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Junta Watch
Min Aung Hlaing enjoys Thingyan on the navy’s pavilion in Pyin Oo Lwin in April 2022.
By The Irrawaddy 23 April 2022
Min Aung Hlaing’s Thingyan celebration reveals rising divisions inside the military
Senior Common Min Aung Hlaing’s plan to make use of the Thingyan Water Competition, historically the nation’s largest and most vital annual celebration, to create an impression of normalcy returning to Myanmar backfired spectacularly when images of the coup chief celebrating the competition in strained trend went viral on social media.
Forward of Myanmar’s conventional New Yr competition, Min Aung Hlaing instructed junta-controlled ministries and area and state governments to arrange vigorous events. Because the regime boss, Min Aung Hlaing ought to have been celebrating Thingyan in public within the capital, Naypyitaw, or in Yangon or Mandalay. As a substitute, he spent three days of Thingyan, April 14-16, in Pyin Oo Lwin, a garrison city that’s house to navy academies and hundreds of troopers.
Some folks have prompt that he was there to rally assist of navy personnel for his regime amid elevated defections. Nevertheless, the coup chief didn’t appear to be comfortable whereas celebrating Thingyan on the navy pavilion in Pyin Oo Lwin. As a substitute, he was accompanied by his private bodyguards always within the pavilion, additional confirming the rising divisions inside the navy.
Different key regime figures, together with deputy junta boss Soe Win, additionally failed to seem in public throughout Thingyan. Other than the junta-organized pavilions, streets throughout the nation had been abandoned as most Myanmar folks boycotted the competition. The navy regime reportedly employed folks and compelled civil servants to participate within the competition to create an impression that its Thingyan pavilions had been crowded with revelers.
On New Yr’s Day itself, junta-controlled newspapers reported that the “Thingyan Competition ended efficiently, reflecting the solidarity between the federal government, Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] and the folks.”
Coup chief wastes billions on hole titles
Over 1.5 billion kyats of public cash was wasted by Senior Common Min Aung Hlaing when he conferred honorary titles on people together with himself on April 17, Myanmar’s New Yr’s Day.
Some 146 people acquired honorary titles, with the record of recipients dominated by regime figures. The junta chief displayed a critical lack of modesty by awarding himself two of the very best honorary titles: Sadoe Thiri Thudhamma – the Most Superb Order of Fact – and Sadoe Maha Thray Sithu – the Order of the Union of Myanmar.
The titles include gold braided salwe, a belt worn over the appropriate shoulder and throughout the chest. The salwe for the very best title, Agga Maha Thiri Thudhamma, is fabricated from 45 ticals of gold, and the salwe for the lowest-ranking title is made of 5 ticals of gold.
Among the many recipients, some posthumous, had been Myanmar’s earlier dictators: Ne Win, Noticed Maung and Than Shwe. Whereas Min Aung Hlaing awarded himself 40 ticals of gold, he gave his mentor Than Shwe simply eight ticals.
Min Aung Hlaing has been preaching the virtues of thrift, with Myanmar mired in financial chaos because of post-coup political turmoil. However he has additionally been spending billions on pointless issues similar to February’s grand navy parade to mark Union Day. He additionally ordered enormous sums to be spent on the Thingyan Competition that most individuals within the nation boycotted.
Regime in defensive mode
Myanmar’s navy regime has issued an uncommon “emergency alert” to all its models throughout the nation to restrict troop mobilizations and which places them on standby for attainable assaults, particularly by resistance forces.
The order follows the shadow Nationwide Unity Authorities’s (NUG) assertion that it was getting ready extra offensives in opposition to regime troops.
On the identical time, junta forces are sustaining heavy casualties, particularly in Sagaing Area, Karen and Kayah states, because of intensifying assaults from resistance teams preventing alongside ethnic armed organizations such because the Kachin Independence Military and Karen Nationwide Liberation Military.
Myanmar navy defectors stated the alert was uncommon as a result of it isn’t time-specific, and related alerts are usually issued per week earlier than Armed Forces Day in March and commanders’ quarterly conferences.
Defectors stated that the alert was placing the navy into defensive mode, as plainly the regime is reacting to the NUG’s plan and is shopping for time to organize.
Karen State: the deadliest place for junta troopers
The full variety of junta troopers killed in Karen State for the reason that begin of the yr now stands at 1,215.
The Karen Nationwide Union (KNU), whose troopers are preventing alongside resistance forces in opposition to the navy regime, stated this week that over 160 junta troops had been killed within the first two weeks of April in over 200 clashes with ethnic Karen fighters in Karen State, southeast Myanmar.
March was the deadliest month for junta forces in Karen State thus far this yr, with 429 deaths reported in a complete of 510 clashes. Numbers launched by the KNU present there have been 435 clashes in January with 313 regime deaths and 421 clashes in February with 311 regime deaths.
Combating between regime forces and the KNU has intensified since junta troops raided the city of Lay Kay Kaw in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township on December 14.
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