Myanmar marks 100 days since coup, as junta maintains pretence of control

Name: SCMP Explains: How did Myanmar’s military become so powerful?
Uploaded: 2021-05-11T05:55:15.000Z
Duration: 5 min 18 s
Description: SCMP Explains: How did Myanmar’s military become so powerful?

Dissent is no longer as visible since security forces began using live ammunition, but the resistance movement has organised widely and swiftly underground

There are fears the country could now become a failed state, as its economy, education and health infrastructure near ‘the brink of collapse’

Reading Time:5 minutes

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Protesters hold up the three-finger salute during a demonstration against Myanmar’s military coup in Yangon on Tuesday. Photo: EPA

Associated Press

Published: 1:55pm, 11 May 2021Updated: 1:55pm, 11 May 2021

After Myanmar’s military seized power by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, they couldn’t even make the trains run on time: state railway workers were among the earliest organised opponents of the February takeover, and they went on strike.

Health workers who founded the civil disobedience movement against military rule stopped staffing government medical facilities. Many civil servants were no-shows at work, along with employees of government and private banks. Universities became hotbeds of resistance, and in recent weeks, education at the primary and secondary levels has begun to collapse as teachers, students and parents boycott state schools.

One hundred days after their takeover, Myanmar’s ruling generals maintain just the pretence of control. The illusion is sustained mainly by its partially successful efforts to shut down independent media and to keep the streets clear of large demonstrations by employing lethal force. More than 750 protesters and bystanders have been killed by security forces, according to detailed independent tallies.

05:18

SCMP Explains: How did Myanmar’s military become so powerful?

“The junta might like people to think that things are going back to normal because they are not killing as many people as they were before and there weren’t as many people on the streets as before, but … the feeling we are getting from talking to people on the ground is that definitely the resistance has not yet subsided,” said Thin Lei Win, a journalist now based in Rome who helped found the Myanmar Now online news service in 2015.

She said the main change is that dissent is no longer as visible as in the early days of the protests – before security forces began using live ammunition – when marches and rallies in major cities and towns could easily draw tens of thousands of people.

At the same time, said David Mathieson, an independent analyst who has been working on Myanmar issues for over 20 years, “Because of the very violent pacification of those protests, a lot of people are willing to become more violent.”

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