🇲🇲 Myanmar Part 2: At home, it's only getting worse

Hello friends!

A funeral, a damned economy and mayhem in Rakhine State for you today.

I’ve split up this week’s Myanmar coverage on account of such an enormous volume. I could easily go a third though with so much excellent reporting that we haven’t gotten to yet or couldn’t quite find the space for. Keep an eye out next Wednesday for a long, long reading list.

See you then,
Erin Cook

Mourning a man and history in Yangon

Myanmar’s democracy movement lost a giant last month with the death of Tin Oo, the 97-year-old co-founder of the National League of Democracy party alongside Aung San Suu Kyi. 

Tin Oo’s obituary reads like a shorthand history of Myanmar’s struggles for democracy. Tin Oo served his early life in the military under former dictator Ne Win, before being jailed in 1976 on political charges. He was released and then arrested in 1989 and placed under house arrest, spending 14 of the next 21 years either at home or in prison, the Associated Press writes in this lovely piece. He was released in 2010. 

“He endured with dignity the various house arrest and prison terms, and detentions imposed on him,” Moe Thuzar, Senior Fellow and coordinator of the Myanmar Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told the wire. “His sense of loyalty — to principles, to persons who he believed could uphold and continue the pursuit of this principles — was also evident in his unswerving support for the party he co-founded.” 

Tin Oo retired from the political life in 2018, Myanmar Now writes in this fierce piece. “However, in his final years … he was once again forced to witness Myanmar’s decline, brought on by a coup that has sent the country into a spiralling crisis marked by untold atrocities,” the outlet writes. 

State of the junta

Is the military on the verge of collapse? That’s been the perennial question in Myanmar for the last year as resistance groups make massive — and at times, temporary — gains in key battlegrounds around the country. 

And the answer is always: they’re not doing great but they’re not dead yet. Still, any and all insight is appreciated so let’s check in on the reporting. Two reports, one from SAC-M and another from Crisis Group (which we touched on somewhat Wednesday), suggest that as the months pass and the resistance groups dig further in the military is being stretched — and the economics section below certainly backs that up.

“The military junta does not control enough of the territory of Myanmar to uphold the core duties of the state. The junta has abandoned significant territory and has been forced into a defensive posture in most parts of the country where it remains present,” the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) said in its report, as per Reuters. 

That is paired alongside localised militia strengthening the grip on power: “The ethnic armed groups that have achieved many of these military victories are consolidating control of their expanded homeland areas, with many well on the way to establishing autonomous statelets,” the Crisis Group report said. 

The analysis comes amid reports of yet another shuffle in the top echelons of military leadership, the Irrawaddy reports citing a former officer-turned-civil defence movement participant and ‘two sources close to the officers.’ ‘Late last month, the junta’s military headquarters relieved five major generals — including Major General Saw Than Hlaing, the head of Naypyitaw Command — of their duties and shunted them to the reserve forces,’ the Irrawaddy reports. 

“Min Aung Hlaing is filling the lineup with the people he prefers and trusts more,” former captain Zin Yar told the outlet, suggesting the big boss is looking to shore up support and stave off any attempts to unseat him. That could be in the works, I’m not sure about this one though. 

Economic crisis deepens

The economy is in freefall, new data provided by the shadow National Unity Government shows, as reported by Nikkei Asia. GDP hit just 1% year on year in March, while inflation remains wildly out of control, foreign-currency reserves are drained and the kyat dropped nearly 70% against the dollar since 2021 when the coup took hold. 

As if, says Junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun. “It’s necessary to observe only the statistics officially released by government organisations,” he said, as reported by Bloomberg. Oh yeah, for sure man. 

The NUG’s finance minister, ​Tin Tun Naing, is confident the NUG has the data to back it up, telling foreign media and dignitaries on Monday just how grim things are on the ground. He alleges the military has been printing money to back its defence — which in turn has seen inflation go mad — while remittances have dropped 50% in recent months, Bloomberg reports.  Remittances had been averaging around $100 million a month. 

Bloomberg tapped Sean Turnell, the Australian economic advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi who was incarcerated by the junta until recently, for comment. The instability is certainly not helping, he says: it’s “partly driving the collapse in the exchange rate and it’s driving the country’s inflation rates, which are dramatically higher than any other country.” He also estimated that 70% of the budget deficit was financed by hitting the money machine. Yeesh. 

A World Bank report into the economy this week also points squarely to instability and, specifically, the conscription drive which has seen would-be conscripts fleeing the country — and their jobs — in droves. “The announcement of mandated conscription in February 2024 has intensified migration to rural areas and abroad, leading to increased reports of labour shortages in some industries,” the Bank says in its report, as per Nikkei Asia. 

“Kyat depreciation and lack of access to foreign currency and import licenses have led to persistent inflation and shortages of essential imported inputs. Electricity outages have worsened, compelling firms to rely on expensive diesel generators, thereby increasing production costs,” the report continued. The electricity is particularly telling. A third of businesses surveyed by the Bank reported outages as a major challenge, up from just 12% in September. 

There doesn’t seem to be any silver linings in either of these economic reviews. “Displacement, job losses, and income losses have wiped out much of the previous progress in poverty reduction. The economic outlook remains very weak, with little respite for Myanmar's households over the near to medium term,” Mariam Sherman, the World Bank's Myanmar country director, said. 

Sanctions haven’t exactly done the job of throttling the State Administration Council, so what other options are there? Jared Bissinger gets thinking over at Fulcrum here. With the junta working so many savvy ways around the sanctions already in place and Myanmar nationals not connected to the regime getting stung — how about using financial tools to help pro-democracy ‘facilitate trade and finance’ outside of the system controlled by the junta? 

“Regional countries should realise that the SAC cannot address this crisis because the very economic tools they rely on for their survival – printing money, extracting forex, et cetera – are the same tools that drive it. It is time for Myanmar’s regional neighbours to explore these alternatives,” Bissinger concludes. 

Struggling from Rakhine State to Cox’s Bazar

I am struggling to find my bearings when it comes to the conflict in Rakhine State. Truly, all the power to the journalists and analysts keeping the world up to date on this portion of the conflict because I find it discombobulating, even by Myanmar’s tricky standards. 

This report from the AFP and posted by Frontier Myanmar is, I think, one of the most concise overviews of what is happening there. Clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, one of the original three ethnic armed organisations in Operation 1027, have continued all year and left the state in rubble and communities displaced. 

Villagers have been left terrified: “We are frightened of them [the military] … We don’t know what will happen or what kind of weapon they will drop on us if we go and stay back at home in the town. We can’t detect their air strikes or bombs and we will be killed if they attack,” one unidentified man told the outlet from his temporary home in Pauktaw. He says the AA have not allowed him to return home yet. 

In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, there are 33 refugee camps with an average population of 40,000, with Rohingya refugees living in a density of about 60,000 people per square kilometre, according to United Nations data cited in this outstanding and grim piece from Gwen Robinson in Nikkei Asia. In the Bay of Bengal is the island Bhasan Char, the 34th camp and ‘home’ to 35,000 refugees. Authorities hope to move another 65,000 there in the next year. 

So begins the story of Cox’s Bazar's rapid transformation. Some of the changes to the city in response to a swelling humanitarian community, such as improved infrastructure and sky-rocketing rents, do sound a little Phnom Penh in the 90s, I’ll be honest. In the camps, however, is a totally different story with aid funding drying up, the intractability of returning home to Rakhine State and global eyeballs turning elsewhere, pessimism reigns.

But the other option is deadly. “Of course, I think about returning [to Myanmar], but my village has been burned, there is torture and killing going on, how can we feel safe there?” says 24-year-old mother Jaitun: “At least we can eat. My children can go to the learning centre. I never had education.”

The piece reports deeply on organised crime within the camps and the alleged complicity of camp police. This story from AFP is perhaps illustrative. Three Rohingya were killed in the camp on Tuesday and a further seven were injured. The dead were reportedly members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and were killed by members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Police say the two groups have been vying for control of the camp. 

“Murders and gunfights are occurring every day and night in the camp. ARSA killed three RSOs yesterday. No Rohingya are safe here. ARSA and RSO have made the camps hell for the Rohingya refugees,” a Rohingya community leader told the outlet.