Almost three months after the military coup in Myanmar, the situation continues to be dramatic and highly tense.
The military junta under General Min has killed at least 745 people and made thousands of arrests since the February 1 putsch. One wonders where the Burmese resistance fighters still find this astonishing energy that drives them! Peaceful demonstrations continue, day and night. In the streets, against the army, it is the clay pot against the iron pot. A young resistance fighter declares: " How can we compete with their weapons? By fighting with our intelligence." But it is at the risk of their lives. 82 civilians were massacred on April 10 by the police and the army with the use of heavy weapons.
Everywhere it is still and always non-violent resistance that prevails, except in minority territories where coups supported by ethnic armies are envisaged. A "military" operation against the 500,000 over-equipped men of the Burmese army would undoubtedly be suicidal, with a risk of a generalized civil war.
How does the population continue to live?
The people are on their knees, the economy is suffocating, on the verge of collapse. Most businesses are at a standstill. Thousands of women and men - mostly from the most disadvantaged sections of the rural areas - have returned to their countryside, their pockets empty, and now without jobs and without income.
To alleviate the growing precariousness, the resistance movement is organizing, on a large scale and in many cities and rural areas, a very important network of mutual aid. Two to three times a week, a solidarity market is held in a place in the city or village, where everyone can come and stock up for free while others bring what they have and can do without. In some neighborhoods, small carts and tricycles filled with food have even been cobbled together and circulate every day in the streets and alleys. Young people push them, shouting: " If you need it, take it! If you can, give it!"
Does the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) last Saturday in Jakarta open a new stage?
Certainly, but in what sense? Urgently requested by the UN, the ASEAN meeting on Saturday allowed for a consensus to be reached to end the violence, and to engage in a constructive dialogue between all parties with the help of an ASEAN special envoy to facilitate the dialogue with a visit by this envoy to Myanmar. However, the Burmese putschist General Min did not respond explicitly to the requests to end the massacre of civilian protesters. One can also wonder whether the invitation of General Min to such an official meeting does not constitute, in a certain way, a form of recognition of the putschist regime on the international scene.
You can join the prayer by ZOOM every Wednesday organized by the youth of Fondacio in Myanmar. Link on our site.
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