is now examining the 372 non-political prisoners criminal cases “in a legal manner.” The AA seized control of Thandwe Township on July 16.
CHINLAND—Over 700 refugees from Matupi, Paletwa, Hakha and Thantlang townships staged a protest in Lawngtlai, southern Mizoram State of India, against the AA on Saturday. The protesters called on the AA to leave Chinland.
“The protestors chanted for the AA to leave Paletwa and Matupi,” said a Chin refugee in Lawngtlai. The AA seized Paletwa on Jan. 10 and is fighting alongside the Chin Brotherhood in Kanpetlet, Kyatwee (Kyindwe) and Matupi townships in southern Chinland.
SHAN—At least 120 prisoners – out of the 2,487 total – were either killed or went missing during attacks by the military on Lashio Prison during fighting with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) July 24-27, according to survivors. The MNDAA took control of the prison on July 28.
“At least 80 were killed,” Gar Zar, a political prisoner who escaped from Lashio Prison, told DVB. Over 200 political prisoners were released by the MNDAA. Relatives of those freed said that most returned home to their families by Aug. 7.
The National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) chairperson Sai Lin died from lung cancer at a hospital in China on Aug 8. He was 78. “Sai Lin has passed away. He had been battling lung cancer for over 20 years, and his condition worsened to a point where he could no longer endure it,” Kyi Myint, the NDAA general secretary and spokesperson, told DVB.
Sai Lin founded the NDAA on April 19, 1989. He was from Muse, located in northern Shan State on the border with China. The NDAA, which is based in eastern Shan State, is a member of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC). It declared neutrality in Operation 1027 despite its alliance with the MNDAA.
MANDALAY—Residents and relatives of senior military and police officials in Pyin Oo Lwin have been relocated, sources close to the military told DVB. Rumors of an attack on Pyin Oo Lwin by the People’s Defense Force (PDF) and the Brotherhood Alliance, which includes the MNDAA, the AA, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), circulated online.
“How can they protect the people?” asked a Pyin Oo Lwin resident who was leaving for Mandalay, which is located 40 miles (64 km) south. The military’s Defense Services Academy is located in Pyin Oo Lwin. Regime media dismissed rumors of an impending attack, calling them unfounded.
Guest contributor
Maung Zarni for FORSEA
In any history, there are certain events which produce a seismic impact on the course of a country or a people’s future. For the people of Myanmar, that event has to be the July 19, 1947 assassination of Aung San (then aged 32) and half of his pre-independence cabinet of people coming from a multi-ethnic and multi-faith background.
Specifically, Aung San and his post-World War II colleagues succeeded in hammering out the twin framework for the nature of the post-colonial political state, namely federalist power-sharing arrangement, which recognized the right of self-determination of ethnic communities, and an inclusive citizenship framework, which was anchored in both the idea of indigeneity and the status of local residency a decade priority the end of the pre-World War II British rule in 1942.
With the benefit of the hindsight of 77 years, I for one trace the origin of Myanmar’s unfolding internal Balkanization, albeit without the emergence of new republics or alteration of external boundaries.
Both civilian politicians with huge sway over the dominant ethnic Bamar and the three generations of military leaders who have instituted and maintained a military dictatorship since 1962 have discarded, in spirit and in deeds, the country’s founding principles of ethnic group equality and the inclusivity in granting equal and non-tiered citizenship to all persons, irrespective of race, faith, and creed.
During the first military dictatorship of General Ne Win from 1962 to 1988, Rohingya suffered the blatant denial of their citizenship and official ethnic inclusion as an integral community of multi-ethnic Union of Burma. The 1982 Citizenship Law created, in effect, an apartheid system of tiered citizenship, wherein the fascist-inspired idea of “blood-based” citizenship was elevated at the expense of equally valid historical residency.
Consequently, the non-Rohingya public, both the Bamar majority and other indigenous public, typically referred to as “Taiyintha” sleepwalked, as cheerleaders (and collaborators, in the case of Rakhine Buddhists), into the military-initiated decades-long persecution. My scholar colleague Natalie Brinham (pseudonym Alice Cowley) and I sounded alarm over this breach of international law and civilizational norms with our three-year study: “The slow-burning genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya” (2014).
Three years on in the fall of 2017, this persecution climaxed into a textbook example of genocide, resulting in the exodus of nearly one million Rohingya – and countless deaths and destruction of over 300 villages and neighbourhoods in northern Rakhine (Arakan) State, at the hands of the Myanmar Armed Forces, aided and abetted by local anti-Rohingya Rakhine collaborators.
By 2019, the state of Myanmar was hauled before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the U.N., for its alleged breach of the inter-state treaty called the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
Then in her capacity as State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the martyred national leader Aung San, represented Myanmar as a state party to the Convention to defend what she calls with pride and public affection: “My father’s army.”
As if it hadn’t ever perpetrated genocide. She dismissed any allegations and evidence of the military’s mass rape against hundreds of women whose identity as ethnic Rohingya she categorically refused to recognize.
Suu Kyi’s attempted erasure of the victims’ group identity is a part and parcel of a textbook genocide, from Palestine to Myanmar. It is in breach of an ethnic group’s right to self-identify and against the mountains of official and historical documentation of Rohingya presence and identity in Myanmar.
In November 2017, I had travelled to Rohingya genocide survivors’ camps in Bangladesh and recorded in-person interviews with over a dozen Rohingya women who survived or witnessed the rape in Rakhine State across the land and river borders from Bangladesh. I knew the daughter of my role model and hero, both childhood and to this day, Aung San was lying through her teeth.
A word about Aung San.
Born in the ethnic heartlands of the Dry Zone (or Upper Burma) in 1915 to a small land-owning family, the young student anti-imperialist agitator-cum-Marxist revolutionary leader, was a self-made man who lived his singular dream of liberating the colonized society of multi-ethnic peoples, both those who claimed indigeneity and who adopted colonial Burma as their homes.
He drew his inspiration in defining who belonged in the country not from the blood-anchored conception of a Burmese or non-Burmese indigenous person, but from the progressive citizenship definitions of both the USSR and U.S. In his widely listened to public addresses, he made his radical post-ethnic/-racial definition of “taiyintha” or “children of the soil” as anyone who adopted the country, expressed his or her concerns for the collective welfare of all people and contributed to the country’s progress.
In a country where the majority Bamar possessed fascist and authoritarian tendencies, which were publicly pointed out by Thakin Ba Hein, Aung San’s peer at Rangoon University in the 1930s and subsequently the general secretary of the Communist Party of Burma, a small band of Marxist-inpired university-educated revolutionaries, including Aung San, broke free of these psycho-cultural impediments. They attempted to advance the non-racist and non-authoritarian conception of political citizenship – and ethnic group equality among the soon-to-be independent colonial Burma.
I learned first hand about these two remarkable revolutionaries from my great-uncle who was classmates and friends with both Aung San and Ba Hein. Between the two leaders, who headed the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) and the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), Ba Hein died first a natural death in my old high school in Mandalay, which was converted into a World War-time hospital by the occupying Japanese fascist authorities.
Months later, Aung San and his multi-ethnic colleagues were gunned down in a successful assassination plot during the mid-morning cabinet meeting. Despite the overwhelming evidence of Britain’s involvement, from multiple credible sources, U Nu, Aung San’s deputy and vice president of the AFPFL, and his colleagues attempted to conceal the instrumental role the British played in eliminating the most influential Burmese nationalist politician, who publicly talked about the intention of his post-colonial government to nationalize resource extractive industries such as oil and mining, as well as other strategic economic sectors.
In terms of Aung San’s national political program, he succeeded in persuading different ideological and ethnic representatives – who represented socialist leaning new ethnic masses, the centuries-old feudal ruling houses from the hill areas of western, northern and eastern Burma and tradition-bound Bamar nationalists with feudal outlook – to work together voluntarily and forge the former colony as a federalist democracy, an unprecedented historical vision.
The late Maha Devi (or chief queen) Sao Naw Hkan of the ruling house of Yaunghwe, southern Shan State wrote to her American friend and the resident economic adviser to U Nu’s Government named Louis Walinsky, that “it was Aung San who in fact offered the right of secession or self-determination in Panglong,” which is the founding treaty among different ethnic groups.
Apparently, Aung San wanted to convince the ethnic representatives who gathered at a small hill station town of Panglong hosted by her husband, Sao Shwe Thaike, that he meant business when he offered ethnic group equality.
I read the letter when I was sorting out the Burma collection after our mutual friend Lou’s death in Washington, DC. [She was the mother of Harn Yaunghwe who directs the Euro-Burma Office and advocates for peaceful political negotiation in the federalist spirit of Panglong as a way to end the 70-years of civil war raging with fluctuating degrees of ferocity.]
But Aung San’s federalist and democratic vision has had one big problem.
Neither his successor, the late Prime Minister U Nu, nor his own surviving daughter Aung San Suu Kyi shared this commitment to ethnic group equality. In a type-written copy of the Burmese language letter (dated 2 March 1973) – in my possession – written to his anti-military dictatorship armed comrades, when he was the figurehead, U Nu confessed that from the day he became the post-Aung San leader of independent Union of Burma he was opposed to the right of self-determination of any ethnic group, in direct breach of both the spirit and letter of the Union of Burma’s founding treaty of Panglong.
The 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma, completed under Nu’s pre-independence leadership and after Aung San’s assassination in 1947, was “federal only in name, but unitary in substance.”
The late Chan Tun, the Cambridge-trained barrister and Aung San’s legal adviser on the constitution drafting committee, admitted this sordid fact to the late Edward Law-Yone, the chief editor of the then influential English daily, The Nation, in the 1950s when the discontent and strife over the unequal ethnic group relations were beginning to surface.
As a matter of fact, U Nu’s refusal to honour this group equality principle fractured the emerging armed resistance coalition of ethnic Bama, Mon and Karen movements with the common aim of ending General Ne Win’s dictatorship.
General Ne Win ousted the U Nu government in 1962, and jailed him for five years, after which he left the country and joined the armed resistance movement established along the Thai-Burma border by the likes of Law-Yone and other liberal democrats.
Likewise, despite the initial embrace and popular support among non-Bamar or – Burmese ethnic communities – which make up 30 to 40 percent of the country’s total population – Aung San Suu Kyi proved herself to be a Bamar and Buddhist nationalist, who treated representatives of other non-Bamar ethnic communities – and religious minorities – with stomach-turning condescension, barely concealed contempt and apparent ethnic chauvinism.
Today Myanmar’s plunge into the ferocious civil war is accelerating in various ethnic regions – from the coastal Rakhine and hilly Chin states on the western frontiers to northern Myanmar’s Kachin highlands, Shan plateau, Karenni, Karen and Mon states along the border regions.
The public is now waking up to the ugly reality: the territorial gains by the anti-dictatorship resistance organizations vis-à-vis the genocidal Myanmar national military do not signify a new, progressive and emancipatory political future for either the locals under the Arakan Army, the Kokang (ethnic Chinese) Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the United Wa State Army, and so on, or the country at large.
On the contrary, the intra-minority group rifts and tensions are brewing as the military victorious “ethnic resistance organizations” are promoting their respective strains of ethnic-supremacy, whatever their name, with the exception of the Karen National Union and the Karenni National Progress Party.
Absent any inclusive, post-ethnic political framework that guarantees group equality (or federalist arrangement) among ethnic communities whose presence is now interspersed across different mono-ethnically named regions, commitment to universal human rights and democratic principles, Myanmar is heading towards a hybrid between dismembered Syria and the ethnically poisonous post-Yugoslavia states.
Of course, unlike the disintegration of Tito’s Yugoslavia which resulted in new republics allied with different external geopolitical powers such as Russia, the U.S., the EU and, (to a lesser extent, China), the late Aung San’s Union of Burma will remain a permanently divided society of overtly racist populations within its external boundaries primed for strategic exploitation via their local ethnic proxies, by different external actors such as China, India, Thailand, and the U.S.
On 6 August, my fellow co-founder Ro Nay San Lwin of the Free Rohingya Coalition alerted the world of rights activists, journalists and government officials to the video evidence of the Arakan Army’s latest genocidal slaughter of over 200 Rohingya children, men and women in his native northern Rakhine state. Neither Myanmar’s anti-military National Unity Government (on Zoom) nor any Ethnic Armed or Resistance Organisation have spoken out.
Not a single Myanmar language media outlet has covered this atrocity crime. Apparently, an anti-resistance group fighting for their own ethnic group’s freedom is committing atrocity crimes against Myanmar’s defenseless genocide survivor community of Rohingya is not deemed newsworthy to Myanmar journalists.
Myanmar today is home to multiple racisms, ethnicity-based violence and armed movements, conflicting commercial interests and territorial claims, multiple chains of command, countless armed groups.
You can kiss goodbye to a federalist democracy, with human rights.
Maung Zarni is a UK-exiled scholar and revolutionary from Burma with 35 years of direct political involvement in Burmese affairs.
DVB publishes a diversity of opinions that does not reflect DVB editorial policy. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our stories: [email protected]
Guest contributor
Myo Yan Naung Thein
The capture of the Northeast Regional Military Command (RMC) by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) represents a significant setback for the military. Following this development, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing delivered a speech characterized by shock and irrationality.
Despite having access to significant state resources, he attributed the fall of the RMC to the superior drones and weapons of the anti-coup resistance forces, which had acquired less advanced equipment through public donations.
In his address to the nation, Min Aung Hlaing sought to shift responsibility to the Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs) and the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), accusing them of receiving foreign support while ignoring his own shortcomings.
His rambling and illogical rhetoric only served to highlight his own inadequacies and lack of strategic thinking the military’s dependence on attributing blame, employing fear-based tactics, and implementing oppressive measures has expedited its decline, with the MNDAA successful seizure of the RMC underscoring the escalating challenges and resistance confronting the military regime in Naypyidaw.
The military organized a protest against the MNDAA takeover of the RMC, coercing government employees to participate and commandeering passenger buses for the demonstration. This coercive tactic highlights the military’s limitations. In a retaliatory move following the MNDAA’s seizure of the RMC, the military bombed the Kutkai market in northern Shan State, resulting in civilian casualties and the destruction of the market.
This violent response underscores the military’s lack of a coherent strategy beyond instilling fear and brutality in both short-term and long-term actions, showcasing their inhumanity and absence of effective planning.
The military regime is trapped in its own mindset, cut off from alternative ways of thinking. Throughout Myanmar’s history since independence in 1948, fear has been the only tool for their control of power, and it appears that they’ve become reliant on it. They seem to feel comfortable with their strategy of instilling fear.
They have become so accustomed to exercising control through intimidation that they don’t know what to do when that strategy begins to fail. Feeling lost and unable to consider alternatives, they resort to what they know best, using brutality and fear to maintain their grip on power. It’s a troubling cycle that doesn’t offer a way forward.
The root of the military’s failure lies in their mindset. They conceal their own irrationalities while shifting blame onto others. Their mindset is dominated by fear, brutality, and oppression, they create an environment where no one dares to oppose them, leaving them with no viable way forward.
The deliberate actions of the military resulted in not only setbacks on the battlefield but also significant economic failures. Their mismanagement led to soaring prices for everyday commodities like cooking oil and rice. In response, they blamed businessmen for the price hikes and proceeded to arrest them.
Although this crackdown caused a temporary dip in commody prices like cooking oil and rice, within a week, prices surged to uncontrollable levels. The initial drop in prices following the arrests prompted traders to stop selling these products altogether. Consequently, a black market for essential goods emerged, where basic food items were sold in secret.
The U.S dollar trading market experienced a similar trajectory. By the end of March 2024, the exchange rate was 3,780 kyat for $1 USD, which increased to 3,900 kyat by the end of April. By the end of May, the rate had climbed to 4,250 kyat, and by the end of June, it reached 4,450 kyat. During this period, the military blamed the rising USD prices on businessmen, leading to their arrests. As a result, by the end of July, the exchange rate surged to 5,300 kyat per USD.
This is how the military addresses issues: through crackdowns and instilling fear. That is what motivates them to bomb the civilians of Kutkai market. If questioned about why they targeted a market bustling with civilians, they would likely respond that Kutkai city is under MNDAA control, and the residents must live in fear.
However, if asked what outcome they expect from instilling fear in civilians, they would be unable to provide a clear answer. For generations, they have relied on fear as their tactic, yet there is no definitive strategy behind it. Despite using fear as a means of control, their approach lacks a coherent vision of its intended results.
The mindset of Min Aung Hlaing and his military regime has ensnared it in a cycle of blame, fear, and intimidation. His approach reveals an inherent failure of leadership. As the situation deteriorates, he clings more tightly to these tactics, which only accelerates the downfall of the military. This reliance on fear leads to increasingly uncontrollable mistakes, ultimately resulting in a chaotic collapse.
Consequently, the end of the military may arrive much sooner than the public anticipates.
Myo Yan Naung Thein is the visiting researcher and co-chair of the Burmese Democratic Futures Working Group , University of Virginia. In this capacity, he has traveled across the U.S. speaking to students, church groups, policymakers and members of the Myanmar diaspora community to build support for Myanmar’s democracy movement and the return of his country to civilian rule.
DVB publishes a diversity of opinions that does not reflect DVB editorial policy. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our stories: [email protected]
On Aug. 8, a commemoration ceremony for the 36th anniversary of the 1988 Uprising for democracy in Myanmar was held at the Golden Land Solidarity Collective in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The Burma Civil War Museum and the Yadanabon University Students Union hosted the event.
Regime leader Min Aung Hlaing met with China’s Special Envoy for Asian Affairs Deng Xijun in Naypyidaw on Thursday to discuss Myanmar’s conflict since the 2021 military coup.
“At the meeting, both sides cordially talked about friendly ties and diplomatic relations between Myanmar and China, internal peace processes in Myanmar, peace and stability measures in the border region, bilateral relations to eradicate online gambling and online scams,” regime media reported.
Min Aung Hlaing and Deng Xijun also discussed the regime’s plan to hold an election. In attendance was Ye Win Oo, the regime joint secretary, and Than Swe, the regime deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister.
This meeting comes after the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) seized control of the military’s Northeastern Regional Military Command (RMC) headquarters in Lashio, located in northern Shan State, on Aug. 3. Thirteen other RMC remain under military control.
The Northeastern RMC gives the MNDAA effective control over all of Lashio, which connects the country’s second largest city, Mandalay, to the border of China.
The MNDAA is a member of the Brotherhood Alliance, a grouping of ethnic armed groups fighting against the military in northern Shan and Arakan (Rakhine) states. It includes the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA).
The Brotherhood Alliance re-launched its offensive, known as Operation 1027 due to the date it began on Oct. 27, in northern Shan State after a China-brokered ceasefire with the military signed on Jan. 11 broke down on June 25.
Min Aung Hlaing accused the Brotherhood Alliance and other armed groups, fighting the military after the coup, of receiving advanced military weapons including drones from foreign countries during a speech on Monday.
He did not name any countries specifically but claimed that ethnic armed groups are operating weapons factories with equipment obtained from abroad along the Myanmar-China border, and smuggling weapons into the country via the Myanmar-Thailand border.
The Brotherhood Alliance maintains close ties with Beijing. The International Crisis Group (ICG), an organization that monitors global armed conflict, released a report in March stating that China gave its tacit approval for Operation 1027.
“China didn’t see the January ceasefire as any kind of permanent solution, but I think it hoped the deal could help solidify a new status quo along the border, along with a resumption of trade. Instead, bombs are now falling on Laukkai, right on China’s doorstep. In addition to a new ceasefire, China continues to press for early elections,” said Richard Horsey, the ICG senior Myanmar advisor.
China’s embassy in Myanmar posted to social media on Tuesday that its nationals residing in Lashio, and other areas of northern Shan State, must take precautions and avoid areas where fighting is on-going near the China border.
“We have called on relevant parties in Myanmar to uphold dialogue and consultation, end the hostilities as soon as possible, settle disputes in a peaceful manner, avoid escalation of the situation, and in particular, make sure no harm is done to the security of Chinese borders and the safety of people living in the border area as well as Chinese projects, businesses and personnel in Myanmar,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning during a press conference in Beijing on July 25.
© Democratic Voice of Burma 2024.
