The Forgotten Struggles - Myanmar

Sean Voitov is a first-year BA International Social and Political Studies student in the European/International Social and Political Studies department. He is passionate about exploring diverse perspectives on controversial topics. With Russian and Jewish heritage, his geographic areas of interest include the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Introduction

In November 2020, Myanmar, a country of 55 million people in Southeast East Asia, had its second-ever free free-election, with the National League for Democracy (NLD) winning yet another supermajority while the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) saw an even more crushing defeat. Just 10 years prior, this country was under the rule of a 40-year military dictatorship. A people who had been persecuted, unheard, and held back by decades of military rule seemed to be on a path toward a democratic future.

February 2021, and as the NLD’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was to take power for a second term, the army had other plans. They called a rigged election, and that widespread voter fraud had taken place because of the NLD. The coup was initiated. Aung San Suu Kyi was detained and imprisoned, borders shut, and electronic communication restricted. Thousands took to the streets to demand their democratic rights be heard, but the military responded with violence and an internet blackout. What was meant to be a peaceful transition of power began to take hold as the start of a civil war between the military government and pro-democracy rebels.

For much of the world, this is where the story ends. The NLD leadership went into exile, forming the National Unity Government (NUG), standing as Myanmar's legitimate authority. Their armed wing, the People’s Defence Force (PDF), took up guerrilla tactics to resist the junta. Yet, as global attention shifted to other wars, such as the war in Ukraine, the struggle in Myanmar faded from international headlines.

Meanwhile, the conflict escalated. The PDF forged alliances with armed ethnic minority groups, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Karenni IEC, Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and Arakan Army (AA). These groups, with their local knowledge, previous military experience, and deep roots in their territories, proved to be a formidable counterbalance to the junta’s superior firepower, air dominance, and organisational structure. While the junta initially had the upper hand, its predominantly Bamar troops were less familiar with the challenging terrain and diverse languages of ethnic minority states, further tilting the balance in favour of the rebels.

By October 2023, the tides of war shifted significantly. Three armed groups formed the Three Brotherhood Alliance and launched Operation 1027, an ongoing major offensive that is seemingly pushing government forces into central Myanmar. Although the junta remains entrenched, it is increasingly on the defensive and suffering losses. In February this year, it started nationwide conscription, which has only caused more young men and women to join the PDF. In a bid to regain stability, the military even reached out for peace talks. It announced plans to hold elections in 2025, although firmly rejected by the NUG as their goal is to remove the military entirely from Myanmar’s politics to prevent such a junta from forming.

The conditional handshake

Myanmar’s most important economic partner and its next-door neighbour senses changes in leadership, too. China supplies almost half of Myanmar’s imports and is their largest customer for exports, too. Furthermore, Myanmar has been a potential recipient of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, with already several infrastructure projects completed as a part of it with more in the pipeline. For all this, China has, as is consistent with their foreign policy, not directly entangled themselves in the domestic politics of Myanmar. When the head of Myanmar’s military Junta visited China in August this year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released an article that said, “China opposes chaos and conflicts in Myanmar [and] interference in Myanmar's internal affairs”. However, Myanmar might yet just prove to be a slight exception. The CCP has dealt with both the USDP and NLD in the last decade but, perhaps for obvious reasons, has preferred the authoritarian USDP more. But at the heart of China’s approach is the condition that. “[Myanmar] will never allow any act that undermines China's security and interests.”. Stability on its borders is China’s main concern, and there is a concern that should the Junta collapse. Chaos could spread to the Chinese border. This is not to mention how the Party might dislike the fact a neighbouring country’s armed ethnic group might be successful in replacing authoritarian military rule with democracy. Chinese officials are reported to have signalled frustration at the junta for their failings and are starting to push for the war to end.

Human rights catastrophes

As well as the changing political and military landscape in Myanmar, there is an ever-evolving, ever worsening, humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. The Junta has employed a “four cuts approach”, effectively a scorched earth policy on its people to stamp out rebel sentiment, especially in villages. The cuts are as put by a UN report: “indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery shelling, razing villages to displace civilian populations, and denial of humanitarian access and other anti-military armed elements from access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits.” There have been extensive reports by the UN that detail thousands of houses burnt and entire villages either burnt or bombed to the ground. Arial bombings have escalated to the worst since the start of the civil war, with many of the casualties being children as the Junta faces more defeats on the battlefield. In the cities, there is a strict military order, and Al Jazeera has reported on the dangers of journalism in Myanmar, which is effectively outlawed in the country. Journalists have been tortured, killed, and civilians raped. The Landmine Monitor in 2024 found that Myanmar has overtaken Syria as the country with the highest number of civilian casualties caused by landmines. The UN has warned of how the millions of displaced people in Myanmar are also at risk of life due to climate change.

In particular, the Rohingya people, a majority Muslim people and the largest stateless population in the world, face the blunt impact of Climate Change. Under the previous military Junta, they were the victims of genocide in Myanmar, as recognised by the UN and being one of only seven genocides recognised by the USA. Tens of thousands were murdered, and over a million Rohingya refugees reside in camps in Bangladesh. As well as starvation and disease because Bangladesh is one of the most hard-hit countries in the world by natural disasters, exacerbated by climate change, the Rohingya are also in one of the most vulnerable refugee camps in the world. Since the start of the civil war, more Rohingyas have had to flee the junta’s rule, and Reuters have even found some to have joined the war effort as part of the alliance with the PDF.

“Out of sight, out of mind”

A UN Human Rights Council expert called Myanmar out of sight and out of mind in the world, which any look on BBC or Sky News will quickly confirm. But also out of sight are countries such as Yemen, Sudan, the Congo, Venezuela, Syria, and Somalia are countries, according to the UN also out of sight, and have instead been dominated by coverage of Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

There are good reasons why Ukraine and the Middle East are considered more politically important for the Western World. Most of all, they are geographically closer than Myanmar. The threat of Putin’s dictatorship for Eastern European countries is visible right on their border. Should the war break outside of Ukraine, it will hit Europe and perhaps risk bringing NATO into the war, effectively World War 3. Close geographic connections also mean close economic ones, and as OPEC supplies the vast majority of the oil we depend so much on, should anything cause problems to that supply, we will see yet another worsening to the cost of living crisis. With the majority of 6.8 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe and millions more refugees in the Middle East that have the potential to spill over into Europe, there lies fears of more waves of refugees, which have been controversial in the past and caused severe social tensions.

Myanmar, in contrast, is geographically distant from the West, with limited economic or strategic significance. Nearly half of its imports come from China, and its exports, small in volume and value, are unlikely to affect Western economies. Furthermore, any escalation of the conflict in Myanmar is unlikely to directly impact Europe or the United States, nor would it generate large waves of refugees heading to the West.

It’s essential to clarify that prioritising Ukraine and the Middle East is not wrong and is necessary for the reasons mentioned above. However, countries like Yemen, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sri Lanka also represent crises rooted in core liberal democratic values, the right to life, the right to vote, the right to free speech, access to food, and the right to privacy. Yet, their struggles are often overlooked because they do not significantly intersect with the West’s financial, political, or geographic priorities. This then highlights perhaps one of the greatest ironies of the global progress towards a more pluralistic world, that some of the freest, richest, and most well-practised journalists and media of the world are unable to cover those parts of the world where oftentimes they are most needed.

Concluding remarks

Myanmar’s struggle is not only a struggle for democracy. It represents a question that is not discussed enough in the West yet asked the most in the Southern World. What role does the Southern World play? The term "Global South" itself is problematic, as it risks oversimplifying the unique challenges faced by vastly different countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. However, they do have similarities among themselves: unequal levels of poverty, uneven economic growth, inadequate coverage by Western media, and insufficient attention from Western governments. Addressing Myanmar’s struggle needs more than scarce headlines. It needs a serious examination of global inequalities in media coverage, humanitarian assistance, and political engagement. Only by confronting this can we hope to build a world that values all struggles equally, regardless of their geographic or economic relevance to the West.