Myanmar’s military will do “whatever it takes” to crush opposition to its rule, its top general said on Wednesday, after the junta extended a state of emergency and further delayed elections.
The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the February 2021 coup which ended a ten-year experiment with democracy and sparked mass protests and a crackdown on dissent.
Three years on, the junta is struggling to crush widespread armed opposition to its rule and recently suffered a series of stunning losses to an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups.
The military will do “whatever it takes to return the state to stability,” junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech carried by state broadcaster MRTV.
Hours before, the national defence and security council agreed on another six month extension to the state of emergency it declared when it ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
The extension of the state of emergency — due to expire at midnight on Wednesday — was needed to “continue the process of combatting terrorists,” the junta said in a statement.
The military seized power after making unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in 2020 elections which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.
It has extended the state of emergency multiple times since, delaying elections it has promised to hold.
Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution, which the junta has said is still in force, requires authorities to hold fresh elections within six months of a state of emergency being lifted.
The junta-stacked council also discussed “preparations for holding multi-party elections” at the meeting in the military-built capital Naypyidaw, it said, without giving details.
The junta is currently reeling from a series of battlefield setbacks and in recent days supporters of the military have made rare public criticism of the junta’s leadership.
In late October an alliance of ethnic minority fighters launched a surprise offensive in northern Shan state, seizing swathes of territory and control of lucrative trade hubs on the China border.
A China-brokered peace deal this month has paused the fighting in the north, but the alliance has largely kept its recent gains and clashes continue elsewhere.
The setbacks have also galvanised newer pro-democracy groups to renew their attacks on the military elsewhere in the country.
In his speech broadcast late Wednesday Min Aung Hlaing said clashes with ethnic minority armed groups were ongoing but gave no details.
He said the junta would provide more resources to local civilian militias supportive of its rule.
Independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson said extending the state of emergency was “a totally expected extension for a crumbling regime.”
“The regime’s other option would have been to end the emergency and move to hold elections, something it is clearly not ready to do, and its weak grip on security would make extremely difficult,” said Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group.
After her government was deposed, Suu Kyi, 78, was convicted in a series of trials that rights groups slammed as a sham, and sentenced to 33 years in prison.
Conflict has spiralled, wrecking the economy of the Southeast Asian nation.
Anti-coup “People’s Defence Forces” that sprang up to overturn the coup have surprised the junta with their effectiveness, analysts say, and have dragged the military into a bloody quagmire.
Junta groups have torched villages, carried out extrajudicial killings and used air strikes and artillery bombardments to punish communities opposed to its rule, opponents and rights groups say.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict led by the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc have made no headway.
More than 4,400 people have been killed in the military’s crackdown on dissent and over 25,000 arrested, according to a local monitoring group.
More than two million people have been displaced by violence since the putsch, according to the United Nations.
