🇲🇲 Where is the Lady?

The Myanmar construction tycoon spoke in a faltering monotone, blinking fast and gulping occasionally for air. He said that over the past several years he had handed a total of $550,000 to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of Myanmar who was ousted in a military coup last month.

On two occasions, he had provided $100,000 and $150,000, the businessman said in a confessional statement broadcast on a military television network Wednesday night. In the English subtitles, the money had been handed over in a “black envelope.” In Burmese, the description had him presenting the money, meant to enhance his business ties, in a paper gift bag.

Either way, the envelope or gift bag would have been very large to hold that much cash.

According to the UN, at least 149 people have died during the civil disobedience since 1 February — though the actual figure is thought to be much higher.

Here are the stories of those who continue to come out onto the streets, told in their own words.

"Blanket sanctions do not work," said Thiri Thant Mon, managing partner of Pegu Partners, a capital and strategy advisory firm in Yangon. A Myanmar national, she cited the country's long history under international restrictions that she said only crippled the private sector.

"You can't talk about the economy being separate from the people, because it's the people that need to earn a living, the people [that] need to be able to provide for their families and at least be able to feed themselves if they are going to do anything," she said. "So just turning off all the taps and squeezing the country out of its ability to have a living is not helping ... and is not going to hurt the people that the outside world wants to hurt."

Importantly, ASEAN has precedent and success in interceding in struggles for diplomatic recognition. This precedent—and a notorious one at that—involves ASEAN’s decade-long campaign at the United Nations during the Third Indochina War (1978-1991). During this Cold War conflict, ASEAN supported the genocidal Khmer Rouge (and its subsequent incarnations) as the legitimate representative of Cambodia at the UNGA and played a key role in the peace negotiations that brought this war to an end. 

If Cambodia was ASEAN’s Cold War success and infamy, Myanmar presents an opportunity for ASEAN diplomacy to write a new page in its history, even as it faces formidable internal challenges in doing so.

“Everyone wanted to live here. It was very metropolitan. It represented the future of Myanmar,” said Htun, a 37-year-old Sanchaung resident. “We have lost everything: our freedoms first, then our businesses, our restaurants, our offices, and our townships, which have turned into a battlefield.”

Energy giants Total SE and Chevron Corp., which have business ties with a state-owned company, are under pressure to prevent revenue from flowing to the army that controls the government.

“For businesses in general the conditions are pretty unworkable,” said a senior U.N. official based in Myanmar. “There’s a sense of impending doom.”

Protesters in some 20 places across the country staged candle-lit, nighttime protests over the weekend, from the main city of Yangon to small communities in Kachin State in the north, Hakha town in the west and the southernmost town of Kawthaung, according to a tally of social media posts.

In the context of Myanmar, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a press release in January last year that “since the two countries established diplomatic relations 70 years ago, China-Myanmar relations have enjoyed constant development on the basis of mutual respect, mutual trust and mutual assistance, and have set an example of harmonious co-existence and win-win cooperation between big and small countries. The Chinese side adheres to non-interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs and supports Myanmar in safeguarding national dignity and legitimate rights and interests.”