WALKING WITH THE EXCLUDED
Almost thirty years ago, Aung San Suu Kyi made a prophetic forecast: “We have to choose between dialogue or utter devastation.”
Then 50 years old and already the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, she was being interviewed in July 1995, soon after her release from almost six years of house arrest. Daughter of the Burmese independence leader, Bogyoke (General) Aung San, who also founded the Burmese army, Aung San Suu Kyi is now 79 years old and is held in solitary confinement, condemned by the army generals to 27 years in prison on patently spurious charges. Her country, Myanmar, is now in a state of utter devastation. Every opportunity for meaningful dialogue has been rejected.
Myanmar, known as the “golden land” because of its thousands of gilded temples, is blessed with abundant natural wealth and beauty, but cursed with poor leadership. It was once the “rice bowl” of Asia and with its developed education system and respected universities, it was set to outpace all the Asian tiger economies. Now, however, despite 56 million generous, hospitable, self-reliant people with deep roots in Theravada Buddhism, a widespread practice of meditation and abundant natural resources of jade, rubies, sapphires, gold, silver, teak, oil, natural gas and of course water, Myanmar is the poorest nation and, except for North Korea, its people are the most oppressed of Asia.
As Sean Turnell, the special economic consultant to Aung San Suu Kyi, who was imprisoned for 22 months following the 2021 coup, put it: “Burma had begun the 20th century as the richest country in Southeast Asia and entered the 21st century as the poorest.”
A nation in turmoil
More than four and a half million Burmese are now forcibly displaced, one million of them in Bangladesh, and over 3.4 million within the country, driven from their homes by artillery, bombing and arson. Millions have crossed borders to Thailand as refugees or migrant workers, to Bangladesh as refugees, close to 100,000 are taking refuge in India, and in the last year tens of thousands of young people have left for Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore or Saudi Arabia and other countries to escape the new conscription laws that are being enforced for men 18 to 35 years old and women 18 to 27 years. Doctors aged up to 45 must serve for three years, and men up to the age of 65 are conscripted “to protect towns against rebels”. Others go abroad just to find work so that they can send something back to help their families.
Over the past three years, up to 174 schools have been destroyed by bombing and many churches, Buddhist monasteries and hospitals have been hit. It is not just people being attacked, but their community life and culture as well. Aerial bombings have increased fivefold in the last year, according to the UN. This month, the junta unleashed a barrage of deadly airstrikes across Shan, Karen, and Karenni States and Sagaing Region. Of extreme concern, in Lashio, northern Shan State, the junta conducted four consecutive days of airstrikes. Last month, from 1 to 7 September, the junta launched airstrikes targeting civilians in Chin, Shan and Karenni States and Magwe, Sagaing and Mandalay Regions—killing innocent civilians, including a dozen children.
Russia makes a profit in Myanmar, selling weapons. China talks to everyone but in the end, still enables the junta. Recently China has sold jet bombers to the junta and seems to have relaxed its attitude to the criminal scam centres that the junta tolerates. India allows arms to reach the Myanmar army and keeps channels of communication open. Thailand has been forever silent on the junta’s atrocities and refouls refugees who cross into its territory to seek safety.
The Pope’s response
Pope Francis has been the only global leader repeatedly calling for peace and justice in Myanmar. During his recent visit to Asia last month, he stated: “The future of your country must be peace, based on respect for the dignity and rights of all, on respect for a democratic order that allows each person to contribute to the common good.”
Pope Francis also said: “I called for the release of Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi and received her son in Rome. I offered the Vatican as a place of refuge for her.” After his renewed appeal for her release, the Pope said, “Right now, the lady is a symbol, and political symbols are to be defended. Do you remember that nun kneeling with her hands raised in front of the military? Her image went around the world. I pray that you, young people, will be brave like that. The Church in your country is courageous.” He was talking to Myanmar scholastics studying in Jakarta and referred to Sr Ann Rose Nu Tawng of Myitkyina, a sister from a local congregation that is named after Sr Francis Xavier.
My own involvement with Burma began in 1988 as students from the 8 August (8888) movement began to seek asylum in Thailand where I was living and engaged with Jesuit Refugee Service. Michael Aris, the late husband of Suu Kyi, frequently visited JRS in Bangkok on his way to or from visiting his wife. Michael was an Oxford don, a professor specialising in Bhutanese and Tibetan Buddhism. Later, when I lived in Europe and JRS had initiated a refugee studies program in Oxford, I would frequently visit him. In 1999, Michael Aris died of cancer in London. He had asked the Myanmar government to visit her one last time, but they had rejected his request. He had not seen her since Christmas 1995. The government urged her to join her family abroad, but she knew that she would not be allowed to return to Burma.
Fallout from the coup
On the morning of 1 February 2021, just as Myanmar Parliament was to swear in the newly elected members, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a coup d’etat. President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi were detained, along with ministers, their deputies and many members of Parliament. Those elected members who could escape did so and formed, together with some leaders from the ethnic organisations, the National Unity Government (NUG), which now is a government in exile with a reasonable claim to legitimacy. The military established the State Administrative Council (SAC) to handle government functions during the state of emergency.
The first reaction of the people to the coup was to turn out by the hundreds of thousands in peaceful demonstrations in the cities and towns across Myanmar. A civil disobedience movement, involving hundreds of thousands of civil servants, especially nurses, doctors and teachers, refused to work for the illegal government of the generals. When the SAC gave the order to soldiers, published for all to know, “shoot in the head or the chest,” an enduring armed resistance began, called the “Spring Revolution”.
Where the 8888 uprising had failed, this revolution vowed to continue to the death. They were clearly determined that the military must not continue to ruin their country. A young generation had tasted what was possible. Social media had opened possibilities. Within a year, the political upheaval and ongoing fighting had brought about a humanitarian crisis and the economy had begun to spiral out of control. Most foreign companies left, tourism stopped, many local businesses shut down, households became significantly poorer.
A new form of resistance
Armed resistance groups sprang up around the country, at first with home-made, traditional flint-lock hunting rifles. Young people from the cities went to be trained and armed by the ethnic armies and formed Peoples’ Defence Forces. This was new. In 1988, when the Bamar students sought to join the Karen and other ethnic armies, they were treated with deep distrust. This time it was clearer; all have united against a common enemy: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
The resistance movement turned into a revolutionary force and has continued to gain strength. Exactly a year ago, three of the armed ethnic groups united in an alliance to dismantle several massive criminal organisations, protected by generals, running scam centres in the northeast of the country. The three Myanmar ethnic armies had the support of China, because Chinese citizens were being trafficked into these centres and the centres were targeting Chinese.
The astounding success of this operation gave impetus to other revolutionary initiatives. Numerous military and police stations were overrun and their personnel either killed in the fighting or surrendered, weapons were captured in northern Shan State, Kayah State, Kachin and Rakhine. Then last August, the Northeastern Command in Lashio was overrun. The loss of a major city and of the strongest and best equipped of the military’s fourteen strategic regional command centres signalled a major blow for the beleaguered army.
Most feared among the revolutionary actors are the poets, artists, photographers and journalists. Their weapons are the mind and the imagination. One poet who used to be an engineer, took up cake-making to support his poetry. His poetry so enraged the junta that 100 soldiers were sent to arrest him. They called his family the next day to collect his tortured body. His provocative line was: “They shoot in the head, but don’t realise that revolution is in the heart.”
Safety is never guaranteed
The bishop of Lashio said that he was assured by the occupying Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the armed resistance group from the Kokang region which has driven the junta out of Lashio, that services of electricity and water would be free until Christmas, so he returned to his home. Then the army started four days of shelling and bombing. The bishop and several priests had to turn around and seek safety again. The ethnic armies have become strong in fighting in jungles, but once they capture a city or town, they must administer it. The political challenges of victory are staggering.
Who can speak truth to power in Myanmar? Perhaps, as Pope Francis claimed, the example of Sr Ann Rose Nu Tawng of Myitkyina is the most powerful example.
The Church and the Jesuits
Cyclone Nargis marked a turning point for both the Church engagements and the Jesuit involvement in responding to the social needs. The return to Myanmar of the Jesuits had been only ten years before Nargis. Most of the active Jesuits at the time of Nargis were foreigners from India, Indonesia or Korea. The most engaged was Fr Amal from India who had long experience with JRS and in emergency response in India, Sri Lanka and Africa. Despite security controls, he found his way to the Ayeyarwady Delta area, where 140,000 people had died and 50,000 were missing, with whole villages destroyed. He went to meet the Cardinal for the first time, insisting the Church be involved. Out of this, dioceses across the country began to help and a relief program began. Some Jesuit reconstruction efforts, relief, housing and micro credit continue even to now. These initiatives formed the first experience for establishing a local Caritas.
The priority of the Jesuit region is to serve the youth of Myanmar. We do this through education, teacher training, youth movement, community colleges…
What can Australian people do in solidarity with the Myanmar people?
- Offer financial support for the ongoing efforts at relief and reconstruction through Jesuit Mission (and/or Caritas).
- Keep informed, e.g. through Jesuit Mission bulletins, through a subscription to The Irrawaddy (www.irrawaddy.com), by reading books by Sean Turnell (An Unlikely Prisoner and Best Laid Plans)
- Ask political representatives what the Australian government is now doing. Urge that sanctions be tightened in coordination with UK, Europe and USA, for example, sanctions on jet fuel, used in bombing.
- Urge full recognition of the National Unity Government as the legitimate representative of the Myanmar people. Urge deeper government engagement with Myanmar’s representative and governance bodies, such as the National Unity Consultative Council, ethnic resistance organizations and the representative of the NUG already in Australia.
- Urge our government to encourage Thailand not to refoul but to allow refugees to take shelter in Thailand. Ask the government to ease Thailand’s burden by accepting refugees for community resettlement schemes in Australia.
- Ensure that the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA Centre) does not involve the military junta or its proxies in the provision of humanitarian aid, and instead cooperates with civil society groups to facilitate humanitarian aid through border channels.
Banner image: Smoke rises from tyres set alight by anti-coup protesters on 3 April 2021 in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo by Getty Images.