Human Rights Situation in Myanmar General Background Home to the world’s longest running civil war, Myanmar has not had peace. The military junta which seized power through a coup in 1962, isolated and ruled Myanmar until 2010.7 In 2010, the Tatmadaw handed over power to a quasi-civilian government, led by the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (“USDP”) which was ultimately defeated by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (“NLD”) in the 2015 elections. Despite the civilian-led government, the 2008 military-drafted Constitution has enabled the military to maintain significant control. For instance, the key ministries of Defence, Border Affairs, and Home Affairs are not under the civilian government purview; they report to and are overseen by the military Commander in Chief, Min Aung Hlaing. While the NLD currently has a majority of parliamentary seats, 25 percent of the seats in each house of parliament are reserved for military members, and the 2008 Constitution requires a three-quarters majority vote for constitutional amendments. The civilian government is essentially kept in check, its authority limited by the military’s effective veto power. Myanmar is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Southeast Asia, with a large number of groups with various ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds.8 Protection of minority rights and autonomy were key guarantees of the 1947 Panglong Agreement (“Panglong”). Proposed by Myanmar’s independence leader General Aung San, Panglong was to be the foundation for a federal, democratic Myanmar. However, General Aung San and members of his interim government were assassinated in 1947 before the aspirations of Panglong were fully realized,9 and instead of embracing the country’s diversity, the military utilizes interethnic conflicts as a means of maintaining power.10 7 Andrew Marshall, “The Slow Thaw of Burma’s Notorious Military Junta,” Time, August 31, 2011, http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2091229,00.html. 8 Nehginpao Kipgen, Myanmar: A Political History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016), 11, http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466306.001.0001/acprof-9780199466306. 9 Josef Silverstein, The Political Legacy of Aung San (New York: Cornell University Press, 1972), 13. 10 Nick Cheesman, “How in Myanmar ‘national races’ came to surpass citizenship and exclude Rohingya,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 7, no. 3 (2017): 461-483. 6