Put away government legitimacy and recognition; stop him from working by holding strikes; and cut off its funding sources. That is the strategy that emerges from a major movement in Myanmar that aims to oppose a new military dictatorship.
As campaigners oppose the heroic blows of the February 1 coup, arrest, water cannon, and even live weapons, campaigners are hoping a “no recognition, no involvement” approach will be possible has maintained pressure despite demonstrations being suppressed by violence.
“The immediate goal is to take away the power of the army by stopping their commanding machines from working,” said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, who like many activists now hidden to avoid arrest.
“It will destroy the army’s ability to rule.”
Myanmar’s weak 10-year trial in a democracy was unveiled in early February when soldiers arrested civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other top officials in an early morning raid when the military commander Min Aung Hlaing seized power.
The civil disobedience movement began almost immediately and was supported by widespread oaths of society. Trains have been halted, hospitals have closed, and a ministry in the capital, Naypyidaw, is believed to be on the brink of mass exodus.
Many thousands including nurses, doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, farmers, railway workers, civil servants, factory workers and even some police officers, have gone on strike or failed in the government’s attempt to overthrow the new army.
Disturbing the arms industry empire
In a statement released on the military Facebook page on Thursday, Min Aung Hlaing said “rude” people were encouraging civil servants to leave work.
“Those who are away from their duties are urged to return to their duties immediately for the good of the country and the people,” he said.
The strikes are also affecting parts of the great military industrial empire. A copper mine in the northern Sagaing region, owned by the Chinese arms company and company, has ceased operations after more than 2,000 workers walked out.
And hundreds of engineers and other workers working for Mytel, a part-owned telecommunications operator, have suspended work.
Campaigners hope an ‘unidentified, non-participatory’ approach will be able to maintain pressure against the military even if demonstrations are suppressed by violence [Reuters/Stringer]
Calls for a boycott of products made by military companies have also received a move. Local business owners have destroyed cartons of cigarettes made by Virginia Tobacco Company, which is part-owned by Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd, an arms conglomerate.
Lim Kaling, Singapore’s main shareholder in the campaign, announced he was diving this week after coming under pressure from protesters at Justice for Myanmar and elsewhere.
Japanese brewer Kirin, meanwhile, has said he will withdraw from a joint venture with an arms-owned beer company.
New connection
The tactics of the movement go beyond a similar uprising in 2007, when widespread street protests were similar to those seen in recent days, but unsuccessful attempts were made. ordered to set up the military government with industrial action.
One difference today compared to 2007 is that many people in the once remote country have smartphones and are online, allowing calls for civil disobedience to spread quickly after the cup, even amid sporadic internet closures.
Another is that, following the lifting of trade union bans in 2011, Myanmar has a young but infectious workers’ rights movement with years of experience organizing strikes.
About 5,000 workers in Hlaing Tharyar, an industrial zone in the capital Yangon, have gone into the general strike, said a union organizer who called for anonymity with Al Jazeera.
“I can’t say how long we will be on strike, but that will be until the dictatorship is abolished,” she said.
Workers’ rights groups, along with student protesters, were among the first to protest in the streets on Feb. 6, removing others who had been willing to march because of the army’s history of firing protesters.
Civil servants are at risk of jobs
Trade unions took the lead because they had no other choice, the organizer said.
“Even under a democratically elected government, we did not have the rights, so under dictatorship, we have no chance.”
Myanmar’s civil servants, who have spent the past five years working for the only credibly elected government that most people in the country have ever known, are also making their living and the freedom to avoid returning to the dark days.
Than Toe Aung, a permanent deputy secretary at the Ministry of Construction, announced his arrival on strike on Monday.
“I call on my colleagues to follow suit to help bring down the dictatorship,” he said in a statement posted to Facebook.
From civil servants to health care workers and workers, Myanmar militants have defied the weapons threats and arrested them as they marched to stop the trophy [Than Lwin Times/Reuters]
Workers from the ministries of investment, transport, energy and social welfare, among others, have vowed not to return to work until power is restored to the Aung San Suu Kyi government.
Myanmar’s ambassador to the United States, Maung Maung Latt, said last week that he is seeking asylum in the U.S. to complain about the cup, and urged other diplomats to follow suit.
On Thursday, workers from the Myanmar Economic Bank, which pays government salaries, also joined the strike.
Risk of deficiencies
But perhaps the general concern for the generals is the threat of damage from the police force under military control.
At a gathering in Naypyidaw on Tuesday, a police lieutenant named Khun Aung Ko broke down ranks to join protesters.
“I am aware that I will be imprisoned with a long prison sentence if our fight for democracy does not succeed,” he wrote in a statement issued at the subsequent presentation.
“My sacrifice is worth it for the people and members of the police force, to fight for democracy and the fall of dictator Min Aung Hlaing.”
Some Myanmar police officers across the country have also intervened in the protests against military rule [File: Stringer/AFP]
Another officer entered protesters in the coastal town of Myeik, and shocking photos from Magwe in central Myanmar showed three riot officers leaving their lines to protect protesters from water cannons with their wings.
Then on Wednesday, 49 uniformed officers from the police department in Loikaw, the eastern state capital of Kayah, entered a parade there with a flag that read, “No armed dictatorship.”
The officers are now in hiding and the other members of the department are watching their arrest, the Kantarawaddy Times reported.
Thinzar Shunlei Yi said she believed not only police officers but also status soldiers and file to join the movement.
“I hope this is possible,” she said. “In the last few years, I have become suspicious of various soldiers asking for help as their rights have been violated. They have been bullied, they have been bullied, they have been tortured. It is brutal within the army. “
In Myawaddy, Burma’s border town, thousands show up every day to show off against Myanmar’s military coup. Campaigners have called for the abolition of the Constitution and democracy. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar #HearTheVoiceOfMyanmar #Myanmarcoup pic.twitter.com/EPvpGqaYRL
– Linn Let Arkar (@ArkarLet) February 12, 2021
Break of arms
One of the main demands from protesters is to call for the return of power arms to Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy party. But many activists, especially those from minority ethnic groups who often spy on the party, are pushing for more radical demands.
“Some people are calling for the military to accept the outcome of the 2020 election and restore democracy,” Maung Saungkha, a prominent freedom of expression campaigner, quoted in a November 8 poll, which the NLD won in the landslide.
“If we accept the 2020 election, we will still be under the 2008 military base, and with that basis, coups will happen again and again,” he said.
“So we need to negotiate with campaigners about the strategy and a set of common demands.”
The break-up of the military government has already begun. Dozens of protesters have been arrested and a young woman has been given life support after police shot her in the head on Tuesday.
The military government is also making plans to introduce a so-called “cybersecurity law” that would result in a three-year prison sentence for speaking out against the government online.
Campaigners said loyalty is the best hope of the move.
“For this conversion to be successful, everyone needs to get involved,” said the union organizer.
“Staff, students, even soldiers and the police. Everyone. “