Seminar on Myanmar §

(F) Day of the week: Tuesday Class: IS306 Created Time: May 18, 2021 2:27 PM Database: Class Notes Database Date: May 18, 2021 2:27 PM Days Till Date: Passed Last Edited Time: June 9, 2021 3:35 AM Type: Study Group

1. Election resulted in NDL led by Ang San Su Kyi winning in 2020 → coup in February
   • Election fraud as excuse for coup
   • Elected politicians are imprisoned
   • Protests
   • 800 civilians killed, 4,000 arrested
   • China is believed to be backing the coup
     • Blocked UN from condemning Myanmar
     • But backed statements calling for reinstatement of Democracy
2. Social Crisis
   • Suppression of freedom of expression and press
   • Military care more about suppressing protestors than COVID
3. Insecurity
   • Reemergence of Civil War:
     • Fighting between military forces and forces of rebels
   • Violent protests against the military
4. Rohingya crisis: discrimination against Muslim minority
5. Economic crisis:
   • Western countries imposed sanctions against coup leaders/elites
   • Increased price of imports
     • currency of myanmar dropped in value
     • government imposed limit
     • external trade barriers
   • Banking crisis
   • Social welfare and payments are down
   • FDI may withdraw their business or move
6. Humanitarian Issues: fighting creates
   • Spread of COVID-19
   • Refugees for neighboring countries
   • More need for food and water supply

Problems with Solutions §

1. Smart Sanctions: aren’t as serious
   • Freezing assets, banning travel in country isn’t very effective
   • Only act as political show
2. Rohingya situation: cannot just end instability, but also to help the people in need or is discriminated against
   • What are the immediate solutions UN can propose to deal with it?
   • Introduce package of solutions with different purposes
     • Political
     • Humanitarian
3. Condemning statements are not effective
   • Only way to convince military leaders is the show the outweighing benefits of returning democratic system over military
4. ASEAN meeting only to save face
   • To say ASEAN is trying to do something about it
   • But doesn’t come to any effective solutions
   This