Author: ISP Admin

The year 2022 recorded the lowest level of foreign direct investment (FDI) in four years, measured over the first seven months of the fiscal year. Compared to 2021, the year of the coup, FDI has fallen by more than half. More than US$ 1.6 billion in foreign investment was recorded between January and July 2022, the second largest inflow under the State Administration Council’s control. In June, only US$ 6.59 million entered, but in July, it increased to nearly US$ 1.2 billion. Compared to June, foreign investment increased 180 times in one month.

In Myanmar, the number of internally displacedpeople (IDPs) due to conflict and cross-border refugees from 1989 to August 20, 2022 has reached 2,930,201. Of these, 1,413,811 represent the increased number of refugees and IDPs since the 2021 coup, accounting for 48 percent of the total. There were also more than 497,200 internally displaced persons who were already on the run due to armed conflicts which had occurred before the coup. The combined number of cross-border refugees before and after the coup is at least 1,019,190.

One year after the 2021 military coup, ISP-Myanmar initiated a research survey of Myanmar’s Key Stakeholders and their Perceptions of Sino-Myanmar relations with technical support from the People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE). The initiative aims to collect specific knowledge of key individuals from the Myanmar policy communities to identify similarities and differences in their views about the key factors shaping Sino-Myanmar relations.

At least 6,678 clashes have erupted across the country since the military coup. Of these, 4,052 clashes were between SAC forces and EAOs; at least 1,711 clashes were between SAC forces and the local People’s Defense Forces (PDF/LDF/CDF/CNDF/KNDF etc.); at least 827 clashes broke out between SAC forces and combined groups of EAOs and PDFs, and at least 48 clashes erupted within EAOs themselves. There was at least one clash between local PDFs and EAOs in May and there were around 39 clashes between SAC forces and as yet unknown armed groups.

Since the military coup in February 2021, the conflict map of Myanmar has become broader and larger as a result of armed conflicts between SAC forces and ethnic armed organizations, as well as between SAC forces and newly formed local defense forces. A number of China’s major projects have either come under attack or have been threatened as a result of conflicts in project areas. Most clashes took place in the area surrounding the Letpadaung Copper Mine. Later in June, Wanbao announced that it had suspended operations at the mine for more than 16 months.

The junta’s practice of executing those under politically motivated death sentences is the latest indication that ASEAN’s push for a ‘return to normalcy’ in Myanmar is over. Although the new trajectory of the country is still vague, it is certain that the ‘old normal’ – of problem definition and resolution within Myanmar politics – can no longer work to solve the current crises. 

Artillery attacks and fire destroyed at least 28,419 buildings, including homes and religious structures, between February 1, 2021 and July 15, 2022. Sagaing Region saw the heaviest damage with about 20,485 houses torched or destroyed, accounting for about 72 percent of the total. The second highest affected area was Magway Region, where 5,705 buildings were torched or destroyed, accounting for 20 percent of the total. The remaining 2,229 buildings, accounting for 7.84 percent of the total, were torched or destroyed across Chin, Kayah, Shan, Mon and Karen States, and Mandalay, Tanintharyi and Bago Regions.

Of all armed ethnic groups, the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army (KNU/KNLA) has clashed with junta forces most often since the coup.  With the increasing number of clashes in the southeast of Myanmar, the clashes have become intensified, and the conflict has become more widespread in eastern Bago Region, Karen and Mon States and Tanintharyi Region. This conflict map by ISP-Myanmar shows locations where battles broke out, locations of airstrikes by junta forces, where houses were torched and destroyed, as well as the numbers of civilian deaths  and refugees in the region. 

In Myanmar, the combined number of internally displaced people and refugees having crossed a border due to conflict from 1989 to May 31, 2022 has exceeded 2.5 million (2,589,112). Of these, 1,009,190 (combined before and after the coup)are refugees who have fled the country and 497,200 are people internally displaced due to the various armed conflicts before the coup. The rest 1,082,722 represents the number of new IDPs increased since the coup on February 1, 2021 until May 31, 2022 due to clashes between State Administration Council (SAC) forces with both ethnic armed organizations and other local armed forces (such as the PDF/LDF/CDF/CNDF/KNDF).

Myanmar’s foreign trade topped US$16 billion during the first mini-budget period set by the State Administration Council (SAC). Exports accounted for nearly US$8.3 billion, while imports added nearly US$8 billion. Overall trade value declined in this period over the previous financial year by more than US$160 million. Trade with China during this period brought in more than US$4.2 billion, a drop of more than US$1.3 billion for the same period last year.

In the aftermath of the military coup between February 1, 2021 and May 31, 2022, a total of 209 people have been sentenced to death or life in prison, as well as a combination of death sentence and life imprisonment in connection with anti-military activities. Of this total, 117 were sentenced to death after their arrest or sentenced to death after warrants issued for them, six were sentenced to life imprisonment and death after their arrest, 86 were sentenced to life in prison after their arrest. Out of 209 who are facing these most severe penalties, 202 are from Yangon Region, accounting for 96.7 percent of the total; the remaining seven are from Ayeyarwady Region, accounting for 3.3 percent of the total. Among those who were sentenced to death after the arrest, two are boys under the age of 18. 

Artillery attacks and fire destroyed at least 22,299 buildings, including homes and religious structures, between February 1, 2021, and May 26, 2022. Sagaing Region saw the heaviest damage with about 15,530 houses burned or destroyed, accounting for about 69.7 percent of the total. Magway had the second highest with 4,822 buildings burned or destroyed, or 21.6 percent of the total. The remaining 1,947 buildings, accounting for 8.7 percent of the total, were burned or destroyed across Mandalay, Tanintharyi, and Bago Regions, and  Kayah, Chin, Shan, and Karen States.

The State Administration Council (SAC) has seized at least 586 buildings between February 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022, in connection with anti-coup protests, according to data compiled by ISP-Myanmar. Sagaing Region saw the highest number of seizures, with 159 homes and other buildings sealed off, followed by Yangon Region with 122 seizures, Mandalay Region with 88, Magway Region with 48, and Ayeyarwady Region with 47. ISP-Myanmar arrived at these figures by compiling data from media reports and other independent organizations. Actual figures could be much higher.

၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီကနေ ဧပြီအထိ ပထမ လေးလပတ်အတွင်း ရေနံနှင့် သဘာ၀ ဓာတ်ငွေ့ ကဏ္ဍအပါအဝင် ကဏ္ဍ ခုနစ်ခုမှာ နိုင်ငံခြားရင်းနှီး မြှုပ်နှံမှု မဝင်ခဲ့ပါဘူး။ ISP-Myanmar ရဲ့ ဒီတပတ် မြင်ကွင်းကျယ် မှတ်စု အမှတ်-၂ မှာ နိုင်ငံခြား ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုနဲ့ ပတ်သက်တဲ့ အချက်အလက်တွေကို အခြေပြု ဆန်းစစ် ဖော်ပြထားပါတယ်။

Since the military coup, at least 4,679 clashes have taken place nationwide between February 1, 2021 and May 15, 2022. These include armed conflicts between ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and State Administration Council forces, People’s Defense Forces (PDF/LDF/CDF/CNDF/KNDF) and SAC forces, clashes within the EAOs as well as fighting between SAC forces and local guerrilla forces as well as other unknown groups. A closer examination shows that fighting between SAC forces and EAOs accounted for about 3,107 of the 4,679 clashes. Another 1,380 occurred between SAC forces and local PDFs. Some 106 took place within local PDFs, while 41 occurred within EAOs, and 20 took place between unknown groups and SAC forces.