In the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, an effort to hold the military coup government accountable for their crimes against civilians and spread awareness about the military’s human rights violations is being made with the aim of eliciting a response from the international community in hopes that one day retribution will come to the dictatorship. Since the military coup of the Myanmar government on February 1 of 2021, the National Unity Government (run by the elected officials deposed during the coup) and non-profit organization Myanmar Witness have been documenting and reporting the continued escalation of military brutality against the Myanmarese with the help of video evidence. This has been submitted by anonymous anti-coup civilians wanting to end the violence bravely choosing to put themselves at risk of death, torture, and imprisonment in order to combat the dire situation in Myanmar. These witness accounts include the destruction of villages and churches, police open firing into crowds of protesters (killing an estimated total of 65 people in total so far, both protesters and bystanders), and even mass executions of innocents by the military. Among those killed in the crossfire are children, and in one instance, nuns pleading with military aggressors for peace on behalf of protestors. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says there have been 15,000 casualties since February 1 of 2021. Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung of the National Unity Government of Myanmar has been imploring the rest of the world to confront the authoritarian military regime for their human cruelty.
The effect of this desperate support of justice and freedom by the Myanmarese through the system of uploading recordings and photographs to Myanmar Witness to use as proof to back up their accusations of crimes committed by the coup government has, expectedly, been met with bad along with the good. With the intent of cutting off communication to national news and suppressing uprisings, the coup government has shut off internet connection across the country, sometimes at random and other times at regular intervals. In addition, there is limited access to Wi-Fi nationwide, and in some towns, particularly in the northwest of Myanmar, there is no internet or Wi-Fi at all, leaving the people there critically uninformed and even more vulnerable. Achingly, I would have to say that I don’t see much, if any, chance of the people of Myanmar surviving these hideous times and regaining their freedom and stability without international help. On top of having such a ruthless military dictatorship, much of Myanmar is undeveloped countryside, and rural villages like the ones that have been attacked have no means of defending themselves against armed troops nor recovering from the damage dealt to them. Any sophisticated system capable of countering the Myanmarese military is difficult to near impossible to organize without reliable phone service or internet connection, and the people of Myanmar simply do not have the resources, weapons, maneuvers, or skills to fight back on their own and keep the resistance alive.
In connection to International Relations and Comparative Government, the situation in Myanmar and reason for global hesitation to act on it can be compared to many past historical events, such as the United States and United Nations intervention in Haiti in 1994 and the original resistance to getting involved militarily in Haiti. Again with the Rwandan genocide during the Rwandan Civil War, also in 1994, to physically enter any of these countries is to (very) publicly disregard the sovereignty of another state, even if it is considered a failed state, as Haiti is on most counts. Because of the trepidation associated with this, situations as gruesome as the one in Myanmar have occurred many times in history without being confronted by the international community for the break from international law and countless human rights violations have continued virtually unchallenged.