The video is horrific. Villagers cry as one of them points their smartphone, capturing images of the burning figures of 11 people, dead or in their last painful throes of life.
According to witnesses, about 50 Myanmar soldiers marched into Done Taw village in Sagaing State at 11 a.m. on 7 December grabbing anyone who did not escape.
One of the witnesses said they arrested 11 innocent villagers but they were not members of the locally organized People’s Defense Force (PDF), which sometimes clashes with the army. He said the soldiers tied the hands of the captives and then set them on fire.
If the soldiers thought they could get away with this brutality without being noticed, they were mistaken. News of the horrific incident spread around the world, prompting an urgent response from the United Nations and the US government, calling on the Myanmar junta to end the carnage.
"We are outraged by credible and sickening reports that the Burmese military bound 11 villagers - including children - in northwest Burma and burned them alive," US State Department spokesperson Ned Price told the media.
Still, despite the evidence, the junta did what they normally do – they denied the claims.
OUT OF TOUCH
The horrific incident was one more reminder, if any were needed, that Myanmar’s Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is at war with his people and feels no shame.
The façade of “disciplined democracy” under the military-written 2008 Constitution has been stripped away.
Not a day goes by without an ugly reminder that the coup-maker’s claim to be “protecting the people” and “supporting democracy” is a sham.
The brutal behaviour of his security forces is one more reminder of how out of touch the junta leader is.
And, despite the denials, the buck stops with the coup-maker.
Close to a year after Min Aung Hlaing executed the 1 February 2021 coup, his standing is in tatters on a local, regional and global level, even though the dictatorial governments of China and Russia cautiously pay their respects, and the new Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) chair, Cambodia, offers an olive branch.
The bruised standing of the coup-maker revolves around not only the coup d’etat but also the actions his security forces have taken to seek to bludgeon the protesting public into submission – killing over 1,200 civilians to date – bringing the military’s fight to the Bamar heartland.
Just what the Senior General was thinking when he grabbed power and ordered his security forces to arrest Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the civilian government is unclear.
Was Min Aung Hlaing fearful that he was losing control as his 65th birthday and retirement approached? Did he have fears that his dream of becoming president was slipping away? Were the international charges against him over the Rakhine crisis a concern? Might his family’s extensive business interests be jeopardized if he was pushed aside?
And did he think the public would take the arrest of their democracy icon lying down?
From Day One of junta rule, Min Aung Hlaing pushed the fiction that he was worried about Myanmar’s democracy, a sham disguise for a power grab.
According to an analyst, Salil Tripathi, writing for Foreign Policy magazine, the military chief and his supporters were concerned over alleged election fraud in the November 2020 elections by the winning National League for Democracy (NLD) party, with the opposition military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) faring dismally.
Tripathi notes that the Myanmar military and their supporters insisted that the November parliamentary election that saw the NLD return to power with an overwhelming majority was fraudulent because of an alleged mismatch between the electoral rolls and votes cast.
“While the Myanmar election had some flaws, the national election commission has rejected claims of widespread irregularities. Sources I spoke to in Yangon said that even if votes were counted based on the earlier electoral rolls, pro-military politicians would have lost overwhelmingly,” Tripathi writes.
FEAR OF THE LADY
What is clear is the military chief felt Myanmar’s men in green were losing their grip.
The NLD’s astounding performance in the November 2020 elections meant the balance of power was tilting heavily towards Aung San Suu Kyi – the military’s nemesis since the 1990s.
“At the same time, it was widely known that Min Aung Hlaing … had been coveting the presidency following the end of his tenure as commander-in-chief this year, when he turned 65 in July. To have gained the presidency legitimately, he would have needed the support of a majority in parliament. But following the USDP’s disastrous performance in the election, even the 25 percent of parliamentary seats reserved for the army by the constitution would not have been enough to make his elevation certain,” Tripathi writes, adding that the generals reverted to old form by jailing the civilian leaders, declaring a state of emergency, and establishing control.
As analyst David Mathieson commented in The New York Times in the immediate wake of the 1 February coup, there is much animus between Aung San Suu Kyi and General Min Aung Hlaing. The two rarely met since 2015, often only at strained public events.
“Beyond the personal tensions, there is, of course, institutional antagonism. For some three decades, the NLD was subject to crushing persecution at the hands of the Tatmadaw and the security forces; hundreds of the party’s members were arrested, tortured, killed or driven into exile,” Mathieson adds.
Min Aung Hlaing clearly fears the power, influence and popularity of The Lady, the daughter of Burma’s independence hero Aung San and founder of the Tatmadaw, the country’s military, and a world-recognized Nobel Laureate.
After close to 70 years of repressive military rule – from General Ne Win, through General Than Shwe, to General Min Aung Hlaing – Burma or modern-day Myanmar is in the midst of a failed political experiment. The underlying mantra of the military-written 2008 Constitution seeks to keep important levers of power in the hands of the military and was specifically written by xenophobic generals to keep Aung San Suu Kyi – married to a foreigner – out of the picture.
There is little doubt that the Min Aung Hlaing would have been shocked when in the wake of the earlier 2015 election victory for the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi thumbed her nose at the constitutional block on her becoming president by creating a new position – State Counsellor – effectively grabbing de facto leadership.
COUP LONG IN PLANNING?
It is unclear as to whether this 2015 assumption of power by The Lady set the seeds for a roll-back of the military’s “disciplined democracy” experiment.
Just how long was the coup in the planning?
It is tempting for analysts to assume the crucible of revolt was fired up in the wrangling that began to unfold in the wake of the NLD’s 2020 election victory, as the military grew more heated in their opposition to the Union Election Commission’s stonewalling. The military claimed widespread fraud and irregularities. Press conferences offered a glimpse of what was to come, particularly when the word “coup” – uttered by a reporter - entered the conversation in the week before 1 February.
The UEC and Aung San Suu Kyi did nothing to entertain the idea of an investigation or a recount – and this intransigence may have actually helped Min Aung Hlaing’s case.
As analyst Mathieson pointed out, the military manufactured a crisis so that it could step in again as the purported saviour of the Constitution and the country, while vanquishing an ever-popular political foe. “But it may have acted too late. Raw power is its reward only in appearance,” he notes.
Min Aung Hlaing clearly misjudged the people of Myanmar. If he thought his power grab would prompt a limited response, he was mistaken.
Close to eleven months after the February drama, the anger and the charges against the coup-maker are growing. Whether it is protesters marching, people banging pots and pans, the deathly quiet of the “Silent Strike” that emptied the streets, or the attacks of a growing legion of fledgling armed PDFs, the people of Myanmar are fighting back, churning up a crisis that is degenerating into outright civil war.
For many of the people, the recent burning alive of 11 people in Done Taw village was yet one more incident of killing, arrest, torture and intimidation that confirms what they know in their hearts, that Min Aung Hlaing’s enemy is not some alien force - it is the people of Myanmar.
WAGGING FINGERS
What is clear is that while the coup-maker may have the security forces and a civilian administration at his command, but he is facing a world of wagging fingers.
From Washington to the capitals of South East Asian states, the criticism has been damning, growing shrill over the fiery Done Taw village massacre and seemingly endless trampling of rights. Even China and Russia appear embarrassed by the Myanmar power play, despite their desire to remain engaged.
Min Aung Hlaing clearly misjudged his fellow regional government leaders. Leaders of ASEAN were dismayed by his actions, coming at a time when the region was attempting to extricate itself from the economy-numbing COVID-19 pandemic and its often poorly thought-out lockdowns and other restrictions.
ASEAN was upset about the black sheep in the family damaging the regional body’s standing.
Although the red carpet was rolled out for the Myanmar leader in April at a special emergency meeting of ASEAN that gave him space to explain, it became clear that the patience of ASEAN leaders would only go so far when he failed to adhere to an agreed Five-Point Consensus on the Myanmar crisis. This agreement included a provision for a special ASEAN envoy to meet with “all parties” – understood to mean a chance for the envoy to meet the imprisoned civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Naypyitaw said meeting a person facing criminal charges was not possible and went against the constitution.
For a time, ASEAN partially closed its doors to the Myanmar junta until Cambodian PM Hun Sen held out an olive branch at the beginning of December, just ahead of the country taking up the ASEAN chair in January 2022.
How this regional engagement will pan out is hard to predict.
NUG CHALLENGE
Opposition against the coup-maker is building.
The Done Taw village incident was sharply criticized by Myanmar's underground National Unity Government (NUG), which has set itself up as the country's alternative administrative body in place of the military-installed government, filling in for imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD members.
"On the 7th of December in Sagaing region, sickening scenes reminiscent of the Islamic State terrorist group bore witness to the military's escalation of their acts of terror," the organization's spokesperson, Dr Sasa, said in a statement at the time.
"The sheer brutality, savagery and cruelty of these acts shows a new depth of depravity, and proves that, despite the pretence of the relative détente seen over the last few months, the junta never had any intention of deescalating their campaign of violence," said Sasa.
The NUG’s declaration in spring to give the green light to a violent response to the Myanmar junta proved a game-changer for an ad hoc organization that was seeking to grab the high ground and obtain international recognition as the people’s voice in light of the imprisoning of the elected civilian leadership.
The NUG stands in for Aung San Suu Kyi but also in a way supersedes the NLD leadership as The Lady’s non-violent creed makes way under the NUG for hit-and-run attacks, bombings and assassinations targeting the military and its associated administration and supporters.
This is a people’s war. The NUG does not command and controls the so-called “People’s Defence Forces” that have popped up in many parts of the country to fight back against the coup-maker and his forces. Rather, it attempts to provide moral backing and possibly funding for the PDF’s campaigns of violence and local control.
JAILING THE LADY
Whether the military coup was years or mere weeks in the planning, the coup-maker appears set on jailing The Lady, now aged 76, for life.
Min Aung Hlaing’s recent “pardon” reducing Aung San Suu Kyi’s four-year sentence for incitement and breaking Covid rules to two, was a mere smokescreen in an ongoing trumped-up judicial process to purportedly save democracy in Myanmar.
The coup-maker has promised that Myanmar will hold democratic elections in 2023. In the meantime, the judiciary is fielding close to a dozen trumped-up cases including corruption against Aung San Suu Kyi, and former president Win Myint, and cases against other NLD players, and seeking to destroy the NLD infrastructure so that the party will never run again.
As Aung San Suu Kyi attended court in Naypyitaw in a prison uniform last week, the process of squeezing the democratic lifeblood out of the country continued, the military’s 2008 Constitution still intact, the hopes of freedom slipping away.
As the United Nations Security Council has made clear, the world is watching in dismay as Myanmar’s military rulers roll back the democratic gains of recent years. They expressed "deep concern" at the sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi, ousted President Win Myint and others and reiterated previous calls for the release of all those arbitrarily detained since the 1 February military takeover.
"Members of the Security Council once again stressed their continued support for the democratic transition in Myanmar and underlined the need to uphold democratic institutions and processes, refrain from violence, pursue constructive dialogue and reconciliation in accordance with the will and interests of the people of Myanmar, fully respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and uphold the rule of law," a council statement said.
All of this appears anathema to the coup-maker, Min Aung Hlaing.
LAST CHANCE
For many of those who are risking their lives to fight back against the coup-maker’s power grab, this is a make-or-break moment for Myanmar, the horrific fiery incident in Done Taw village is just one more reminder that there is no going back.
As an increasing number of young protesters take to the streets and hills – wielding three fingers or more deadly weapons – Myanmar stands on the brink of all-out civil war, many of the people intent on ousting the coup-maker.
As a former teacher and activist Zaw told a documentary film-maker: “Our grandparents failed to oust General Ne Win, our parents failed to oust General Than Shwe. With General Min Aung Hlaing, it is the task of Generation Z.”
Zaw was adamant: “This is the last generation to fight to oust the military.”
Reporting: Mizzima, AFP, AP, Foreign Policy, Time Magazine, Padauk: Myanmar Spring (documentary)
