Chapter 3 The Regime Of The Myanmar Junta

• Aside from the sub-contractors who were mostly local Myanmar companies, the project had hired and deployed an overall staff of sixteen Japanese engineers, two Philippine senior engineers, one Indonesian operator, four Malaysian heavy equipment drivers and thirty skilled Burmese locals.
• The project site camp was constructed around it with a high perimeter fence, a dense layout with an iron steel gate that serves as a checkpoint to any incoming visitors.
• The structures were extremely study with a guard house protecting all incoming and outgoing visitors including company staff and everybody else when coming or going outside from the project site.
• Among other issues, it serves as a protection for maximum interference of subversive elements and weekly inspections by the military junta ever since the ongoing conflict has started. It was the safety policy per se, to isolate the project camp against any violent situation that Myanmar has entered into.
• The Japanese Manager: Seiro Fukushima San, has made it sure that all the people involved in the project gets the primary overall safety from any ethic armed organizations fighting the government since the military Tatmadaw faces almost daily widespread opposition before the coup has even started.
• Moreover, some of the ordinary citizens are heavily organizing militias vowing to resist the juntas, including members of the opposition lawmakers and activists forming a shadow government and mobilizing forces throughout the country.
• In retaliation, the military responded with a brutal crackdown to all the opposing forces and protesters. But still it has not been able to consolidate the full control over large areas of the country that has warned experts these violence is all but certain to escalate.
• The coup has brought economic turmoil in Myanmar economy and it shrunk by more than twenty percent in a breeze.
• Additionally, the health care system has collapsed amidst the Covid 19 pandemic. Millions of people were facing hunger and tens of thousands already fled to other parts of the country and across all borders.
• Because of the coup, Myanmar has become a failing state and dangers to its neighbors.
• When the new corona virus emerged , the country newspaper The Light of Myanmar informed that the country was relatively unaffected. Despite a wave of infections from around the world, only a minimum of total deaths was reported by the State Government.
• So far, a total of more than 280,000 cases and only 8,200 deaths were appraised by the government. The case numbers, however, are thought to be under estimated because of the limited testing kits within the country.
• In reality, the actual numbers are much larger due to the lack of doctors, bottled oxygen, vaccine doses and unavailable medication supplies.
• Deaths are likely unaccounted for with only those who die in medical facilities were included in the official tally figures. Some even believed that when a person dies, it was never accounted for because it was not tested from covid despite displaying the symptoms.
• Oxygen was the most valuable and controversial commodity during the infection period, but even these was denied by the military informing the country it has no shortages from it.
• It was a blessing in disguise for the Grant Aid project they were constructing that supplies are supported by the military hospitals when cases of infections started within the project site.
• However, security forces would immediately take away the cylinders to prevent hoarding of oxygen sales to private individuals. But some information alleges that it was the exact opposite with the military actually were the real culprit of funneling these oxygen supplies.
• Medical workers were the first group to go on strike due to the coup that causes the healthcare to collapse even before the third wave of the infections were coming.
• We were just fortunate enough to receive the free medical services by doctors and nurses who were not participating in the civil disobedience.
• The coup has even led to the disruption of vaccination roll up which was launched by some medical people who still worked despite the issues. The military received Chinese and Russian vaccines but soon the Japanese have their support coming to the country, but it was only delivered later.
• If not for the timely intervention of the project management at the construction site, and without these vaccines reaching the site earlier, several workers from the construction would be sending them to the hospital and potentially leaving behind a lifeline of an aftermath.
• Today, even though there are still some sufferings from the uncontrolled community of spreading these diseases, the infection has greatly subsided in the coming weeks.
• Although there was not any big role of the virus affecting us due to the proficient leadership by the Japanese, the company still continued to picked up all the mandatory safety precautionary measures at the workplace.
• Wearing PPE’s, getting weekly testing and isolation protocols was fully implemented following any suspected staff or workers that were confirmed or exposed to the virus until a negative test result was finally found.
• Ever since the corona virus pandemic had started, the company suffered minor infections of just thirteen local staff and one Malaysian operator out of the five hundred fifty workers inside the construction site.
• Including other sub-contractors who were working for the project, everyone received at least two vaccine doses donated by the Chinese and Russian government. It was only later that the third dose was injected when supplies were transported from other country donors around the world.
• However, the double crisis has left Myanmar with no room to breathe – a military coup and a pandemic that killed hundreds of people.
• Among the protesters who joined were thousands of healthcare workers walking out leading to the collapse of the healthcare system. This leads to throwing Myanmar vaccinations and testing responses briefly into chaos.
• Eventually, the border has reopened within a few months’ time that people who were isolated from their families can travel back home due to blockage of towns, cities and borders including tourists who were trapped inside.
• While the country has been on track of recovering its economy, other isolated cases of dissent, domestic problems are still rampant including slower assistance coming from other countries.
• Despite the pandemic, it was also from this period that I enjoyed most of the time cultivating my spiritual energy. Indeed, my body was much stronger in comparison to the ordinary individuals at the project site. My energy immune system of resisting the covid infection was powerful enough to resist the effect of the virus where others would become severely ill or even end up dead.