But as reality set in, so did a steely resolve. “Now I have to do more to successfully complete this revolution,” he told Al Jazeera. Her husband, 41-year-old Phyo Zeyar Thaw, was arrested in November 2021. The last conversation she had with him before they separated was one they had had many times before. “It was an understanding between us,” he said. “If something happens to one of us, the one left behind must fight to the end.” In 2012, then-rapper Phyo Zeyar Thaw swapped his microphone for a parliamentarian’s robe as by-elections swept Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) into office as part of Myanmar’s much-heralded transition to democracy . This month, he was executed along with three other political prisoners, in the country’s first use of the death penalty in decades. The four men, who included prominent activist Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Ko Jimmy, were accused of organizing or participating in armed resistance to the military, which seized power in a February 2021 coup after the NLD returned to office by landslide. . Even when he took a break from music to work in the House of Representatives – the Pyithu Hluttaw – Phyo Zeyar Thaw never stopped listening to rappers like Eminem and Snoop Dogg. He decided not to seek re-election and return to his music career in 2020, believing the country was on the right track. Thazin Nyunt Aung said one of her fondest memories with her husband was the night of November 8, 2020, when the election results came out. “Zeyar Thaw did not participate in this election, but he still campaigned for the NLD,” he explained. “During the campaign, I went with Zeyar Thaw and met many people who believed in his political views and loved and trusted him.” Thazin Nyunt Aung and Phyo Zeyar Thaw joined the anti-coup protests together. He says they decided that if something happened to one of them, the other would continue the fight [Supplied] A member of the activist collective Rap Against Junta said the last time he saw Phyo Zeyar Thaw was the night before the coup, when they went out to eat barbecued pork ribs together in Yangon. Despite his decision not to seek re-election, he did not renounce his time in politics. “He told me that as an activist you can only push for the cause. Being a politician, you can literally cause change,” he said. He says that despite Phyo Zeyar Thaw’s fame, he has always been down-to-earth and encouraging to young people in the hip-hop scene. “He knew that the new generation is it [are] it is going to shape the future of a country,” he said.
Fears of more to come
The executions have sparked fears that other political prisoners are also in imminent danger. More than 70 people are on death row (others were sentenced in absentia) for opposing the coup, including nine women, according to the Association for Aid to Political Prisoners (AAPP), which monitors the military crackdown. AAPP says more than 2,100 civilians have been killed by the military since the coup, including dozens who died in military custody. AAPP director Bo Kyi said it is “more dangerous” to be a political prisoner now than during any other anti-military “insurgency” in Myanmar’s history. “The penal institution is used as a weapon to oppress the people,” he said. When asked if the military was likely to use the death penalty again, he said it was “difficult to foresee any rational process” by the military government. But he says it’s clear that “the more desperate they are, the more brutal they become.” Burmese-American journalist Nathan Maung, who spent three months in prison for reporting on the coup, says he fears more than 100 others could be executed. “I am deeply concerned for my colleagues and friends in the prisons,” he said, saying the executions would have sent a chill of fear not only in the prisons but also in the country. News of the executions sparked outrage around the world, including among Myanmar citizens in Thailand. Many fear for dozens of other political prisoners jailed by the military [Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters] Since the murders, unconfirmed rumors have been circulating in a frenzy on social media. One claims that three more prisoners have already been executed in secret, another that 41 would be executed immediately. When prominent protest leader Wai Moe Naing, who has been charged with murder with little evidence, was allowed to meet his mother this week, many feared it was for a final goodbye. Meanwhile, most of the ousted NLD’s senior leadership – including beloved State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and Mandalay chief Zaw Myint Maung – remain in military custody. Political analyst Khin Zaw Win says “anything is possible” under the generals’ self-styled State Command Council. “Last year there were concerns about the safety and even the life of Aung San Suu Kyi,” he said. He says the executions could represent the army’s desperation and desire to “avenge its own significant losses in battle”. Since the coup, resistance to the military has exploded across Myanmar, as fledgling anti-coup armed groups team up with more established armed ethnic groups that have fought for political autonomy for decades. Their success on the battlefield has surprised analysts and possibly the military itself, which has been unable to exercise administrative control over large areas of the country. “It’s like saying – ‘if you continue the attacks, we will kill the prisoners we have captured.’ A captured POW’s life is worthless in the army’s scheme of things,” Khin Zaw Win said, adding that from the army’s “reduced point of view” death row inmates are “the most dangerous”.
It calls for international action
International condemnation was swift and severe. As chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Cambodia penned an unusually stern letter condemning the timing of the executions – just a week before the ASEAN summit – as “highly reprehensible” and showing a “gross lack of will” to resolution of the crisis. The 15-member UN Security Council, which includes the military’s top arms suppliers China and Russia, also unanimously condemned the move, as did the G7. Bo Kyi says the international community must take action to prevent more violence. “Our neighbors have a duty to stop these atrocities in Burma,” he said. Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, who met the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer (left) this week, described the executions as a “crime against humanity”. [Nazri Rapaai/Malaysia’s Department of Information via AFP] The executions came days after Cambodia’s foreign minister proposed upgrading the military’s representation in the regional bloc. As of October 2021, military leader Min Aung Hlaing and his foreign minister have been barred from high-level ASEAN summits, but lower-level ministers have been allowed to continue attending meetings. Now Malaysia, which has taken the lead in ousting the regime, has proposed barring all ministers appointed by the military. He also condemned the killings as a “crime against humanity”. But Nathan Maung says the international community has so far been all talk and no action. “I think the Myanmar military has realized that the international community will not do anything against them. … I would blame the international community, including ASEAN and Burma’s immediate neighbours, China, India and Thailand,” he said. While Cambodia has been pushing for negotiations between the military and its rivals, Khin Zaw Win says the executions have made that “impossible”. “Anyone who suggests that would be considered crazy,” he said. The army is not backing down but has defended the executions, saying the men “deserved many death sentences”. A crowd in plainclothes gathered to throw stones at the homes of the executed activists’ parents. The military also refused to return the bodies or tell the families exactly when they were killed, preventing Buddhist religious ceremonies for the dead. “This shows the extreme cruelty of their nature and is an extreme violation of human rights for the families as well,” Thazin Nyunt Aung said, adding that it may be a tactic to further intimidate opponents of the military government. “It’s not actually a judicial execution, it’s just murder. The army wants everyone who fights against them dead and they only want power and wealth in their hands.”
