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Junta Watch
By The Irrawaddy 29 October 2022
Junta spokesman tries to justify bombing of Kachin live performance
“All through the historical past and until now, Tatmadaw [Myanmar’s military] has by no means attacked civilians,” was junta spokesman Main-Common Zaw Min Tun’s response revealed in junta-controlled newspapers on Thursday when requested by CNN concerning the regime’s lethal bombing of an anniversary celebration held by the Kachin Independence Group (KIO) on Sunday.
Don’t you imagine it!
The junta spokesman tried to justify the army operation, saying it was vital as a result of the Kachin ethnic armed group educated and provided Folks’s Protection Power teams (PDFs), which the regime has labeled as terrorists, with weapons and ammunition in Sagaing in central Myanmar.
Sagaing Area, which was the primary in Myanmar to launch armed resistance in opposition to the regime, has suffered most from the junta’s atrocities, starting from arson assaults and air raids to arbitrary killings. The regime harbors a specific grudge in opposition to Sagaing as junta forces have suffered heavy casualties within the area, which has been dubbed by its opponents because the “Graveyard of the Regime”, and the place PDFs have management of trunk roads and have began to ascertain a parallel administration.
The regime has usually complained that the Kachin Independence Military (KIA), the KIO’s army wing, is supplying arms to PDFs in Sagaing. U Hla Swe, an ex-military officer and senior determine within the army’s proxy Union Solidarity and Improvement Get together, at a press convention in Naypyitaw on Aug. 17, urged the regime to bomb the KIA’s ordnance manufacturing facility. The KIA has rejected the junta’s peace talks provide, calling the talks a sham.
At the least 63 folks have been killed and a few 60 others injured within the junta’s aerial bombing of a live performance to mark the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the KIO in a village in Kachin State’s Hpakant on Sunday. The vast majority of these killed and injured have been recognized as civilians. However Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun denied civilian casualties, saying there was no civilian within the space as it’s KIA-controlled territory.
Some 23 KIA officer cadets have been killed when the Myanmar army shelled an officers’ academy on the KIA headquarters close to Laiza on Nov. 19, 2014.
Assassin-cum-intellectual property thief
On Oct. 22, when he met micro, small and medium-sized enterprises within the administrative capital, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing referred to as for help to show Naypyitaw into the tutorial hub of Myanmar. However it’s uncertain that he got here up with the thought himself.
Actually, earlier than the coup, detained civilian chief Daw Aung San Suu Kyi issued directions to show Naypyitaw into the “data hub” of Myanmar. The Naypyitaw Council, the manager physique of the town, was working in collaboration with the Schooling Ministry and the President’s Workplace even earlier than the 2020 normal election to ascertain 5 universities and an ICT park just like these in Yangon, Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin, in addition to to ask worldwide universities to arrange campuses there.
Six months after the army coup through which he seized energy from the elected Nationwide League for Democracy authorities led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Min Aung Hlaing advised his subordinates that Naypyitaw could possibly be was a studying hub, as if it have been his personal thought.
Then, he ordered the institution of the Naypyitaw State Academy with the said objective of manufacturing human assets vital for the nation, and instructed junta training minister Dr. Nyunt Pe on the identical time to ensure the academy is ranked among the many prime international universities.
Nothing extra must be mentioned whether it is his personal thought.
Min Aung Hlaing underneath delusion that he’s destined to be king
Although Min Aung Hlaing usually says the army takeover was consistent with the army-drafted 2008 Structure, it is not uncommon data that he’s completely mad for kingship. His obsession with pagodas and white elephants is testimony to his insanity. As a result of traditionally, these are issues that Myanmar monarchs constructed or captured to boost their perceived greatness.
Not too long ago, additional proof of Min Aung Hlaing’s delusions of grandeur was revealed. The sitting Buddha picture that he’s having inbuilt Naypyitaw, and which is touted because the world’s largest such statue, sits on a Raja Palin or ruler’s throne, mentioned Lieutenant Colonel Tint Lwin, who’s answerable for carving the Buddha statue, as he recounted his experiences in constructing the statue throughout a chat present aired on junta mouthpiece Myawaddy Tv on Wednesday.
The statue’s 18-foot-high plinth features a 12-foot base constructed to resemble Raja Palin. In Myanmar tradition, Palin is an emblem of kingship and sovereignty. This is the reason Min Aung Hlaing receives overseas dignitaries and diplomats earlier than the Palin within the Credentials Corridor within the Presidential Residence, pretending to be the legit head of state.
It ought to come as no shock that Min Aung Hlaing is mad for kingship, contemplating that Sitagu Sayadaw, an influential religion chief who has fallen from grace as a result of his ties with the regime following final yr’s coup and is now supervising the development of the Buddha statute, has hailed him a “king of nice knowledge and generosity”.
ASEAN toothless in taming Myanmar junta
The Myanmar army regime has warned the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that forcing it to implement a peace plan agreed by the leaders of the 10-nation bloc final yr will do extra hurt than good for the Myanmar folks.
ASEAN final yr proposed a peace plan generally known as the 5-point Consensus, which requires the junta to finish violence and start a dialogue with all sides of the battle for the restoration of democracy.
The junta nodded to the plan however didn’t hassle to implement it. It’s fairly clear that it simply mentioned sure to purchase time and ease worldwide stress.
After prime diplomats of ASEAN reaffirmed the bloc’s dedication to the consensus on Thursday even supposing there was no tangible proof of the regime implementing it over the previous yr, the regime has apparently turn into extra assertive, and even warned the bloc to cease placing stress on it, saying that “injecting further stress by setting a timeframe will create extra destructive implications than constructive ones.”
The junta’s Ministry of International Affairs mentioned the regime wouldn’t be sure by the outcomes of the assembly because it was held with out Myanmar.
Over the previous yr, the regime has continued its marketing campaign of arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings of civilians, and air strikes on anti-regime resistance forces, completely ignoring the peace plan.
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