In July, ASEAN and neighbouring governments gave Myanmar’s illegal junta greater diplomatic access while its forces continued to attack civilians, imprison political opponents, obstruct aid, and exclude democratic representatives from decisions about the country’s future. ASEAN foreign ministers met the junta’s foreign minister at the ministerial level for the first time since the 2021 coup. Laos received Min Aung Hlaing with the protocol of a head of state, Thailand announced that it would host him in August, and Russia trained Myanmar military personnel in drone operations, helicopter deployments, sniping, communications, and other combat capabilities. These governments helped normalise and strengthen an illegal military regime responsible for mass atrocities, while excluding Myanmar’s democratic representatives and ignoring calls from civil society for accountability and an end to military rule.
The military also moved to consolidate the system it created through its fraudulent election. The military-controlled parliament rejected ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus, extended martial law in 58 townships, considered further restrictions on political participation, and continued to use military-controlled courts to punish peaceful opposition. Activists who had called for an election boycott, an end to forced conscription, and the release of political prisoners received sentences of up to 37 years. The election did not transfer power to a civilian government. It gave the military new institutions through which to preserve its authority, exclude opponents, and claim international recognition.
Civilians continued to bear the consequences of military rule and armed conflict. Myanmar military aircraft, artillery, and naval forces attacked towns and villages in Rakhine, Magway, Sagaing, and Tanintharyi, killing and injuring civilians and damaging schools, homes, monasteries, clinics, and other protected sites. Soldiers detained and allegedly killed civilians and humanitarian workers, beat political prisoners, withheld medical treatment, burned and looted homes, used civilians as human shields, and displaced thousands. The extension of martial law placed more communities under commanders who control arrest, prosecution, trial, and punishment without independent courts or basic fair-trial guarantees.