The 2023 Myanmar Update aims to understand, celebrate, and explicate the Myanmar people’s resistance to the 1 February 2021 coup. The military’s violent crackdown on what was initially a peaceful popular uprising provoked a near-countrywide revolutionary movement, which has brought together an array of different political, ethnic, and religious groups fighting for the shared goal of ending military rule. While differences exist in objectives and strategies, the establishment of organisations like the National Unity Government (NUG) and the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), as well as the numerous other formal and informal alliances, has arguably created an unprecedented sense of unity among Myanmar’s diverse peoples and raised widespread hope that this time the struggle may succeed.    

The conference seeks to explore the complexities of the revolutionary struggle; the effects of the coup on the state and economy; and, the myriad ways in which the people in Myanmar are coping with deepening violence and poverty.

• How has the coup and the popular response to it reshaped Myanmar politics?
• How are new armed groups forming, and how are they sustained?
• What has happened to the civil disobedience movement?
• What are the social, economic, and psychological implications of continued violence?
• How is the diaspora contributing to the revolution?
• How can foreign governments and the international aid community best support resistance to dictatorship?

We aim to address these kinds of questions, among others, in this conference.

The conference will take place at The Australian National University on Friday 21 July – Saturday 22 July 2023.

The two-day conference will feature scholars and experts from Australia, Myanmar, UK, North America and around the regions.

There are also pre-conference events on Thursday 20 July that we will list on our conference program with more information:

• 8.30am-4.30pm – Early Career Research workshop (by invitation)
• 4.30-5pm – Launch of Myanmar Update photo exhibition by Mayco Naing (Artist and Curator)
• 5.30-6.30 pm – Guest lecture ‘De-‘Area Studies’-izing Burmese History, The African (and African American) ‘Burma' Experience in the Twentieth Century’ by Michael Charney from SOAS, University of London

Convening Committee

• Cecile Medail - Visiting Fellow, Department of Political and Social Change, ANU, cecile.medail@anu.edu.au
• Morten Pedersen - Board member, Myanmar Research Centre, ANU, Morten.Pedersen@adfa.edu.au
• Yuri Takahashi - Lecturer and Convenor of the Burmese Program, ANU, Yuri.Takahashi@anu.edu.au
• Samuel Hmung - Research Officer, Myanmar Research Centre, ANU, Samuel.hmung@anu.edu.au

Sponsors

The 2023 ANU Myanmar Update is supported by the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, the International Development Research Centre, Canada, the International IDEA, and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Human rights in Myanmar: The NUG's programs and policies

By H.E. Aung Myo Min, Minister for Human Rights, National Unity Government, Myanmar

On April 16, 2021, the interim government, National Unity Government (NUG), was formed with two main aims: to eliminate the military dictatorship in Myanmar and to build a genuine federal democratic union. The Ministry of Human Rights is one of the seventeen ministries of the NUG to ensure nation-building in which all citizens and residents are treated equally without any discrimination as per international human rights principles and standards.

During this presentation and interactive discussion, the NUG Human Rights Minister H.E. Aung Myo Min will share how the Ministry works with various stakeholders both domestically and internationally to serve the people of Myanmar to be respectful of, to be protective of, and to promote human rights on par with the international human rights principles and standards. 

The Ministry is running three key programs: developing a mechanism where human rights abuses and violations can be put forwards as complaints and recording all human rights violations; cooperating and collaborating with international organizations working on human rights and justice, including the United Nations, to put the culture of impunity to an end; and, to ensure that human rights principles and standards are integrated into every policy and position of the NUG.

This opportunity to meet with Minister Aung Myo Min will be a chance to learn how the NUG is working with international human rights principles and to discuss the two-year old interim government's achievements to date.
 

About the speaker

H.E. Aung Myo Min has been an advocate for human rights in Myanmar for decades. He was a student activist when the pro-democracy movement happened in 1988 and escaped to the Myanmar-Thai border after the 1988 military coup. He served in the Foreign Affairs Department of the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front. In 1995, he earned a master’s degree in human rights from Columbia University.

In 2000 he founded the Human Rights Education Center (Myanmar) in Thailand. From 2005 to 2010 he served as Director of the Human Rights Documentation Department under the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma. He was serving as Executive Director of Equality Myanmar before being appointed as the NUG Human Rights Minister. He holds seven international human rights honors including the Shuman Award presented by the EU.

This is an in-person only event, reception at 4.30pm, lecture at 5pm.

Registration is essential.

Climate justice in the context of conflict in Southeastern Myanmar 

During the ‘political reforms era’ of the 2010s, Myanmar/Burma attracted an influx of financial and technical support for developing and implementing climate change adaptation policies and projects. How did these adaptation efforts come to unfold in conflict-affected areas of the country and interact with existing drivers and dynamics of conflict there?

In this presentation, Marianne will share some insights from  her PhD research on the politics of adaptation in the context of the ‘Karen revolution’ in southeastern Myanmar during the fragile NCA ceasefire period of the late 2010s. The project combines insights from semi-structured and life story narrative interviews conducted during multi-sited fieldwork in Myanmar in 2018 and 2019 (incl. Karen state, Tanintharyi region, Nay Pyi Taw and Yangon), with a critical policy analysis. By building on critical adaptation, climate justice and political ecology literature, the project contributes to advance our understanding of the adaptation-conflict nexus and highlights the centrality of climate justice in adaptation processes.

SPEAKER:

Marianne Mosberg is a PhD candidate at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in Ås, Norway, and she is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Myanmar Research Center/Department of Political and Social Change at ANU. 

DISCUSSANT:

Terese Gagnon is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Copenhagen focusing on 'The Politics of Climate and Sustainability in Asia'. She holds a PhD in anthropology from Syracuse University. Her current book project, a multi-sited ethnography, is about Karen food, seed, and political sovereignty across landscapes of home and exile.

CHAIR: Hunter Marston

The ANU Myanmar Research Centre Dialogue Series is a conversation concerning current research on Myanmar aimed at providing scholars with an opportunity to present their work, try out an idea, advance an argument and critically engage with other researchers.

Timezone: 

5–6pm AEDT (UTC+11), 12.30–1.30pm MMT, 11.30am–12.30pm IST 

VENUE:

The dialogues in the series will be held in hybrid mode, ie in-person on the ANU Campus, and virtually on zoom.

• IN-PERSON: Seminar Room B 3.104, Level 1, HC Coombs Building, 9 Fellows Road, ANU, Acton, ACT, 2601
• ONLINE: Zoom. Once you register here, you will receive access to the online event page in Eventbrite where you will find the join link for the zoom meeting. Please select the relevant ticket, in-person or online, according to your preferred attendance mode.

For more information on the MRC 2023 Dialogue Series please see the MRC website 

You can subscribe to the ANU Myanmar Research Centre mailing list here.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Twin health and education crises in Myanmar and the role of the international community

The current health and education situation in Myanmar presents significant challenges that require urgent attention from the international community. This has been further exacerbated by the consequences of the Myanmar military’s attempted coup on 1 Feb 2021, which disrupted the healthcare and education sectors. Almost 90 healthcare workers have lost their lives in military and police raids and other junta-associated violence since the attempted coup. There are currently 1.6 million internally displaced people across Myanmar, 17.6 million people in need, and 70,000 civilian properties including schools and hospitals have been burnt or destroyed by the junta since February 2021.

Amidst these challenges, the international community has a crucial role in making positive strides toward bettering Myanmar’s health and education situation by providing essential medical supplies, setting up medical clinics and mobile hospitals, and offering training to healthcare workers. In the education sector, international organizations can work with the NUG to reopen closed schools in liberated areas, establish temporary learning centres for displaced populations, and promote inclusive education for children with diverse needs.

In this lecture, Dr Zaw Wai Soe will outline the complexities of Myanmar’s health and education situation, and offer reasons that it requires sustained commitment, collaboration, and support from the global community. He will discuss how, by working together, domestic and international actors can help alleviate the challenges faced by the people of Myanmar and open the way for a brighter and more promising future.

About the speaker

H.E. Dr Zaw Wai Soe is an orthopedic surgeon and professor who since April 2021 has served as the Union Minister for the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education appointed by the National Unity Government of Myanmar.

He is the founder of the Spine Surgery and Emergency Medicine in Myanmar. He is the former Rector of the University of Medicine 1 and served as the chairman of the Myanmar Rector’s Committee till February 2021. He played a leading role in Myanmar’s COVID-19 fight as the vice chair of COVID-19 Contain, Control and Treating Coordination Committee.

This is an in-person only event, light refreshments at 5pm, lecture at 5.30pm.

Registration is essential.

This event is presented by the ANU Myanmar Research Centre and the ANU College of Health & Medicine