The February 2021 military coup that shook Myanmar is still one of the most bloody and horrifying recent coups to seize power. Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, overthrew a democratically elected government and immediately established a reign of terror that still leaves open wounds around the country. For any student of military strategy or political struggle, Myanmar is a chastening lesson on how authoritarian powers are built, how opposition movements endure, and how the world grapples with imposing justice.
Its hold on power has been consolidated by unrelenting violence against non-combatants. It is the view of Nicholas Koumjian, head of the United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, that “We have gathered credible evidence documenting the perpetration of a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity, namely, murder, rape, torture, arbitrary detention, and deportation or forcible transfer.”
It is no singular occurrence but part of a process that is organized and systematic. The security forces indiscriminately attacked civilians, used torture and rape as tools of control, and arrested thousands by process. The trend shows an alarming doctrine wherein repression and fear are held in much greater esteem than legitimacy and popular will.
Even against a much stronger army, there is opposition. Militias and local guerrillas, under-equipped as they are, still resist using traditional insurgency warfare tactics like ambushes, sabotage, and hit-and-run warfare.
Their continued resistance proves an elementary principle of military strategy: that even the strongest armies can be defeated by obstinate opponents, if their tactics repel the very people they purportedly represent.
Internationally, it has made the crimes unaccountable to politics and the unwillingness of the government to assist investigators. The United Nations fact-finding mission has taken a lot of care in collecting evidence through the interviewing of witnesses, documents, videos, photographs, geospatial data, and social media, with limited access to the country.
Witness and survivor risk is enormous, yet they were able to provide enormous evidence that one day could be utilized to bring offenders of such crimes to book.
Accountability is the biggest issue of highest priority. As Koumjian underscores, grave international crimes do not have a statute of limitations, and thus,s the offenders can be prosecuted years later. The act of gathering and storing evidence today is not to document history—it’s being ready when the time is needed for justice to be served.
This is all part of a larger movement in the war on law in which the focus is increasingly on making individuals accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
To historians and military planners, Myanmar is a lesson in what a regime does beyond the constraints of law. It again emphasizes the importance of careful fact-finding, the utilitarian function of international institutions, and the necessity of ceaseless global vigilance.
As much as the struggle for justice is anything but won, efforts currently in progress can someday guarantee that the perpetrators of such atrocities are brought to book.