It was a holiday that was not to be celebrated. In a rare speech marking Armed Forces Day, General Min Aung Hlaing, 66, leader of the junta that usurped power in Myanmar on the night of February 1, 2021, announced a decisive crackdown on “terrorists”. . Basically, all resistance groups that do not want to accept renewed rule by the military are referred to as terrorists.
Soldiers marched in formation on the parade ground in the capital Naypyidaw in front of Min Aung Hlaing, who inspected the parade in an open jeep. Tanks, missiles and artillery were presented, Russian Wed 35M-Attack helicopters, as well as Chinese K8-Ground Attack Aircraft and FTC2000-Supersonic jets thundered through the air. The population knows these aircraft. They are used in attacks on villages where the military suspects resistance groups.
A UN report noted this month that violence has increased in north-west and south-east Myanmar due to “indiscriminate air strikes and artillery shelling, mass burnings of villages to displace civilians and denial of humanitarian access”. An airstrike on the village of Let Yet Kone in recent weeks hit a school and killed up to 80 civilians in the northern state of Kachin. The military is waging aggressive war against its own people.
The opposition has formed an underground government
Armed Forces Day used to be called Resistance Day and marked the anniversary of the army’s uprising against Japanese occupation in 1945. Back then, Japanese soldiers were just as brutal as the Burmese are today. They regarded the people of the country as inferior.
“The terrorist acts of the NUG and their minions, the so-called PDFs, must be fought once and for all,” Min Aung Hlaing said in his speech. The NUG is the “National Unity Government”, an underground alternative government that wants to offer an alternative to diplomatic relations with the generals. It is made up of MPs who were elected months before the coup.
The armed wing of the NUG calls itself PDF, “People’s Defense Forces”. The PDF comprise more than 300 small units, sometimes as small as 10 men and women, across the country, constantly attacking junta military columns, bases and outposts. The PDF continues to attract young people who experienced a decade of timid democracy and economic development in Myanmar before 2021. They flee to areas not controlled by the military. And they are meant when General Min Aung Hlaing speaks of terrorists.
Shortly after the 2021 coup, there were large demonstrations against the generals here in Yangon. The poster shows the former head of government, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was imprisoned by the junta. She was sentenced to seven years in prison in a staged trial.
(Photo: STR/AFP)
More than a million people have now been displaced, mostly within the country. The economy has collapsed and the civil war is causing a humanitarian crisis. But General Min Aung Hlaing has his own worldview. He also stated on Armed Forces Day that the international condemnation of his junta was based on misrepresentations of the NUG. He tried to sell the violent acts of his soldiers and the police forces under him as necessary to establish peace in the country.
He also called on his critics from abroad to support the elections planned by the military government: “I would like to call on the international community to prudently support all efforts of the current government to take the right path to democracy.” Only nobody believes that the elections scheduled for August could be free and the candidates independent. At the end of 2020, the party sent by the military had to accept an embarrassing defeat at the polls, which was what started the new coup in the first place.
But no matter how hard Min Aung Hlaing tries to gain international recognition, within the ASEAN association is he isolated two years after taking power, after which he is not in full control of the country, despite all the brutality. Only the Thai government, also a junta that is only halfway legitimate in elections, still maintains diplomatic relations. The other neighboring countries, some of which are also not flawless democracies, such as Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia, fear for the reputation of the entire booming economic area.
The generals have few friends. But they are in Beijing and Moscow
Last Friday, the US announced it would impose further sanctions on two individuals and six entities linked to the Myanmar junta whom Washington accuses of supporting ongoing atrocities in the country, including through the import, storage and the sale of kerosene for fighter jets and helicopters. “The Burmese military regime continues to inflict pain and suffering on its own people,” said the US Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelsonin a statement.
However, it is not the case that General Min Aung Hlaing no longer has any friends at home or abroad. Alongside the powerful Politburo in Beijing, the Kremlin continues to side with the junta. Russia even plans to set up military bases in Myanmar’s territory, US State Department adviser Derek Chollet told Reuters last week. Chollet also said that the Biden administration views the Myanmar crisis as “the most acute threat” in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Minister has visited Myanmar several times, including on Armed Forces Day in 2021, when even China only sent a military attaché. To this end, General Min Aung Hlaing visited Moscow twice last fall to buy Covid 19 vaccines – and weapons.