Myanmar’s military junta yesterday declared a unilateral ceasefire in the country’s civil war in order to facilitate rescue efforts after last week’s devastating earthquake, as the death toll for the disaster climbed past 3,000.
According to an army statement reported by the state broadcaster MRTV, the truce will run until April 22 and is aimed at aiding the hundreds of thousands of people affected by Friday’s quake. During that period, resistance groups must refrain from attacking the state, or regrouping their forces, or else the military will take “necessary” measures, the statement added.
The junta’s announcement of a humanitarian ceasefire follows similar announcements by the opposition National Unity Government and a powerful alliance of ethnic armed groups in the days since the March 28 earthquake. The Kachin Independence Army, another prominent ethnic armed group, has since followed suit.
The 7.7-magnitude earthquake has caused chaos and destruction across Myanmar’s central dry zone, destroying bridges, roads and thousands of buildings. The destruction is particularly serious in Sagaing Region – the epicenter of the quake – and in nearby Mandalay, Magwe, and Naypyidaw regions. Serious impacts have also been reported in Bago Region and parts of Shan State.
The junta’s official death toll from the earthquake in Myanmar rose yesterday to 3,003, while a further 4,500 people have been reported injured, state media reported. Other estimates, including predictive modeling by the United States Geological Survey, suggest much higher casualty figures, although the true scale of the human loss may not become clear for weeks. In many parts of the disaster zone, hundreds of people are sleeping on the streets or in other areas outdoors, either because they lost their homes or fear structural damage and further aftershocks.
Exactly how serious the junta is about the ceasefire remains to be seen. After the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed groups announced a month-long “humanitarian pause” on Tuesday, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who yesterday inspected the damage to the Myanmar parliament complex in Naypyidaw, initially ruled out a similar ceasefire of his own. The fact that he has so quickly changed his mind suggests the dire situation facing the Myanmar armed forces and the fact that they cannot simultaneously hold defensive positions and undertake earthquake recovery efforts.
It may also represent a response to the fact that in many parts of the disaster zone, the military’s response has been partial and lackluster.
“With minimal search-and-rescue capacity available in Myanmar, people dug through rubble with their bare hands looking for survivors,” Richard Horsey, a senior advisor for the International Crisis Group, said in a statement yesterday. “The military, which would normally be at the forefront of such efforts – but which has violently repressed dissent since the February 2021 coup and is widely reviled – was mostly missing from the picture.”
At the same time, the military’s track record suggests some reasons for skepticism. The junta has already been widely condemned for continuing its air attacks on areas held by resistance groups, including some that the earthquake has severely impacted.
Amnesty International reported earlier this week “that the military has continued its campaign of deadly air strikes, adding to the strain of recovery efforts and the fear and anxiety of survivors.” Ye Myo Hein of the United States Institute for Peace claimed on Tuesday that “airstrikes continue daily across the country” and that there had so far been at least 16 attacks in the four days after the earthquake, targeting resistance areas both inside and beyond the disaster zone.
Given the existential threat facing the military, which has already lost large amounts of territory to the loose coalition of ethnic rebel armies and resistance groups that oppose it, it will remain tempting to take advantage of the current chaos to shore up its military position.
In any event, in an indication of his priorities, Min Aung Hlaing was set to jet off to Bangkok, where he will reportedly attend a regional summit tomorrow. It was unclear whether he would attend, given the situation in Myanmar, but his attendance at the BIMSTEC meeting, a regional grouping that includes India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, and Thailand, was confirmed yesterday by a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
“The Myanmar leader is joining on the summit day,” the spokesperson said. “While we haven’t received their itinerary, but we’ve received confirmation about his attendance.”
