Less than three hours after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar with its epicentre in the Sagaing region in late March, seven persons were killed in an airstrike by the military junta that rules the country in Naungcho in northern Shan State. There were also reports of airstrikes in Chaung-U township in the north-western Sagaing region, besides regions near the Thai border. The UN Special Rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, told the BBC that it was “nothing short of incredible” that the junta was doing so after such a major natural disaster. “Anyone who has influence on the military must step up the pressure and make it very clear that it is not acceptable,” he added.
Such calls will likely fall on deaf ears. The country with the most influence on the regime, now led by Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, is Russia, which has supplied the junta with MiG-29 jet fighters, Mi-35 Hind helicopter gunships, Mi-17 transport helicopters, besides heavy machine guns and rocket launchers in recent years. In fact, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s only diplomatic visits by invitation since the February 2021 coup, except for an ASEAN meet in April 2021 and the recent BIMSTEC summit, have been to Russia, China and Belarus.
On February 1, 2021, the military orchestrated the third military coup in Myanmar’s independent history to oust the elected civilian National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government. The people of the country reacted immediately. Protests were held in Yangon, Mandalay and all other towns and major cities in the country. The target of their ire was Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to whom the then Acting President Myint Swe transferred power after proclaiming a year-long emergency. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, who later on became the chairman of the State Administration Council (SAC) – the new institutional version of junta rule — and he appointed himself as Prime Minister as well. In July 2024, he appointed himself as acting President.
The junta responded to the agitations by shooting at the peaceful protesters. Journalist Bertil Lintner, who has covered Myanmar for years, notes in his book, The Golden Land Ablaze, that “specially trained snipers picked out the youngest in the crowds in order to send the message across. A year later, Min Aung Hlaing said in a televised speech: ‘You should learn from the tragedy of earlier ugly deaths that you can be in danger of getting shot in the head and the back’.”
The brutality of the junta’s violence should not surprise anyone. In November 2024, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim A.A. Khan, concluded that there were reasonable grounds that Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, “bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya [in 2017], committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh”. Mr. Khan went on to file an application for an arrest warrant against him. The UN Special Rapporteur has said this in November 2023 about the Myanmar junta ruler – ““Responsibility for the immense suffering of the Rohingya starts at the top. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the genocidal campaign, is now at the head of an illegal and illegitimate military junta that is attacking civilian populations throughout Myanmar. He must be brought to justice and be made to answer for his crimes.”
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s mindless violence against the civil disobedience movement and mass and youth mobilisations for return to democracy only saw the birth of a fresh resistance movement led by the political opposition to the junta which called itself the “National Unity Government (NUG)” and launched guerilla warfare through the Peoples’ Defense Forces (PDFs) in the Bamar-dominated areas of Myanmar. These forces included youth who were targeted by the military during the protests and who fled to border areas to receive military training from ethnic armed organisations (EAO) – many of whom were observing a ceasefire with the junta – and returned to their locales to abet in guerilla warfare.
Building alliances
The NUG sought to build political and military alliances with the EAOs and some were on board, seeing the military as the common enemy. The junta’s reaction to these moves was to unleash another wave of repression, targeting PDFs and EAOs by using aerial bombardment including against civilians, while seeking to co-opt other EAOs who were not involved in the resistance movement. Some EAOs sought to make use of the situation where the junta was bogged down in tackling the resistance to strengthen themselves and soon, three of these — the Shan-State based Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), representing the interests of the Palaung people, the Kokang-based Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Rakhine State-based Arakhan Army (AA) launched coordinated attacks against military bases across northern Shan State.
The attacks, termed ‘Operation 1027’— denoting the date of the operations, October 27, 2023 — were launched by the Three Brotherhood Alliance, as the three groups collectively called themselves. Supported also by the resistance forces of the PDFs, the offensive dealt major setbacks to the junta. These included the loss of townships and military bases in Myanmar’s non-Bamar regions. The MNDAA succeeded in capturing Lashio, the largest city in Shan State, as well as Laukkai, the capital of Kokang. The Brotherhood Alliance went on to seize most of northern Shan State, including key trade routes with China. The TNLA has been fighting against the junta at the Nawnghkio township in the same area for many months now. The AA, meanwhile, has seized 14 out of 17 Rakhine State townships and Paletwa township in Chin State (both of which are in western Myanmar).
With attacks spreading to the junta’s Bamar-majority strongholds in the Mandalay region, many observers have claimed this is the biggest crisis for the junta since its control of governance — fully or otherwise — in the country following General Ne Win’s coup in 1962. The defeat and withdrawal of junta forces from several areas in Myanmar has severely dented military’s morale. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has enforced mandatory conscription (two years of service) for men aged 18–35 and women 18–27 to boost ranks. This has led many youth to flee to neighbouring countries.
So why hasn’t the junta collapsed under the weight of its challenges? For one, it still retains the strongest firepower, furnished by countries such as Russia, China and even India, according to the Special Rapporteur — the Indian government claims these supplies were met as per “prior commitments”. Next, while China’s actions against illegal crime syndicates in the border areas of Myanmar due to their menace also led to weaponry flowing to the EAOs and which helped the Brotherhood Alliance gain territory in the civil war, the regional hegemon has also sought to limit the damage against the junta. China brokered a ceasefire between the MDNAA and the junta and has reportedly compelled the rebel outfit to retreat from Lashio, in a boost to the junta. These actions by the Chinese government indicates its preference to keep the junta in power to secure its geopolitical interests in Myanmar while using proxies such as the neutral United Wa State Army and other EAOs to weaken the junta for security reasons. This has allowed Gen. Min Aung Hlaing ward off immediate threats. The EAOs remain divided, some content to retain their respective “fiefs” and the coordination that the NUG expected between them and the democratic movement remains elusive. This has helped the junta too.
All for power
While the junta was willing to concede power to democratic forces in the 2010s in order to benefit from trade liberalisation following the West’s recognition of “democratisation”, it was never willing to concede civilian supremacy and wanted to control governance. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was appointed as a successor by the junta dictator Than Shwe to the post of military chief. With the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy winning the 2015 Myanmar general elections, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing sought to recover state power for the junta by adopting an adversarial relationship with Ms. Suu Kyi. He also sought to position himself as the next President expecting a victory for the junta’s proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the 2020 elections, only to find the NLD winning another landslide. Then he orchestrated the the February 2021 coup.
Clearly, the military which has enjoyed a hegemony in garnering state resources was loath to give up power and this has explained why Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has managed to retain power despite presiding over a disastrous post-coup regime that has devastated Myanmar’s economy, and resulted in the severest losses for the junta since the country’s independence.
With a more favourable geopolitical situation today — U.S. President Donald Trump withdrawing aid to Myanmar’s resistance forces, Russia continuing its support for Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s dictatorship, China orchestrating moves that are driven only by its geostrategic interests in the country, and the Indian government loathe to taking a strong position against the status quo — Gen. Min Aung Hlaing is poised to survive the milieu for the time being.
Published – April 06, 2025 01:30 am IST