Good hearts, poor memories

Love For Myanmar Ministries Update

Christ Centered, Servant Hearted, Myanmar Focused

“A Christian life is an unending engagement on the battlefield.” Watchman Nee

Compared to the crisis in Ukraine and the Middle East, Myanmar’s struggles receive minimal attention from the international community. The United States evidently perceives that Myanmar has little strategic value, especially given that its northern neighbor is China. Although “the West” could favorably shape Myanmar’s battle for democracy, it is ultimately the Myanmar people who are keeping their country from falling further into a military-driven dictatorship.

The multitude of ethnic armed groups are striving to overtake the junta, and have achieved many military victories resulting in substantial territorial gains. The junta has suffered humiliating defeats in the last two years with major Command posts being captured by resistance forces. The junta’s military has seen a wave of desertions, low morale, and a loss of dignity. Although the junta’s coup is weakening, the generals continue to hold firmly to their belief that they should be governing the country so the fighting will not end quickly.

The military coup which is now into its fourth year in Myanmar is a heartbreaking event. Just as the country was healing from the wounds of previous junta regimes, another set of military leaders has thrown down the gauntlet in front of democracy, basically daring its supporters to only dream of what might have been.

The people are refusing to allow democracy to fall into obscurity as they have experienced, albeit briefly, what governance which cares about the people can do. Now is the time for us in democracies to support the determined efforts of the Myanmar people to triumph over the crisis in their country.

The world must not shut itself off from the cries coming from Myanmar. We are robbing our own sense of justice if we ignore Myanmar’s fight for democracy. Isn’t it a defining feature of democracy for those who benefit from it to support those who are struggling to secure it? When did it become acceptable to just be curious from a distance and consider another country’s battle for democracy completely different from our own? The battle for democracy should not be an isolated experience but, draw upon the collective scars of those who also suffered during their crusade to govern themselves.

Please permit yourself to think beyond your personal circumstances and act to help the people of Myanmar. Many of our hearts are good but our memories are poor. We forget the struggles to obtain the freedoms we enjoy with democracy. Please open your hearts to the struggles of the Myanmar people who also want the freedoms you enjoy. If you want to help make a meaningful difference in this coup and transform the lives of the Myanmar people, please take the personal step to give to one of our ministries. In the last quarter alone, we reached over 4,000 villagers with over 2,100 being children providing food supplies the equivalent of 35,000 meals while sharing the “Good News” of Jesus Christ through our house churches network.

Gary Watkins, LFM Co-founder

• Prayer Request: (Myanmar coup day 1,468)
  Please pray that our God delivers Myanmar from the grasp of the military junta, and restores the voices of the people to govern in ways which renew the dignity and worth of every citizen.

1. A faith-based frontline aid organization has recently reported that the Burma Army deployed chemical weapons using drones in Shan State. The drones dispersed aluminum phosphide, an insecticide that releases phosphine gas upon contact with moisture, causing symptoms like nausea and dizziness. This raises serious concerns about the Burma Army’s weaponization of industrial chemicals. The discovery of alleged chemical weapon production facilities in the Bago region in southern-central Burma adds weight to accusations of chemical weapons development.
2. Four Mon resistance groups, the Mon Liberation Army, the Mon State Defense Force, the Mon State Revolutionary Force, and the Mon National Liberation Army – Anti-Dictatorship, recently announced that they were unifying to enhance military operations in Mon State. Mon ethnic armed groups operate in southeastern Burma’s Mon and Karen states, as well as the Tanintharyi Region.
3. The Ministry of Defense recently issued the People’s Military Service bylaw which includes a provision that a person who has received an order from the township organization for civil service is not allowed to travel abroad without the permission of the central organization. It is stipulated that if a person who is required to serve in the military service is a member of a political party, he or she shall be deemed to have resigned from the relevant party during the period of serving in the military service.
4. Junta authorities appear to be increasingly abducting young men on the street or during household inspections to boost the number of military conscripts, while families and activists say bribes are no longer enough to free them. Besides abductions, irregularities include the conscription of underage youth and others who are supposed to be exempt, such as the husbands of pregnant women and the sole caregivers of ailing parents. Very few young men are keen to serve in the widely despised military, and many have fled to foreign countries such as Thailand, or to areas controlled by armed resistance groups.
5. During resistance attempts to seize junta outposts, many junta troops and their families surrendered and were taken prisoner. The detention centers where the junta prisoners were placed are being targeted by junta airstrikes primarily aimed to silence the junta’s own troops, preventing them from confessing to war crimes and leaking regime strategies.
6. A BBC World Service study found the junta in full control of only 21% of Myanmar as of mid-November, a patchwork of rebel groups holding 42% , and both sides contesting the rest. With the ground they gained over the past year, the rebels have transformed the war by linking up what were mostly pockets of armed resistance into long stretches across the country which the military can no longer penetrate overland.
7. The junta began registering women for military service in Taunggyi City in southern Shan State for the first time. The junta is increasingly targeting women for conscription as the pool of young men decreases. Young people are at risk of abduction by junta soldiers in civilian clothes who are roaming the city.