THE MYANMAR embassy in London was taken over by representatives of the country’s military junta on Wednesday with the previous Ambassador Kyaw Zwar Minn unceremoniously kicked out and replaced by a junta loyalist.
Kyaw Zwar Minn has been an irritant to the military junta for his opposition to the seizure of power by the military in a coup that overthrew the democratically elected government declaring that the landslide election of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy was ‘fraudulent’.
After being ejected and locked out of the embassy, Kyaw Zwar Minn said: ‘This is a coup. This is the UK, we are not in Myanmar. They are not able to do this. The British government won’t allow this one, you’ll see that.’
He urged the British government not to recognise the replacement installed by the military and send him and all the allies of the junta back to Myanmar.
In fact the Tories were more than happy to allow him to be slung out with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab simply urging the Myanmar military dictatorship to end its bullying.
Raab said: ‘The UK continues to call for an end to the coup and the appalling violence, and a swift restoration of democracy.’ What he pointedly didn’t say was that the UK government would refuse to recognise any ambassador sent by the junta and continue to recognise Kyaw Zwar Minn as ambassador.
The brutal truth is that British imperialism along with every other imperialist nation is quite happy to offer nothing more than polite requests to the military junta to stop murdering men, women and children while refusing to lift a finger to actually stop them.
No international blockades or sanctions have been placed on the junta regime, not even the threat of action to oust the military that has so far murdered over 600 unarmed protesters including 48 children.
Now the Tories are claiming they won’t even do anything about a coup on their own doorstep, claiming that they cannot interfere in another country’s diplomatic procedures.
This regard for diplomatic niceties didn’t extend to countries like Venezuela, where US imperialism along with the UK government declared that they would recognise the CIA stooge Juan Guaido as president and waged a vicious campaign of sanctions, attempted military coups and assassinations to overthrow the democratically elected president Nicolas Maduro.
In 2014 in Ukraine, US and EU imperialism threw millions into arming and organising the right wing, including self-declared fascists, in an uprising to oust the democratically elected government of Victor Yanukovych.
In the same way, they financed and gave military support to the Islamist groups to overthrow Colonel Gadaffi in Libya, devastating that country.
Around the world, imperialism has organised to overthrow democratically elected governments and install puppet regimes.
In Myanmar, what is different is that the military dictatorship are imperialism’s allies and the enemy is the Myanmar workers and masses who are rising up to overthrow the junta.
This movement is fast reaching a new stage as it moves from peaceful protest to an armed uprising with growing calls for a ‘people’s army’ as the masses of workers and youth are coming to the realisation that peaceful protest will not bring down the military.
At least two armed ethnic groups, who have been fighting the Myanmar military for decades in the struggle for independent homelands have joined with protesters and offered sanctuary and weapons training to workers and young people. In areas where they are strong these armed groups have been protecting all protesters no matter what ethnic group they belong to.
This unity is showing the way forward for the workers and masses in Myanmar – an armed revolutionary uprising to overthrow the military and for the working class and masses to seize power and go forward to a workers’ and small farmers’ government and socialism that will respect the rights of all minorities.
The imperialist powers are standing in support of bloody military dictatorship – the working class will take the side of the Myanmar people and support the revolutionary armed struggle as the way forward.
