What a rapidly changing civil war means for the future of Myanmar

Myanmar is on the brink of becoming a failed state. For three years, the southeast Asian nation has been embroiled in an escalating civil war between the military junta and pro-democracy forces. Now, resistance groups have gained control of a significant part of the country after a long line of junta defeats. John Yang speaks with Burmese-American journalist Aye Min Thant about the situation.

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John Yang : The Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar is on the brink of becoming a failed state. For three years, the nation of 54 million people has been embroiled in an escalating civil war between the military Hunter and hundreds of pro-democracy militias, ethnic armies and local defense forces.

Civilians are suffering. The United Nations estimates that more than 18 and a half million people desperately need humanitarian assistance. Thousands are fleeing the country.

A 2021 military coup brought to an abrupt end Myanmar’s moved toward democracy. The widespread peaceful protests that followed were put down by the hunter with a brutal crackdown. Scores of opposition protesters fled the cities for the mountainous jungles that make up much of the country.

Pro-democracy militias and armed ethnic groups united with the common goal of overthrowing the junta. Last month, rebel forces took control of a key economic hub that was responsible for $1 billion in trade last year. It’s among the latest in a long line of junta defeats over the last six months, that has left for resistance groups and control of a significant part of the country.

Earlier I spoke with Burmese American journalist Aye Min Thant about the current situation in Myanmar.

Aye Min Thant, Burmese-American Journalist : Fight because really escalated in Myanmar since October of 2023, where numerous saw large resistance forces really coalesce and form an ally ship and larger coordinated attack against the military on multiple fronts.

And since then, major gains were made, especially along the border regions, love major trade routes, and in several cases, trade towns and trade routes were able to be shut down. Although the military has regained control of some of these areas, they have been dramatically weakened.

John Yang : Who are these groups that are fighting the hunter military? Who are they and what do they want?

Aye Min Thant : So there’s various groups that are fighting the military. There are what are called Ethnic armed organizations, which are made up of ethnic groups that were essentially thrown into the country of Myanmar together for the first time through this colonization, but really have a long history of being individual political entities, and they’ve been fighting for independence, in some cases are more legal rights in other cases, and in some cases, just complete separation from the country of proper.

And in addition to that, there are also multiple groups that have come to being since the coup, mostly made out of farmers, and students and other young people from the ethnic majority group who, since the coup have turned towards violent revolution as a way to negate the effects of the coup and tried to turn the country back towards democracy.

John Yang : Is there enough common ground among these groups beyond just defeating the military junta, that that if they were to prevail, they’d be able to establish a government.

Aye Min Thant : Right now there is a common enemy in the military. But it’s unclear that this military war to fall tomorrow that these groups would be able to coalesce into a formal government or even some sort of interim government in order to lead the country back into a unified whole. On one hand, there is a civilian shadow government that has formed since the coup but they don’t necessarily have the buy in of a number of ethnic groups at the organizations that felt that there parties even when the civilian government was in control that they really respected and saw various ethnic groups as the equals.

John Yang : So this fight has been going on for about three years, what’s been the effect on the civilian population?

Aye Min Thant : The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that over 2.5 million people have now been displaced internally in the country since the beginning of the coup, and over 100,000 people have been displaced into neighboring countries. And that’s of course not counting. Nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees who were displaced and previous waves of military violates.

John Yang : How much support are the displaced people not only within Myanmar, but who fled Myanmar? How much support are they getting?

Aye Min Thant : So various humanitarian organizations are trying to still function them in mind distribute aid. Unfortunately, in order for them to operate, they are forced to essentially collaborate with the military and in many cases, the military prevents these organizations from being able to go to certain areas certain security concerns to distribute aid. The surrounding countries, Thailand, India, Laos, and China don’t provide very much aid to refugees, if any at all.

Thailand does not recognize refugees as a class. The same holds true largely of India as well, where the Modi administration is not happy with the amount of refugees that are coming into the country. Bangladesh has really close its borders as much as it can to additional refugees from Myanmar, and the border along Laos and China has also been really on guard since COVID, and has largely not been trying to accept refugees as well.

John Yang : The United Nations has described the human rights situation in Myanmar as a never ending nightmare. who’s committing these? Are these one side or the other that’s committing these human rights violations?

Aye Min Thant : So according to monitoring organizations, the vast, vast majority of human rights abuses are being permitted by the military. The military is engaging in extrajudicial killings. Over 50,000 people have been killed since the coup, either through torture, extrajudicial killings, airstrikes, swore arson, the military also engages in airstrikes on largely protected places like schools, hospitals and religious sites. There’s a weaponization of arson, burning down of entire villages, rape as a weapon of war.

And lately, we’re also seeing a lot of force recruitment by the military. On the other hand, we are also seeing human rights abuses from the risk of suicide. There have been reports of extrajudicial killings, especially with people who have been accused of being informants for the military’s or people who are seen as collaborators who are not necessarily armed combatants.

John Yang : What’s the road ahead look like? Is it possible that one side or another could prevail? Or is this just going to be a deadlock?

Aye Min Thant: So the finding has been going on for three years, but we’ve really seen a lot of big moves in the last six months, despite the fact that the construction law has existed for many years at this point. This is the first time in history that it’s been used. And analysts have taken this as a sign that this means that the military is quite desperate to try to fill it strength especially as they’re starting to lose more and more battles.

So what started off as largely, you know, gel, untrained people, many of whom are grew up in cities and have never touched a weapon with people who are largely farmers, using homemade weapons and commercial drones have now turned into pretty battle hardened troops who have gotten their hands on to military weaponry.

John Yang : Aye Min Thant, thank you very much.

Aye Min Thant : Thank you for having me.