Myanmar refugees fear 'killing licence' as junta readies 'sham election'

Summary

• Anxiety grows among Myanmar nationals at home and abroad as a “sham election” nears, while fierce fighting and airstrikes continue across the country. 

• The NLD’s Malaysia chapter urged a total boycott, calling the junta’s Dec 28-29 polls a “licence to kill” that will entrench military rule.

• Nearly five million have fled Myanmar since the 2021 coup, including 200,000 escaping conscription this year - 20,000 fled to Malaysia, while others went to Japan and South Korea.

Anxiety and frustration are mounting among Myanmar refugees worldwide as the junta pushes ahead with what is being rejected across the country as a “sham election”, raising fears of an unprecedented wave of people fleeing the country.

“The common factor is fright,” said one refugee advocate based in Kuala Lumpur, Saw Mue Mue, describing a nation gripped by trauma and uncertainty as junta leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, moves to cement his rule through an election designed to make his presidency permanent.

Saw, president of the National League of Democracy’s (NLD) Organising Committee (International) Malaysia, equated the election with giving the military a “licence to kill”.

Such was the handwritten note handed to Malaysiakini by an asylum seeker - a desperate yet resolute appeal urging Asean governments to reject Myanmar’s junta-run “sham election” and prevent further bloodshed and a worsening refugee crisis.

Malaysia and Bangladesh are listed among the neighbouring countries expected to receive the next outpouring of refugees.

“If the election is approved (goes ahead), it will be a ‘killing licence’ and there will be daily airstrikes that bury villages, destroy farmland and property, and more people will flee,” he warned.

Polls to entrench power, not democracy

Saw said the Dec 28-29 polls are a bid to secure long-term military control rather than restore democracy, cautioning that legitimising the election would only entrench the junta’s violent rule.

“However, if the supreme revolution of Myanmar is successful, everyone abroad will go back to their homeland,” he said.

An employers’ organisation based in Myanmar also warned that the junta was strategically rebranding its rule by fielding at least 30 former senior military officers as election candidates in the December polls.

A representative from the Myanmar Employers Organisation (MEO) warned diplomats not to fall for the junta’s ruse of a “ceasefire charm” which only served to mask its election manipulation. 

At the Asean Summit, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim hailed the junta’s “cooperation”, while UN chief Antonio Guterres cautioned that peace in Myanmar “remains elusive”.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly five million people have been displaced inside and outside Myanmar since the 2021 coup, while Asean’s Five-Point Consensus has been ignored.

Meanwhile, fierce fighting and persistent airstrikes continued across northern and western Myanmar, where resistance forces hold several key territories.

Military coup

As National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) chair, Min came into power through a coup against the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD in February 2021, which gave rise to the Spring Revolution.

Since then, for more than four years, his regime extended the state of emergency at six-month intervals to maintain military rule until this July, when the emergency was formally ended and the regime’s governing body, the State Administrative Council, was dissolved.

Min then formed an 11-member State Security and Peace Commission, which he also chairs. 

The NDSC’s move marks the junta’s rebranding - turning senior officers into civilian election candidates and a former general, U Nyo Saw, into the new Union government’s prime minister. 

Groups have since urged neighbouring countries to impose sanctions as individual states without waiting for an Asean bloc action. The sanctions would have weakened the junta and could have ended the turmoil last year if imposed.

People’s boycott

Saw said the message to everyone is clear - “boycott the sham elections”.

Early this month, The Irrawaddy, an exiled independent media organisation, reported that the regime intends to conduct the polls under the already-dissolved 2008 constitution, while demanding that resistance forces lay down their arms, register as political parties, and take part. 

While leading opposition groups and a substantial portion of the population are expected to boycott the election, there are pockets of the population who will go to the polls. 

According to an MEO representative who spoke to Malaysiakini on condition of anonymity, the junta’s main voters will likely come from the wealthy military elite, their business partners, and urban professionals.

The junta, controlling too few territories for nationwide polls, plans to begin elections in Naypyitaw before staging further rounds in its strongholds through January. 

Another lingering fear is that the upcoming election could mark a point of no return for rebuilding the nation for those who fled.

Saw is a UNHCR cardholder and is awaiting relocation, but knows many Myanmar refugees who want to return to their homes and rebuild their land.

“Many cannot go back because the military will detain them, yet they cannot stay either, as their undocumented status risks arrest.

“Many don’t want to remain here - they want to go home,” he added.  

The MEO representative said they documented about 200,000 people fleeing the junta’s conscription process this year alone, and at least 10 percent or 20,000 Myanmar nationals fled to Malaysia.

Other countries of refuge were Japan and South Korea.

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