Continuing violence, arbitrary arrests, and lawlessness inflicted by the military junta has been causing community atrocities, increasing trends of IDPs, refugee outflows, disruption of economic fundamentals, and unwanted humanitarian crises amid the global coronavirus pandemic. While the consensus of the Myanmar people is to rid the military at any cost, the military junta refuses to yield to the domestic and international demands to respect the results of the election; in fact, its actions till date inform the military’s likely intention to wipe any prospects for democracy.

The roundtable discusses the divergent aims by the people and the military to establish a new order in Myanmar. As the turning point towards this goal nears, the roundtable also recognizes that the people of Myanmar has shown an unprecedented level of unity: established ethnic armed organizations, the National Unity Government (NUG), NUG’s PDF and other local/community PDFs across the country, Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) workers, and the general public share the same mission to “free” the nation from the military’s actions that have been violating fundamental human rights and other international norms.

The roundtable also discusses the gap in the local actors’ priorities highlighted above and the international actors’ interests. The organizers and participants of the roundtable therefore find ways in which any external/internal facilitation activities, including mediation dialogue, preventive diplomacy, humanitarian intervention, punitive measures, reconstruction, and transitional justice mechanisms, could sensitively consider this gap.