This is Asian insider and I'm Nirmal Ghosh. It is more than 100 days
since Myanmar's Army, the Tatmadaw launched a coup d'etat against an elected
government headed to all intents and purposes by state
councilor Aung San Suu Kyi currently again in detention. Now. Since then,
there have been nonstop protests and the military
responded with a crackdown that has shocked even hardened
observers with this brutality, it has shocked the
international community. In fact, At least 769 people have
been killed and nearly 3700 detained in this ongoing
crackdown and to put things in perspective. Since Asean on
April, the Twenty-fourth declared a five-point consensus
on a among other things that need to cease the violence. The
regime has killed 33 people and arrested 454. A poet detained
for interrogation turned up dead with its internal organs
removed. Most recently, the regime called the a place for
restraint and dialogue at that meeting suggestions and said it
will consider them but only when stability and law and
order have been restored. So there are so many complexities
here, but let's focus for starters on the economy.
The UNDP, the United Nations Development Program has warned
in a report only days ago that more than 83% of households
reported a drop in income since the start of 2020 in the in the
UNDP's worst case scenario 48.2% of the population that's
about 26 million people could be living in poverty by 2022
compared to 24.8% in 2017. Joining me on Asian Insider
today is Pwint Htun who is based in Seattle. Pwint Htun is non resident fellow
at Harvard's Ash Center's Myanmar program and has worked
closely at the highest levels of Myanmar's former government
on telecom reform and mobile financial services policy, and
she has trained parliamentarians in both houses
and from Bangkok. I'm pleased to have Richard Horsey back
Richard is a former senior UN official in Myanmar and is
currently an independent analyst and senior adviser on
Myanmar at the International Crisis Group. Pwint Htun, may I start with
you first of all, thank you very much both of you for
spending time for giving us your time today. So Pwint Htun, may I start
with you, you're telling me. You were telling me about the
banking collapse in Myanmar earlier. that's one critical
aspect. Another is agriculture, and these two things are
intertwined. Please tell me what is the impact out there on
the people.
Myanmar is you know since the coup the country has just
been in this free fall as a result of the military coup.
When the military shut off the internet access.
They had effectively cut off ability for the mobile
financial services industry to exist. And this is the industry
that has really brought so much of the access to finance for
people outside of the urban areas. Once the access
to telecommunications have been cut off and mobile financial
services are unable to be used, everyone inside Myanmar
reverted back to the cash based economy and Myanmar has always
been very much a cash based economy. But after the coup
and with the new telecommunication
infrastructure, it's even more dependent on the cash
and as a result of the announcement from Germany,
the central Bank of Myanmar effectively have no way of
printing any paper currency so without additional fiat
currency that the central bank have access to the banks have
extreme shortage of paper currency, and this is part of
the reason why you are seeing limitations from the private
banks on the the limitations on how much people can withdraw
money. There's limitations coming up and there's long
lines at the ATMs. Long lines at the banks. People are risking
their lives. To get a bank token to be able to get to be
able to withdraw money recently, I heard that there
were several people in Mon state who were arrested
overnight because they were waiting out. They were waiting
at the bank the night before the tokens are issued
when the banks issued tokens at 9AM. These individuals are
standing in line at the bank. The night before even though
there is a curfew that stops them from being able to be outside
people are literally risking their lives. Risking getting
arrested just to be able to withdraw cash so that with this
extreme cash scarcity. And people are trying to get as
much cash out from their bank accounts as possible and the
currency is in free fall at the moment.
so we expect the banking sector collapse to really impact everyone across the country, across the board.
I mean if we were to look at the people, the population that is going to be impacted the most.
We can look at one very important group of people who
are farmers and right now it's actually the beginning of the
the start of the rainy season. This is the the start of the
growing season for the farmers to be able to get their
agriculture loan. Normally around this time
farmers get access to finance a loan from the Myanmar
Agriculture and Development Bank so that they can buy seed
so that they can buy fertilizer and enough funds for them to be
to be able to farm for this coming year ahead.
With this banking collapse and banking sector chart in free
fall the impact is going to be massive for the agriculture
sector as well. I mean the impact is going to be massive
for everyone across the board. But I am especially concerned
for the impact on the agriculture sector and it's
consequences for the next years as well. It's a grim situation.
Now Richard about a month ago, you told the UN
Security Council meeting Myanmar stands at the brink of state
failure or state collapse. So just for the record the Junta says it is
fighting rogue elements of ethnic armies and all parties
remain committed to the ceasefire agreements assigned
it has blamed some on you know a state of urban bombings on
Aung San Suu Kyi's ousted government and a recently formed National Unity
Government, which is basically a coalition of anti military
groups, says the Junta orchestrated the bombings as a
pretext to crush its opponents. There have also been clashes
between the Tatmadaw and the Kachin and the Karen armies to name just two of them
and the NUG, the National Unity Government is also trying to
raise a federal army. so what is the outlook on the civil war
front? Are we going to see a full blown civil war expand and
engulf perhaps the entire country the way things are going?
Right, it's great to be back on Asian insider again Nirmal.
I think that's a really important question.
Obviously Myanmar has been in a complex civil war for
seven decades, so fighting is not new. But what we've seen
since the coup is the risk that the country will tip into a new
level of violence not only in areas which have seen armed
conflict in previous years and decades, but also in new areas,
including the center of the country because there's only
really three scenarios here. One is that the military is
successful in imposing its will on the country and completing
its coup. That is going to be very difficult. It's facing an
enormous amount of opposition very strong and determined
opposition. The other is that the revolution is successful in
unseating the Tatmadaw, the military and installing a democratic
government. That is going to be extremely difficult, given the
level of violence that the military is willing to resort
to and it's determination to hang on. So that leaves a third
scenario where neither the military nor the resistance is
successful and Myanmar gets caught in a multi year long
tussle between the two and the fallout from that we've heard
from Pwint what the economic fallout could be - very catastrophic.
But also in terms of conflict, this is a battle which is being waged,
not only in the the remote borderlands. Of Myanmar, but also in towns and cities
across the country, and if the government is unable to deliver
services. Unable to keep you know keep the country somehow functioning.
Health, education, food security.
All of those things are in peril. The country could be facing a
really grave situation going forward.
Pwint, what does Myanmar need right now In terms of humanitarian aid?
Asean was talking about humanitarian aid. I don't know what's happening
on that front, but should there also be a wider aid effort?
Should the international community be prepared in the
months ahead to ramp up a significantly? W e've already
seen some refugees. We'll probably see more and the way
things are going it's going to need a lot more than just ASEAN
right.
Absolutely, that's a great question. the international
community, especially the world Food program should be prepared
for the emergency food aid and the thing is actually the
international community and the UN has been supporting this
emergency food aid for the internally displaced people up
in Kachin state, Northern Shan state and Rakhine State. For the last
decade, nearly the last decade and this is going to expand out
to the rest of the country. and as you had mentioned earlier
that the UN numbers, the UNDP is speculating that up to
nearly half of the population of Myanmar will be living below
poverty lines by 2022. So I think with that in mind the
World Food Programme should really be ramping up and
preparing and thinking about ways of delivering emergency
food aid so that it's not allowing the military to use
the World Food Programme's donation to empower themselves
in the position of power. I think the World Food Programme
need to be really thinking about figuring out ways to use
mobile financial services to really deliver the emergency food aid
as well to make sure that there is no leakage and Myanmar has
had many decades of entrenched corruption, especially by the
General Administration Department, which is under the
Ministry of Home Affairs, which is just recently moved back
into Ministry of Home affairs and and there has been long
tradition of leakage and people who use the this emergency
food disbursement to enrich themselves that I think
World Food Programme need to be really thinking about ways of
eliminating leakage and delivering these emergency food
aid directly into the people's hand through the pervasive
mobile phones that's in every citizen's hands in Myanmar.
Okay now Richard at a panel just the other day you were
mentioning that as illicit economy sinks so the illicit
economy rises and here we have parts of Myanmar, specifically
the north that already have thriving illicit economies. The
so called Golden Triangle is the meth factory of the entire
Asia Pacific and we have powerful armed groups, armed
ethnic groups that control a lot of these areas. We do know
that transnational organized crimes thrives in gray areas in
ungoverned spaces. This looks likely to get worse again. As you know, almost half
the population sinks back into poverty as Pwint was saying,
there's long been corruption that can only get worse. So
we're looking at an expansion of these risks ahead,
right, the trafficking and drugs trafficking in people
as well right. Yes, I'm very worried about this. I think as
the economic crisis deepens and bites, I think illicit economic
actors, transnational criminal organizations who are already
well entrenched in parts of Myanmar will get stronger. We
capitalize on this and I'm worried that we could see
larger parts of Myanmar being captured by these criminal
economic agendas. That's very bad for these areas. It's bad
for the country, but it's also bad for a better future for
Myanmar because once these very powerful, very rich criminal
networks have managed to work out how to operate in
the new normal, they will be very resistant to any attempts
to improve the situation and bring it back to
better governance and a more normal situation. and so it
won't just be the military that will have to
be dislodged. It will also have to be these criminal networks
that will step up their activities in the
country, and that will be a very difficult battle for any government.
And going back to your remarks the other day about a failed state
at what point does one say that that a country or Myanmar in
this case is a failed state. and then what happens then?
This is a difficult question because in
many ways, parts of Myanmar have experienced state failure
for years or decades. Areas where normal governance does
not exist. Areas where the state is incapable of delivering any
kind of services, including law and order areas, which have
been de facto governed by different non state actors. I
think the risk and the worry is that that kind of state failure
spreads from you know particular contained parts of
the country to the center and once you have the
heartland of the country failing in that way, it's it'll
be very hard. You know for the country to kind of muddle
through and for people to survive and we could really see
a really catastrophic situation, not just in terms of
economic problems, but also in terms of security for
people and I think there's you know this. We've seen
around the world what happens when states fail in that way,
and it is possible that Myanmar can also go down that path and that
would be a very serious development for the country, for
its neighbors and for the wider region. Certainly what happens
in Myanmar doesn't stay in Myanmar. We've seen that point.
I'll give you the last word. What is your take on the situation going forward?
What would your appeal be in terms of Myanmar?
I would appeal to the neighboring countries to really
think about that yes, the problems in Myanmar are not
going to be contained. Let's not forget that this is a Covid
era and the military seems to be taking actions that without
taking into consideration of human lives whether against
protesters or things even like forcing all the teachers and
students, young students to come back to school.
Forcing open schools with unvaccinated students just
spells a recipe for a Covid contagion like it just
seems like there is lack of consideration for human lives
in every decision that they're making the decision that the
military made around so many things really perplexed many
people who have. And they have really undone the last decades
of progress that we've made in poverty alleviation in the last
100 days alone, and it has been very heartbreaking for those of
us who are in the fields of working on poverty alleviation
and if we were to look at, you know the military generals and
the elite they may be millionaires and billionaires
with private bank accounts in Singapore to store their
stashes. But if we look at the pay scale of the enlisted man.
The private foot soldiers in Myanmar earns 160 thousand kyat
per month, which is less than $100 per month in today's
exchange rate. So the these foot soldiers, their families
are going to be suffering from this economic downturn. All
these impact, they're going to be experiencing and feeling
the exact same impact as the rest of the citizens. They're not
going to be immune to these economic shocks coming in. Very hard
to see this gigantic reversal. Pwint Htun, Richard Horsey, thank you very much for
being on Asian insider today. All the best and take care out there.
Very regrettably, we are looking at a bleak situation in
Myanmar, which is only likely to get worse. Remember that the
UNDP defines poverty in Myanmar as one US dollar a day
For Asian insider. I'm Nirmal Ghosh.