🇲🇲 What can an envoy do anyway?

August 11, 2021

Hello friends!

As promised back in February, Myanmar updates will continue to be open to all readers for the foreseeable future. But if you’re interested in receiving updates on the rest of the region throughout the week, join us here:

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Stay safe out there, everyone. Feels like this week has been a fresh rush of anxiety and uncertainty.

🇲🇲 An envoy is picked, so what?

There we go. Asean has selected its envoy to Myanmar and Brunei diplomat Erywan Yusof will take on the job, a couple of months after visiting the country as part of Brunei’s chairmanship of Asean this year. It's a disappointment to Indonesia, who had floated former foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda whose legacy domestically includes establishing the National Commission on Human Rights. The Tatmadaw had wanted Thailand’s former foreign minister Virasak Futrakul. The Irrawaddy takes a look at the process.

The initial goal is small but significant — engaging in meaningful dialogue with the junta. Responding immediately to the pandemic will go alongside that. The envoy has not committed to meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi and civil society groups have slammed the decision so far for not reaching out to civilian-led organisations and the National Unity Government.  

Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), a great grouping of lawmakers across the region, pointed out the obvious. Is Brunei really who the region needs fighting for human rights? It doesn’t have a great legacy and what does it say as a ‘compromise’? 

“It is unnerving that a minister of an absolute monarchy that does not abide by international human rights standards has been tasked with convincing a murderous army to respect these principles,” former Thai foreign minister and APHR member Kasit Piromya said in a statement. And how. 

Aung Zaw writing for the Irrawaddy explores what Asean will even be able to achieve here. The piece notes the many times the regional and global communities have failed the people of Myanmar and that Asean isn’t even looking at the same book, let alone reading the same page now. 

“The people of Myanmar don’t have much faith in Asean, or give it much credibility; they worry that the junta, like its predecessors, will manipulate Asean to advance its interest — to remain in power — or, failing that, shut the door on the regional grouping,” he writes. 

In Southeast Asia Globe, Hunter Marston lays out a very convincing case for why this latest development isn’t likely to win back any love for Asean. 

The military will continue to engage the toothless bloc to serve its own ends of legitimising its own rule while shifting the goalposts further down the line to extend its grip on power. It will not compromise unless regime survival is at stake. So far, it has no serious reason to feel its hold on power is seriously threatened – at least not by any of its neighbours, with domestic armed groups likely posing a more serious threat.

Let’s hope we’re all wrong.

🇲🇲 The pandemic disaster is worse than we thought

Nikkei Asia sat in on what seems to be the most productive webinar since the beginning of the Zoom-era. It published this piece which touches on just about everything the world needs to know about the state of COVID-19 in Myanmar as it stands right now. Some of it has been widely reported, such as the effective end of the vaccine roll out and shortages in supplies and healthcare workers due to deliberate meddling by the military. 

Other angles I had not known of. The Delta variant is tearing through the region, but we don’t quite know exactly what is spreading in the country with limited laboratory access in Myanmar. Bordering countries worry that we could see spread throughout the region or development of other variations. China is inoculating insurgents in Wa and Kachin, allegedly. 

The biggest takeaway for me is: where is everybody. Just like in February the world is quick to acknowledge there is a crisis, but help is not coming. Of course, there are loads of places around the planet that need help right now, making things harder. Still, the region can’t handle it alone.

"Asean cannot be expected to do it alone. This [needs] a medical and health intervention on a global scale. We have to ask the UN secretary-general, where is he? He should be inside Myanmar now coordinating and leading the entire UN system response. The UN is already there, it has the infrastructure — the vaccines can go in to be distributed," Kobsak Chutikul, a retired Thai ambassador, said during the webinar. 

The US has heard the call and donated $50 million to deal with the unfolding crisis. I don’t know much about aid and how it is dispersed, so if you have any suggestions on how to learn about how emergency funds are distributed in times like these (particularly when so many NGOs have been smashed) please hit that reply! 

This from TIME, written by a Burmese journalist using a pseudonym, is a stunning read. When COVID-19 came to the writer’s hometown, the Tedim township in Chin State, they expected the worst. Thankfully, the community was able to come together and fight back the worst of the virus. That is despite the efforts of the junta to use the pandemic to its advantage. 

It must be read in full, but these two paragraphs really stood out to me:

But while our community-led response has the trust of the people, we will never trust the military, which we now fear will use the cover of COVID-19 prevention to increase its surveillance. Around the same time, soldiers began manning the COVID-19 checkpoints, they also began going village to village across my state, raiding homes searching for evidence of armed resistance and displacing hundreds.

Even though there has been no armed resistance in my village, I joined many young men and fled, sheltering in a remote area until the soldiers passed. Although we knew our movement put ourselves and others at risk of contracting the virus, we feared even more what soldiers could do to us if we stayed home.

Around the region

🇧🇳

Bad news in Brunei where partial restrictions have been reintroduced following small outbreaks in the sultanate. Work from home is back in place and households must stay at home except for shopping and caregiving for the time being. Brunei has enjoyed one of the most successful, if very quiet!, vaccine rollouts in the region and has dodged the waves we’ve seen elsewhere thanks to very tight border controls. Samples have been sent to Singapore for testing to ensure the Delta variant has not entered the country. 

🇹🇱

Timor-Leste has found what now feels like the inevitable. The first known cases of the Delta variant have been identified in samples from the Ermera region, which borders Indonesia and has a very low vaccination rate according to Reuters, sent to Australia for testing. Testing of cases elsewhere in the country are yet to be returned, but public health officials told the newswire that it expects it may be widespread given higher caseloads. 

🇸🇬

Well done, Singapore. The city-state hit the elusive 70 percent vaccination rate the whole world is eyeing off. It means restrictions can be more flexible and walk-ins and non-residents can access vaccines much easier. According to the internet, 70 percent seems to be the magic number to which life can return to normal so I’ll be watching closely!

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