Earthquake-Hit, War-Devastated Myanmar Needs a Lasting Humanitarian Ceasefire and the Establishment of a Myanmar Fund
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 7 Apr 2025
Maung Zarni | FORSEA - TRANSCEND Media Service
Earthquake Damage Mandalay, 2025 – Wikipedia Commons
Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction
TRANSCEND member Dr Maung Zarni calls for the establishment of Myanmar Earthquake Relief Fund out of the $1 billion of Myanmar government assets in the US frozen by the then President Joe Biden in response to the February 2021 coup.
3 Apr 2025 – The 28-March earthquake that struck Myanmar at 12:50 pm local time, left a number of cities, towns, villages in the heartland of ethnic majority Burmese or Bama, severely damaged. Sagaing, the closet to the epic centre, is reportedly 80% destroyed. And large segments of Mandalay, the second most populous city with roughly 2 million residents, are left in ruins.
The earthquake didn’t spare the junta’s neo-totalitarian, fortress-capital, fitted with N. Korea-designed underground tunnels, said to be large enough to conceal fighter-jets. The head of the military junta, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, admitted to the local media, that he had to crawl under his office desk during the earthquake. And Vice Senior General Soe Win and other cabinet members including the Foreign Affairs Minister Than Swe have been rendered office-less by the earthquake.
The land-locked capital was built out of Myanmar military leaderships’ twofold-signature of xenophobia and paranoia: then ruling dictator Senior General Than Shwe feared the landing of the US marines in the old capital Rangoon situated by the Gulf of Martaban.
Hand-picked by Than Shwe to lead the Armed Forces, the diminutive general named Min Aung Hlaing has pursued a self-fulfilling paranoia by staging the unnecessary – and universally unpopular – military coup against the re-election of Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian leadership, already rendered severely impotent within the framework of the 2008 Constitution of, for and by the military. When virtually every constituency throughout the vast land of Southeast Asia’s mainland country waged peaceful but determined anti-coup protests in February and March of 2021, the diminutive general – not known for his battle field courage or military leadership even against the poorly armed ethnic resistance troops responded by ordering his troops to sniper and slaughter young protestors, men and women in their teens and early 20’s, who felt their relatively bright future in a slowly democratizing society and opening economy – if not the military-controlled politics – was taken away from them.
The result is the 4-year-old ferocious armed uprisings throughout the nation, as the urban and rural ethnic Bama youth from all walks of life took up arms to fight the national armed forces. That the majoritarian ethnic Bama society itself is engaged in armed revolt has completely demolished the raison d’être of Min Aung Hlaing’s national armed forces officially known as Tatmadaw (or royal military).
For whom does the Tatmadaw exist?
In the eyes of the majority ethnic Myanmar public, the Tatmadaw and its leadership no longer represent either Myanmar as a state or a nation of Myanmar or Bama.
Thousands of these men and women have significantly been assisted, in terms of sanctuary, guerilla training and arms supplies, by half-dozen seasoned ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) such as the Karen National Union, the Kachin Independence Organization, the Chin National Front, Karenni National Progressive Party, the Arakan Army and the United Wa State Army.
This combination of the EROs and the multi-ethnic youth armed uprisings have been able to deal a blow after a blow to Min Aung Hlaing’s poorly-led national armed forces.
But the protracted civil war looms large.
Tags: Buddhists, Burma/Myanmar, Civil War, Cultural violence, Direct violence, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Muslims, Rohingya, Structural violence
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One Response to “Earthquake-Hit, War-Devastated Myanmar Needs a Lasting Humanitarian Ceasefire and the Establishment of a Myanmar Fund”
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Dear Dr Dr Maung Zarni
I greet you as a fellow protagonist and a human rights activist from Durban, South Africa.
I read your TMS publication as well as the full article on your website. The report is excellent with relevant graphics, encapsulating, the essence of the suffering of the Myanmese citizenry, be they the ruling Junta or the freedom protagonists
While I fully sympathise with the massive devastation caused by the earthquake to strike Myanmar, I am totally against setting up a Myanmar Fund I state this advisedly for the following reasons:-
The monies from the global Myanmar Fund will certainly not reach the ordinary citizens but will be commandeered bby the Military Junta to share with heir loyalists and families
In South Africa, funds generated for Palestine and Syria are not reaching the Palestinians, did not indeed do so and the food aid trucks are stripped at the border. As similar situation will happen in Myanmar
The two foreign powers assisting Myanmar, China and North Korea, will ensure that peace is not achieved, for as you are aware Dr Zarni, war is a lucrative business and keeps the economy buoyant of the orchestrating and supporting countries.
The Military Junta under General Gummaw.
The genocide of the Rohingyas as your correctly describe, the killing fields of Myanmar, is a stark reminder of the Junta’s brutality which is ongoing.
It is indeed a foolish thought that the earthquake will be a catharsis in bringing about peace in Myanmar as the Junta has stated that it wants to retain power, although they have declared a token ceasefire, which is meaningless.
Time magazine is absolutely correct in summarising the situation as :”The generals are insane to seek to politically and materially benefit from the newly emerging international goodwill towards Myanmar people and to keep bombing cities and towns and rebel positions, including schools and religious sites. The junta is 100% focused on keeping itself in power”
Please< i would appeal to Dr Zarni, that you kindly refrain from the proposed suggestion you make and concentrate more on how to rid Myanmar of the Junta Rule. Incidentally, I visited Rangoon in 1974 and worked there. I had five of my maternal grandmother's brothers there, who were not millionaires, but billionaires. Over the last ten years, we have lost all contact, and their shops, properties were nationalised, with them reduced to working in their own stores for a stipend. All the stocks were also expropriated, and they had to incinerate their cash hoards. They emigrated from post Partition, Surat, in India to Burma, where they flourished, for a short while.
I attach a letter to the editor of TMS for your reference and I have published numerous articles on Myanmar. The link is :
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2021/02/reply-to-the-message-of-his-eminence-cardinal-charles-maung-bo-to-the-people-of-myanmar-and-the-world-following-th
Take care and keep up the struggle, but remember, as much as we prefer, Peace is an elusive entity, never to be reached. I say this as a Peace Protagonist, realistically and we are all deluded in its pursuit.
Thank you for your time and presenting me with an opportunity to comment on your detailed report
God bless
Kind regards
Hoosen Vawda
Global: +27 82 291 4546
e-mail: vawda@ukzn.ac.za