After the military took control of Myanmar in 2021, guerilla fighters have been waging a war against the military junta, targeting military personnel, police who comply with the junta, as well as appointed political figures.  This past week, Sai Kyaw Thu was assassinated by the People’s Defense Force, which supports the democratic National Unity Government (an opposition group within Myanmar).  Thu was a former lieutenant colonel who was placed in charge of helping to prepare for elections to occur within Myanmar within the next few years.  The resistance fighters do not believe that it is legitimate elections because the government of Aung Sun Suu Kyi was violently deposed and replaced with the junta.

ABC news reported that “A member of the guerrilla group said in a text message on Sunday that Sai Kyaw Thu was assassinated ‘for being the deputy director-general of the illegal election commission of the military council, which disrespected the votes of the people in 2020 general election and abused the people unjustly, and also for being the one who falsely prosecuted President Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi as an accessory of the military council.'”

The issue with this assassination is the junta now has more incentive to use force to crush the opposition and may push back the upcoming elections even further.  The junta may point to the fact that the new election commission was created to give the population a chance to vote, but if resistance is so strong that officials are being assassinated, then there may be no reason to hold elections at all.

Justice Rozic

Top election official in Myanmar assassinated by guerrillas – ABC News (go.com)

The British controlled Myanmar from 1824 until 1948, not allowing the Burmese to have any say in how the government was to be ran, the policies decided, nor a say in internal affairs.  A small group of elites took over the entire country without the consent of the Burmese people.  This was unfair to the people because it did not allow a voice for the masses and a small group was using their influence to make the lives of the whole population worse, even though the British thought they were doing a great service to the Burmese people.  The British committed atrocities to the population of Myanmar during three brutal wars, where the brave fighters stood up to the occupier.  People from all over Myanmar stood up together, from various ethnic groups that spoke numerous languages, for the common understanding that the British did not have the authority over the entire population.  Resentment built over the more than one hundred years of illegal occupation of the homeland.  Eventually with enough pressure the British left their colonial holdings of Myanmar and let the people have their own voice.  No matter how many years the British occupied Myanmar, the Burmese people fought for their independence, even though there were great costs associated with it.  Everyone in Myanmar must remember the brave men and women who fought day and night for independence, not only on the battlefield, but raising awareness in the international community about their struggles.

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This first Tweet done by Khit Thit Media, a previously independent media source in Myamar, which is still located in Yangon, tweeted a news article stating from Burmese, “In Kayin, the army could no longer dominate the area and were afraid to use the highways, attempting to deliver food from Shanghai, killing five soldiers intercepting a military food railway in the Shanghai forest.”  This is in reference to a region that is adjacent to Thailand, and not Chinese Shanghai.  This Tweet shows that there are still currently resistance groups within Myanmar that are actively fighting the military junta to try to restore democracy.  If violence continues by rebel groups, then the military government is more likely to use even more repressive tactics on the population to regain control.  I foresee a continuation of this violence until either a compromise can be made between the armed rebels and the junta, or victory by either side.

ကရင်နီတွင် စစ်တပ်က နယ်မြေ မစိုးမိုးနိုင်တော့၍ ကားလမ်းမကြီးများကို မသုံးရဲသဖြင့် ရှမ်းပြည် ဘက်မှ ဝင်ရောက် ရိက္ခာပို့ရန် ကြိုးပမ်း၊ ရှားတောတွင် စစ် ရိက္ခာသယ် ယာဥ်တန်းကို ကြားဖြတ် တိုက်ခိုက်မှု စစ်သား ၅ ဦးသေဆုံး
Read more->https://t.co/jBYF5x0ZO6 pic.twitter.com/FHKmvswAN0

— Khit Thit Media (@Khithitofficial) February 27, 2023

This Tweet by Moe Sat Khin, somebody with a Myanmar flag in their Twitter handle said, “Security forces seized improvised mortars, guns & handmade mines at a terrorist camp belonging to the #PDF terrorist groups near Kyaemone Village in Monywa Township of Sagaing Region. Supporting the NUG-PDF terrorists is undermining the peace in Myanmar.”  This woman is clearly in the favor of the junta because the PDF is the People’s Defense Force of the National Unity Government, which is acting as the government-in-exile.  The PDF is declared a terrorist organization by the Myanmar junta, which does not give much validity to the terrorist label.  How many people of Myanmar actually support the junta, or is it a small minority that does not want democracy?

Security forces seized improvised mortars, guns & handmade mines at a terrorist camp belonging to the #PDF terrorist groups near Kyaemone Village in Monywa Township of Sagaing Region. Supporting the NUG-PDF terrorists is undermining the peace in Myanmar. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar. pic.twitter.com/iLz4O5gdgC

— Moe Sat Khin 💚 🇲🇲 💚 (@MoeSatKhinn) February 28, 2023

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As of February 27, Myanmar has added 37 more townships to the list of those directly submissive to marital law.  There are now a total of 50 townships that are ruled by martial law to punish dissenters.  The Human Rights Watch reported, “Under martial law, legal proceedings held in military tribunals against alleged coup opponents – closed-door hearings without adequate opportunity to present a defense – deny defendants any semblance of a fair trial”.  Having broad swathes of the country under direct military control allows for the junta to unfairly try and charge people that are resisting against the junta, even in peaceful ways.  It is clear that Myanmar is not on the path to democracy and have no plans in the immediate future to give control back to a civilian government.  Because of the martial law allowing for citizens to be tried by the military at the start of the coup in February 2021, “military tribunals have sentenced more than 100 people to death, including 41 tried in absentia.”  This is especially concerning because those that were tried in absentia were unable to defend themselves against their accusers.  The world is not seeming to be too concerned about the issue right now, as US held joint drills with Myanmar and other Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  They were not excluded from these drills which signals that these other states are not too concerned with what is happening in Myanmar.

Justice Rozic

Myanmar Junta Extends Martial Law | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)

US holds training exercises with sanctioned Myanmar junta | The World from PRX