Myanmar: What Lessons Do We Learn From July 7 Incident? – OpEd
By Kanbawza Win
After nearly three score years, the entire people of Burma together with those in Diaspora are still waiting for the Tatmadaw’s True News Information Team, to release the official figures of the infamous 7th July incident of 1962, now that Dr. Chander Prakash Singh, who had to sign the death certificate as he was in charge of the Rangoon University Hospital, at that time, had quietly passed away. The true colour of the Tatmadaw, the national army, was revealed for the first time since its military coup on 2nd March 1962 that finally took the country to the lowest ladder of the Least Developed Status up to this day.
If one can recollect, Burma in the late 50s was one of the emerging economic tigers of the world, as Myanmarnization has not started and Prime Minister U Nu being the co-founder of the Non Align- Movement, together with Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and Pandit Nehru of India were standing tall at the UN. However, the split within the ruling party of Anti-Fascist Peoples’ Freedom League, which started with their respective better half, was so intense that the Army was invited to take over the country in 1959 who at once became power maniacs and since then was able to hold on to power, under different pretext up to this day.
On that fateful day of 7th July 1962, I was just a fresher, knowing nothing about politics, was among the crowds when Col. Sein Lwin implemented Ne Win’s order to deliberately kill the 126 Rangoon University students proving beyond doubt that Tatmadaw had neatly followed the dictum of Chairman Mao Hse Dong “that power comes out of the gun” and has proven true up to this day, which shattered the very foundation of the Union of the country and Democracy itself.
The 7th July Massacre is a combination of atrocity and horror at the indiscriminate slaughter of the innocence painted Tatmadaw’s cruelty in the sense, that an entire nation was judged through this rash acts that only took the country to the bottom of the least developed status but also being judge that the Burmese now christened themselves as Myanmar harbour some sort of African mentality and still needs to be qualified to be in the family of civilized nations currently being demonstrated at the International court of Justice at the Hague. This acts of cruelty and genocidal incidents were often repeated several times against its own people especially on the students led demonstrations and non-Myanmar ethnic nationalities as only then the imperial Myanmar Tatmadaw can continue to rule and ruin the country. It came to such a point that in the late 90s the heads of the ABSDF (All Burma Students Democratic Front) were taken for trophy in the front lines of Mae Hong Son area of Thai-Burma border area to instill terror on the student population. The international community has known that these atrocities were often repeated which was proven in the Rohingya crisis. Even now, they are implementing now against the Arakanese population as can be witness of how Burma Air Force war planes are indiscriminately bombing the Arakanese women and children. In short the psyche and rationale of the Myanmar Tatmadaw resembles a very sick man that cannot only differentiated what is right and wrong or cruelty and an honourable fight.
Myanmar, is the only country in the world, which cannot comprehend Justice or National Reconciliation and anathema to Peace and Tranquility. Their logic is that, if there is peace, the Tatmadaw will have to go back to their barracks, which they don’t want to, as they had been in power for more than half a century. Paradoxically, Facebook seems to back up this logic and have taken a chance of perhaps earning millions of dollars from the Tatmadaw, when it unceremoniously gives the green light again to the genocidal Tatmadaw to reopen up their accounts, in spite of the brutal massacring of the Rohingyas in 2017, driving some 700,000 to Bangladesh. Zaw Min Htun, the armyspokesperson eulogizes that with Facebook, we are going to churn out propagandas for the Tatmadaw’s white lies as can be seen of what is really happening in Arakan State.
Cunningly, not to let the international community knows about Tatmadaw’s “killing, detaining, and burning civilians’ homes,” the authorities continue blocking the internet services setting another new world record in the Guinness Book of Records, as the world’s longest internet blockade, so much so that the Rakhines, who are residing in that particular area did not know what Corvid 19 is even though some of them have already died. It should be noted that more than 130,000 people have been displaced in the remote areas of northern Arakan and southern Chin State, where the digital blockade has failed to defeat the freedom fighters.
In 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations the soldiers who shot at the Rangoon General Hospital and deliberately killed the medical staffs and patients were promoted and quietly transfer to other units, just like when Nagai Kenji, a Japanese photojournalist was deliberately shot during the 2007 Saffron Revolution was handsomely rewarded and promoted. Such is the thinking and the rationale of the Myanmar Tatmadaw, who has become a very sick man of Asia.
As even now 170 countries has endorsed the UN’s call to silence the guns, and stand united against the global threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, Myanmar continue its war of ethnic cleansing in Arakan State, as a new clearance operation was launched, in defiance of the ICJ’s provisional measures to prevent further harm to the populace. These attacks are deliberately done despite calls from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to halt conflicts, as nations struggle to address Covid-19 and ensure the health of their citizens. Currently the United Nations Human Rights chief said that up to 10,000 people had fled their homes in Rakhine state, after what she described as heavy fighting is continuing the past week between government troops and Rakhine freedom fighters. What more prove is wanted when the Myanmar Government and military spokesmen did not answer phone calls by Reuters and other renowned new agencies seeking comment on the number of people who had fled or the reported fighting between the imperial Tatmadaw, and Arakan Freedom fighters.
Michelle Bachelet, the U.N High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the Human Rights Council, a Geneva-based forum, during a debate on Myanmar that 77,000 people displaced before the latest fighting. Twenty-one international humanitarian organizations working in Myanmar has just issued a statement urging the military to stop further escalation of the conflict in Rakhine State, to protect civilians and to adhere to international humanitarian law.
By these acts it proves that Myanmar army stills need to be civilized, as even at the time of this writing the homes are being burnt down in Kyauntan village creating a new humanitarian disaster despite genocide investigations into previous clearance operations by the military in the ICJ in the International Criminal Court. What more prove is wanted that Myanmar is not so civilized as to defythe provisional measures of the ICJ by thesesmilitary operations? While the government offers lies and excuses to the world about their crimes in 2017, they are continuing the same crimes in plain sight, while the world is distracted by a global pandemic. It is extremely sad to witness the massacring of the university student since 7th July 1962 up to this day especially massacring its own people currently in Western Burma of Arakan state. Tatmadaw has never or will ever admit their mistake and have no intent of moderating and rationalizing antagonism toward the students, the ethnic nationalities or the civilized international community for more than half a century, hence, it is high time for the international community to consider that the Imperial Myanmar Tatmadaw should be replaced by the Pyidaungsu (Union of Burma) Army by force to stop the ongoing civil wars of seven decades.
