Myanmar resistance gets millions of donor dollars, even as junta chokes off humanitarian aid

Name: Anti-junta fighters risk their lives making weapons from YouTube videos
Uploaded: 2022-12-20T00:16:51.000Z
Duration: 2 min 10 s
Description: Anti-junta fighters risk their lives making weapons from YouTube videos

Since last year’s deadly coup, opponents of the junta regime have raised a fortune online, including on social media, to help undermine it

But a new report says the junta is starving NGOs of vital funds as it tries to keep close tabs on all incoming transactions to stop opposition

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Anti-junta protesters in Myanmar last year. Resistance groups have successfully leveraged social media and online tools to raise money. Photo: AFP

Maria Siow

Published: 8:16am, 20 Dec 2022

While resistance forces in Myanmar have successfully leveraged social media and online tools to raise money aimed at undermining the junta, efforts by the military regime to cut off funding for opposition groups have significantly hindered humanitarian aid delivery.

So says a report released on Tuesday by the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG), titled “Crowdfunding a War: The Money behind Myanmar’s Resistance”.

Since the military seized power in February 2021 from Myanmar’s civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, resistance groups have been able to raise a lot of money inside and outside the country to support anti-regime activities, the report said.

Most of the funds have been raised online, particularly through crowdfunding, it added. Noting that funding will be an important factor shaping the conflict’s trajectory, the report said that despite strenuous efforts, the junta has been unable to stop money and other resources from reaching resistance groups.

02:10

Anti-junta fighters risk their lives making weapons from YouTube videos

Tom Kean, ICG’s senior consultant for Myanmar and Bangladesh, noted that Myanmar’s antimilitary forces have harnessed the power of social media to successfully raise tens of millions, possibly hundreds of millions, of dollars in cash that has been moved “into and around the country under the nose of the regime” with “little prospect” of it being able to stop them.