A tougher global response is needed to the Myanmar coup

When it comes to shooting into crowds of unarmed protesters, Myanmar’s security forces have form. They crushed protests against the military regime in 1988 and 2007. Now, a month after the army retook full political control, protests are again being suppressed with live rounds, stun grenades and tear gas. Sunday was the deadliest day since the coup, with at least 18 people killed. With the economy deteriorating as thousands of bank employees, civil servants and medical staff refuse to go to work, the situation in the country is unravelling fast.

The military is, meanwhile, stepping up its political campaign against the civilian leaders who have led the government since elections in 2015. Aung San Suu Kyi was on Monday hit with new charges of making statements that may “cause fear or alarm”, on top of previous allegations of illegally importing walkie-talkies and violating a natural disaster law by breaching coronavirus rules. The initial charges already carried three-year jail terms and would bar her from office; what punishment the new charges entail is still unclear.

Yet much has changed in the decade since the country began its democratic transformation. The Myanmar people are refusing to accept being deprived of their political choice after Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections last November. Banging of pots and pans was heard across the country almost nightly after the February 1 coup. Thousands have joined protests to dispute the army’s claims that the election was marred by fraud, braving violence and arrests.

Workers’ strikes have brought the banking sector almost to a halt, which could complicate life for the junta by making it difficult to make payments to businesses and workers. If he hoped it would be easy to turn back the clocks to the country’s authoritarian past, the army leader General Min Aung Hlaing has been sorely disappointed.

The country’s future course can only be settled by its own people. Yet foreign governments need to formulate a more co-ordinated and effective response. Firstly, any engagement with the military regime should be limited to the need to return Myanmar to civilian rule and mechanisms for achieving this. There should be no “dialogue” with generals who took over at gunpoint.

Foreign countries should also support the global arms embargo proposed by human rights groups, barring the direct or indirect supply of weapons or other military assistance. China, the largest arms supplier to Myanmar, vetoed an initial UN Security Council resolution condemning the coup (though later supported one calling for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release); it might also block a resolution on a weapons ban. Other countries, however, should not supply arms to a military that is using them against its own people.

The US, UK, EU, and others have begun rolling out sanctions against military leaders and the army’s business allies and interests. They should follow through on warnings that they will extend these if the violence persists.

Other governments should, meanwhile, engage with the CRPH, the committee formed by NLD parliamentarians who avoided arrest in the coup — and defy orders from the Myanmar military to refrain from contact. The committee’s hopes to form an interim government that can gain international recognition will be complicated by the fact that most of its MPs are under arrest or in hiding. But these are the representatives of the party that overwhelmingly won elections. It is with them, not the generals, that foreign capitals should continue to deal.