Three trends that offer a fuller and more accurate picture of the state of the country’s civil war.
The Myanmar military’s coup in February 2021 plunged Myanmar into a state of chaos unseen since the 1950s. The junta’s State Administration Council (SAC) is struggling to impose control over vast swathes of the country. It is opposed by the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) that nominally leads a grassroots armed resistance movement comprising groups known as People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and other autonomous militias. Aiding these outfits are a number of Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) that have fought against the Tatmadaw and successive central governments for decades.
The coup has caused tectonic shifts in Myanmar. The Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, is now fighting for its very survival, something it hasn’t had to do for 70 years. The Bamar majority is finally beginning to empathize with ethnic minorities’ grievances and is also witnessing firsthand the brutality and impunity with which the Tatmadaw has long terrorized ethnic communities. Fighting now rages in the country’s once-peaceful heartlands as well as on the periphery, which has long experienced its own cycles of violence. Social media has leveled the playing field, with the SAC’s opponents outsmarting the regime in its efforts to raise funds, mobilize the public, and dominate the narratives about the conflict.
However, things have gotten understandably lost amid the huge upheavals, the junta’s purging of the media landscape, outrage at the Tatmadaw’s unrestrained brutality, the deluge of commentaries, and the disinformation deployed by both the SAC and its opponents. With the crisis now in its third year and global attention having moved onto other hotspots, there are many undercurrents to Myanmar’s civil war that have fallen by the wayside in international coverage.
Source: The Diplomat
