“I’m worried that the military will catch my sister and brother… Solidarity with Myanmar”

A certified shot of solidarity with Korean civic group’Democracy in Myanmar’

Hninsso, 29, from Myanmar living in Korea said, “It seemed like the world had collapsed” when he heard the news of the coup in his home country on the 1st.

Communication with family members in Myanmar was cut off by the third day of the coup. Even after I managed to reach you, my heart is strong. In my home country, my sister and brother, who are civil servants, are on strike and protest against civil disobedience every day. My brother, who lived in the residence, escaped from the military arrest network and took refuge in another area.

The voice of Hninso, interviewed by Kyunghyang Shinmun on the 21st, trembled thinly beyond the handset. “It’s scary every night that the military will catch you. The military can shoot at will. Because they secretly catch people at night.”

I sleep at night whenever I hear the news that the military shoots live ammunition, rubber ammunition, and slingshot. A 19-year-old protester, who was shot in the head in the capital Naepido on the 9th, died on the 19th after suffering brain death. On the 20th, two more protesters were shot and killed in Mandalay. Contemplating whether there is anything that can be done in Korea, and posted a proof shot against the Myanmar coup on the Myanmar solidarity certification shot page of’Pati Campaigns’ opened by 18 domestic civic groups.

After attending university in Korea since 2011, Hninsso has never experienced’after democratization’ in his home country. It was in 2016, after coming to Korea, when the military government that took power in 1962 handed over the government to the civilian government led by National Advisor Aung San Suu Kyi. So, I’m a little bit envious of Generation Z (a generation born after 1995) who went through 5 years after the transfer of civil government.

However, it was indirectly felt that society became more transparent every time I traveled to Myanmar. After the regime change, the practice of receiving bribes at airports by immigrants disappeared. “When I went to Myanmar in 2013, police officers at the airport treated people who entered the country like sinners, saying,’Did you bring dollars? Give me one and go.’ From 2016, that has disappeared.”

Hninsso said that the reason Myanmar citizens were angry with the military was corruption and economic problems. “The military lives on our taxes, because the military lives well, the military children study luxuriously abroad, and the rest of the people are poor and difficult to live with.”

■“A second coup is possible now under the constitution”

Wenup, 35, a Myanmar living in Korea, also said in an interview with the Kyunghyang Shinmun that Myanmarians are angry at the relative deprivation. “80% of Myanmar’s economic power is held by the military,” said Wenup. He said in detail, where the children of the military are being educated abroad.”

Wenup, who studied Korean literature in 2009 and majored in Korean literature at graduate school, said, “After coming to Korea and receiving education, I belatedly realized the fact that the Myanmar military brainwashed us in the last 50 years to make us not smart.” I thought that the military coup should be rooted out. When I return to Myanmar, I decided to do a community movement.

When I heard the news that advisor Aung San Suu Kyi was detained on the 1st, I thought, “No way.” When it turned out to be true, I was vacant and didn’t go over rice properly. On the 16th, they joined in after hearing the news that Korean civic groups are carrying out a campaign to post solidarity certification shots. “Myanmar is committing crimes against humanity,” he wrote in Korean. In Myanmar, my eldest brother, who is the head of a health center, and my eldest sister, who is a high school teacher, strike out saying “I don’t work under the rule of the military” and go to protest every day.

Wenung said that the root cause of the coup was in the 2008 revised constitution. Under Myanmar’s constitution, the military is automatically assigned 25% of all parliamentary seats. Commander-in-chief of the military is not the president, but the commander-in-chief. In an emergency, the President may hand over legislative, administrative, and judicial powers to the head of the military. Wenup said, “Unless the constitution is amended, even if you return to the civil government, there may be a second or third coup at any time.” He said, “I hope that Koreans who have historical experience with the coup and who have ever revised the constitution will sympathize with the coup in Myanmar more than anyone else.”

About 400 citizens gathered in the campaign to upload certification shots, which 18 civic groups started on the 9th. Lee Young-ah, the secretary of the International Solidarity Committee for Participation Solidarity, said, “We started a campaign to solidify Korean civic groups in the Myanmar civil disobedience movement.”

Some point out that Korea is economically related to the Myanmar military. In its 2019 report, the UN Fact-Investigation Committee revealed that six of the 14 major companies that supported the military by doing business with the Myanmar military were Korean companies such as POSCO. Kim Ki-nam, lawyer of Adi, an Asian human rights protection organization, said, “I want to see if Korean companies are also contributing to the retreat of democracy in Myanmar.”

▶Posting a certification shot on’Pati Campaigns’: https://campaigns.kr/campaigns/304/pickets