PEACE Info (February 19, 2021) − PUTSCHIST IN UNCHARTED POLITICAL WATERS: Is disciplined guided democracy the real way out for junta? − Myanmar Military Targets Striking Civil Servants − Myanmar Medics in Hiding as Regime Targets Hospital-Led Disobedience Movement − Myanmar Disability Groups Condemn Beating of Disabled Man at Protest − Authorities arrest Myitkyina CDM participants − Police Free 14 Detained During Violent Breakup of Anti-Coup Protest in N. Myanmar − Chairman of Myanmar’s Buddhist Authority Urges Negotiations to End Post-Coup Crisis − Myanmar Student Dies 10 Days After Being Shot by Police at Anti-Coup Protest − UK and Canada Sanction Myanmar’s Coup Leader and His Subordinates − Myanmar's coup opponents welcome new British, Canadian sanctions as protests continue − Singapore, Indonesia express 'grave concern' over Myanmar, support informal Asean meet − SAC seeks ‘pragmatic results’ with new peace process committees: military spox − Police Beat and Arrest Teachers in Myitkyina- KIO/ KIA Pledges to ‘Stand with the People’ − An explosion occurs in front of RCSS liaison office in Kyaukme − Villagers Displaced by Violence Between Multiple Armed Groups − �င�မ��ခ�မ���ရ� လ�ပ�ငန��စ�� ဆက�လက�အ�က�င�အထည��ဖ��သင�� မ�ဖ��သင�� အပစ�ရပ�အဖ���မ���အ�က�� �ဆ�������န − အပစ�ရပ�အဖ���မ��� �ခ�င���ဆ�င�က စစ�အစ���ရ လ�ပ�ရပ�မ���အ�� ��တ�ခ� − စစ�အစ���ရ၏ ဥပ�ဒဆင��က�ထ�တ��ပန�မ�မ��� အ�ဏ�ရ�င�စနစ� အသက�သ�င���ဆ�င�ရ�က�ခ�က�မ����ဖစ�ဟ� PPST �ခ�င���ဆ�င�ဆ�� − �မစ��က��န��တ�င� သတင���ထ�က�မ���က�� ပစ�မ�တ�ထ��တ��က�ခ��က�မ�မ��� �ပ�လ�ပ��န − �မစ��က��န��တ�င� ဆ���ပမည�� ဆရ�/ဆရ�မမ���က�� ���က���က�လ�စ�ခ��က� ဖမ��ဆ�� − �မစ��က��န��တ�င� ဆ���ပ၍ ဖမ��ဆ��ခံရသ�မ��� PCG ည����င��မ��ဖင�� �ပန�လ�တ�လ� − မ�မသ���သ���ခ��င� က�ည�ဆံအစစ�န�� ပစ�ခတ�ခံရလ��� က�ယ�လ�န� − သမ��င��တစ��က����ပန�လည��ခင�� - �မန�မ�����င�ငံ�ရ� အက��အ��ပ�င��အတ�က� �န�က�လမ��ဆ�ံ�တစ�ခ� − အ�ဏ�သ�မ��ဖ��� ဗ��လ�ခ��ပ��တ�က�� ��ရ���က �သ��ထ���လ�ံ�ဆ���ပ�ခ��သလ�� − အ�ဏ�သ�မ�� စစ�ဗ��လ�ခ��ပ�မ���က�� �ဗ�တ�န���င�� က�နဒ� ဒဏ�ခတ�အ�ရ�ယ� − �မန�မ����င�ငံတ�င� ဒ�မ��က�ရစ�စနစ� �ပန�သ����ရ� ‘Quad’ မဟ�မ�တ�အဖ��� တ��က�တ�န�� − �မန�မ��အ�ရ� "အလ�န�အမင�� စ���ရ�မ�"ဟ� အင�ဒ��န��ရ�����င�� စင�က�ပ� ��ပ� − အ�ဏ�သ�မ��မ���က�င�� �မန�မ�က�� အက�အည��ပ�မ�မ��� �န�� �ဝ ရပ�ဆ��င��ထ�� − TNLA၊ SSPP ပ���ပ�င��အဖ���န�� RCSS တ��က�ပ����က�င�� အရပ�သ�� �လ�ဦ� �သဆ�ံ� − နမ�တ� စစ��ရ��င�အတ�က� ရ�က��မ���အ�ရ��ပ�လ��အပ��န ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 1 of 51 PUTSCHIST IN UNCHARTED POLITICAL WATERS: Is disciplined guided democracy the real way out for junta? By Sai Wansai - February 19, 2021 After the abrupt February 1 military coup d’état entered its third week, it remains a mystery and no one is quite sure where it is leading to. Numerous experts and analysts domestic and international alike have been speculating on how it will pan out differently, except for the common pessimistic view of spiraling violence, especially from the coup maker’s part, and gaining momentum each passing day. Min Aung Hlaing Indeed, it is an uncharted political waters even for the coup maker, not to mention the Generation Z-led civil disobedience movement, combined with political defiance, which the rank and file of the population, including the Generation X and Y, have joined to reject the military takeover and the junta’s rule that comes with it. “Generation X, the age cohort born before the 1980s but after the Baby Boomers; Generation Y, or Millennials, typically thought of as those born between 1984 and 1996; and Generation Z, those born after 1997, who are next to enter the workforce,” according to the report “A Survey of 19 Countries Shows How Generations X, Y, and Z Are — and Aren’t — Different,” written by Henrik Bresman and Vinika D. Rao, published by Harvard Business Review, on August 25, 2017. Reasons given for the coup The reason given by the Military or Tatmadaw is electoral-list irregularities which was said to be more than 10 million but with no hard evidence to back up the claim. The coup was undertaken as its repeated demand to investigate were rejected by the Union Election Commission (UEC) formed by the National League for Democracy (NLD), and also a proposal to hold special Union parliamentary session to discuss about the matter. But the actual motive may be the Tatmadaw’s concern of “group survival” instinct and mentality; upholding “military supremacy” doctrine in political decision-making; Commander-in-Chief General Min Aung Hlaing’s personal ambition to be the head of state at any cost; angst of International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court and international ruling on his genocidal intent committed upon the Rohingya; afraid of losing ill- gotten accumulated wealth by plundering the country’s resources; and/or the combination of all the said factors. In short, the supposed to be “fail-safe” mechanism vested in the military-drafted 2008 Constitution went wrong, or shall we say the existence of loop holes that the Tatmadaw has not thought about. Page 2 of 51 It has calculated that with the 25 percent allotted MP seats, including the rights to administer the home, defense and border affairs ministries, its proxy the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) will be able to gain, at least 25 percent plus in the poll, so that the military bloc will be able to form government with the help of some party affiliations or splinter parties that belong to the military bloc. This way the opposition parties will be kept in check and the military bloc will be able to hold on to power continuously, perhaps somewhat like the Singapore’s People’s Action Party one party system, with small and weak opposition parties, that has been in power since the country’s inception, in 1954. But the USDP could only gather 7 percent contested seats (5 percent of the overall total) in 2020, which would led the NLD to install president and government formation as it won the general elections on a landslide, with 83 percent, up from 79 percent in 2015 general elections, giving it 62 percent of seats in the Union Parliament. For the Tatmadaw five year tenure of NLD government from 2016 to 2021 had already eroded its administrative hold such as losing the UEC and General Administration Department (GAD) because NLD has taken over. And if another five year of NLD rule were to continue, the military might have presumed its supremacy position will further be eroded and probably this has been one of crucial motive to stage the coup. Mass protest continued unabated on Wednesday despite the military’s crackdown (Sai Zaw/Myanmar Now) Not coup but caretaker argument The coup maker wants to portray itself as acting according to the 2008 military-drafted Constitution and making use of the emergency rule provided by it. Thus, it is a legal “constitutional coup” so goes the argument. But the problem lies in the procedure which isn’t a water-tight explanation, as the allowing of the emergency decree was signed by Myint Swe, an ex-general and first vice-president endorsed by the military, after installing him as acting president. The first president was Win Myint and second vice-president Henry Van Thio both from the NLD were detained following the coup by the junta. Reportedly, the military threatened President Win Myint to sign the decree but he refused and said that they could kill him if they like but he wouldn’t sign it. Because of this, the argument that the coup is legal and acting only under the emergency rule as a caretaker government isn’t convincing, even though there is a provision to do so, if the sitting president has willingly agreed and signed the decree. Nevertheless, the junta maintained that it is not “an nar thein” but “an nar lwe” in Burmese, meaning: not “seizure of power or coup” but “power being transferred”. In other words, Page 3 of 51 Tatmadaw is functioning under the military-drafted constitution of “emergency rule” because the NLD was about to grab the power through illegal means. It reasoned that the NLD misused its power to rig the poll with more than 10 million electoral-list irregularities, although to date it still can’t explain it in a concrete manner. Going back from original reasoning Tatmadaw originally said that its undertaking was not to nullify the November 8 election results but to investigate irregularities in certain areas only, reportedly to make the election free and fair in straighten the democratization process. But now the mass arrest of the NLD leaders and members in hundreds, including those it considered hostile to the military, raiding NLD offices, confiscating documents, and now declaring new election in one year, with the promise to hand over the power to the winner party, aren’t in tune with what it has stated from the outset. It now seems the junta is out to destroy the NLD by disqualifying its influential leaders by slapping them with various petty crimes (like importing communication radio phones in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi; and violation of Covid-19 prevention law for President Win Mint).