In Asia’s forgotten war, a generation sacrifices its youth defying Myanmar’s brutal junta

For thousands of guerilla fighters, the dream of a free Myanmar still burns bright – even after four years of ruinous civil war

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Published: 8:00am, 25 Jan 2025

For Myanmar’s people, year four under military junta rule has only brought more death, displacement and despair, as their troubled homeland is torn further apart by a seemingly intractable civil war.

In capital Naypyidaw, the military – or Tatmadaw – calls all the shots, but after a series of chastening battlefield defeats, the generals increasingly find themselves boxed-in to the country’s central heartlands. Still, few among the anti-junta resistance forces harbour any illusions about an imminent collapse of Min Aung Hlaing’s brutal regime.

“The Tatmadaw is still very strong, it is an old institution, they have money … they hold the power,” said Maung Saungkha, a 32-year-old rebel commander in Kayin state. “But I believe we will win. I just can’t say when.”

Hope persists among those fighting for a freer Myanmar. The conflict, sparked by the military’s coup on February 1, 2021, has pitted the junta against a mosaic of armed ethnic groups and young pro-democracy fighters. Many of those fighters – students, clerks and factory workers – have been thrust into a war they never sought but now cannot abandon.

Maung Saungkha, commander of the Bamar People’s Liberation Army (BPLA), pictured at their base camp in Kayin state, Myanmar, on January 13. Photo: Khu Sam

Outside of Asia, however, Myanmar has the feeling of a forgotten crisis, with the world’s attention diverted by Russia’s war in Europe, the carnage in the Middle East and the return of Donald Trump as one of the most powerful people on Earth.

But in the dense forests of the Irrawaddy River basin, Maung Saungkha leads around 1,000 fighters under the banner of the Bamar People’s Liberation Army (BPLA), armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns and M16 rifles seized from Tatmadaw bases.

Khu Sam

Khu Sam is a photojournalist from Myanmar.

Aidan Jones

Aidan Jones is a Senior Correspondent on SCMP's Asia desk. He previously worked at the Agence France-Presse.

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This Week in Asia Politics

‘No chance’: in Myanmar, Asean’s pleas for peace fall on deaf ears

Despite Asean’s call to prioritise peace over a sham election, Myanmar’s military rulers appear bent on clinging to power no matter the cost

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Maria Siow

Published: 12:00pm, 22 Jan 2025

Myanmar’s military junta has made one thing clear: power comes before peace. In yet another snub of diplomatic overtures, the regime has shown no sign of prioritising a ceasefire over elections – despite a renewed plea from Asean to end the violence that has ravaged the country since the 2021 coup.

“There is almost no chance the junta will follow this line of action,” Hunter Marston, a Southeast Asia researcher at the Australian National University, told This Week in Asia.

“The junta will continue to ignore Asean preferences and place regime survival above all other interests. For [junta leader] Min Aung Hlaing, that means fighting until the last man to quash the resistance.”

At the Asean Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in Langkawi on Sunday, Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mohamad Hasan said that Myanmar’s military government should focus on restoring peace, not pressing ahead with elections that threaten to deepen existing divisions.

“Elections have to be inclusive, and cannot be done in isolation,” Hasan said. “The priority is to stop the violence, reinstate peace in Myanmar.”

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing presides over a military parade in Naypyidaw in March 2021. Photo: Reuters

Observers warn that the junta’s planned elections – promised for November – will do little more than consolidate military power. With vast swathes of the country under the control of ethnic armed groups and most opposition lawmakers jailed or threatened, any vote would be, as Marston put it, “completely flawed from the start”.

Maria Siow

Maria Siow is a long-time China-based correspondent and analyst with keen interest in East Asia. Maria has a masters degree in international relations.

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Trump says he’ll sanction Russia if Putin does not negotiate on Ukraine

The US president also said he had pressed Chinese President Xi Jinping to intervene to stop the war

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Reuters

Published: 7:51am, 22 Jan 2025Updated: 5:55pm, 22 Jan 2025

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would probably impose sanctions on Russia if its president, Vladimir Putin, refuses to negotiate about ending the war in Ukraine.

Trump gave no details on possible additional sanctions. The United States has already sanctioned Russia heavily for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump said his administration was also looking at the issue of sending weapons to Ukraine, adding his view that the European Union should be doing more to support Ukraine.

“We’re talking to [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, we’re going to be talking with President Putin very soon,” Trump said. “We’re going to look at it.”

Trump said he had pressed Chinese President Xi Jinping in a call to intervene to stop the Ukraine war.

“He’s not done very much on that. He’s got a lot of … power, like we have a lot of power. I said: ‘You ought to get it settled’. We did discuss it.”

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