The Mennonite Central Committee Representative to the United Nations, Chris Rice, recently wrote an article for Christianity Today about his work titled “The United Nations is a Mission Field.” We’ve greatly appreciated working with Chris particularly during the coup in Myanmar. He was very active in connecting the voices of communities on the ground to…
Tag: Myanmar
Reflections on Political Violence
The 48 hours around my birthday were intense this year. In Myanmar, there were widespread non-violent demonstrations and general labor strikes protesting the February 2021 coup d’état. The military junta responded with brutal force. They turned guns and grenades against the peaceful protests. They forced Doctors and Teachers to go to work at gunpoint. Doctors…
CCA Conference on Myanmar
Last month, the Christian Conference of Asia held a four-day international conference on Myanmar. There were 57 participants representing various ecumenical groups, Christian organizations, NGOs, universities, government agencies, and so on. I represented Mennonite Central Committee at the conference and moderated a couple of sessions. The goal of the conference was to develop a communique…
Myanmar is no longer the most violent place in the world
In June 2024 the former MCC Cambodia & Myanmar Peace Coordinator, Audrey Thill, published an article in Foreign Policy on How Myanmar’s Wood Funds Its Brutal Military. It’s a fantastic article pulling back the curtain on the illicit economy driving conflict and deforestation. The article is on Myanmar but also looks at similar issues in…
Podcast: Distributing aid in Myanmar at great risk
The MCC Relief, development and podcast recently hosted an interview with one of our partner staff in Myanmar. I’m sharing the podcast and transcript below. For security reasons our partner is not identified in the interview and the partner staff is going by Mr. Khong. It’s a wonderful opportunity to hear about the situation directly…
Myanmar: Saying No To War
In October, the Three Brotherhood Alliance – a partnership of three armed ethnic groups in the north – launched an offensive campaign against the military junta that lead the coup in February 2021 (and which, to varying degrees, has been the dominant force in the country since taking power through a coup in 1962). The…
Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit
Last week Cambodia hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) annual summit. Foreign ministries and leaders from around the world gathered to meet with Southeast Asian leaders in Phnom Penh. The heavy influx of motorcades brought traffic in the city to a standstill. Schools were already closed for the national holidays of Water Festival…
Update from Myanmar: April 2022
I wanted to share an update from a check-in earlier this week with one of our partners in Myanmar. I am not including our partner’s names for safety reasons and have removed any specific details that might identify them. I’m also not including the details of their current MCC project. I might share this in…
Myanmar: Give the LORD no rest
The situation in Myanmar is getting worse. Now the power cuts are extreme and people are surviving without electricity most of the time, setting alarms for when the electricity comes on so they can quickly cook their food and charge their phones. Food and basic commodities are more expensive. And Omicron is blazing through the…
Action Alert: Stand up against violence in Myanmar (Burma)
I wanted to share this action alert from the MCC advocacy office in Washington, DC. This line of advocacy is the one supported by our partners in Myanmar and, while the results are uncertain given Russian/Chinese support for the military coup, the fruit of witnessing for peace and justice often appears in unexpected ways. Please…