Myanmar’s junta mustered its embattled troops for a show of strength on Armed Forces Day yesterday, after a year of seismic defeats and turning to forcibly conscripting civilians to bolster its ranks.
Thousands of soldiers were to march before Burmese Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw, where a banner over the approach to the parade ground reads: “Only when the military is strong will the country be strong.”
Special forces guarded the main entrance to the remote, purpose-built capital.
Photo: AFP
The parades have gotten progressively smaller in the four years of civil war since the military deposed then-Burmese state councilor Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government.
Since Armed Forces Day last year, the junta has lost the key northern town of Lashio — including a regional military command — and swathes of western Rakhine state, and sought to conscript more than 50,000 people.
The civil war pits the junta’s forces against anti-coup guerillas and long-established ethnic minority armed groups.
More than 3.5 million people are displaced, half the population live in poverty and 1 million civilians face World Food Program aid cuts next month following US President Donald Trump’s slashing of the US Agency for International Development budget.
At the same time, trade sanctions have isolated Myanmar, making it increasingly dependent on China and Russia for economic and military support.
“The military has never been defeated this severely,” said Jack Myint, a non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
However, observers agree its grip on the center is secure for now.
“The reality is they still have a superior supply of arms,” Myint said, adding that they “don’t have to defeat everyone to maintain control.”
War monitors have said that the past year has seen a spike in airstrikes by the junta’s Russian-made jets.
The past year has shown how strong a hand Beijing holds in Myanmar, with a willingness to play off the military and its opponents to pursue economic opportunities and stability on its borders, Myint said.
After public concern spiked in China over scam centers in Myanmar, thousands of workers were repatriated at Beijing’s demand.
“Beijing sees all these smaller players in the sandbox like insolent children not getting along,” Myint said.
“They whip out the carrot one time, they whip out the stick the next, and hold it together in a manner that best serves their interests,” he said.
The bespectacled Min Aung Hlaing was expected to preside over yesterday’s ceremony in his metal-festooned dress uniform, and deliver a speech to the country of more than 50 million.
He has promised elections later this year or early next year, but with much of the country beyond the government’s control, analysts said it would not be a genuine democratic vote.
However, cliques in the junta are pushing for polls to weaken Min Aung Hlaing’s position amid discord over his handling of the conflict, a US-based Myanmar analyst said on condition of anonymity.
Min Aung Hlaing serves as acting president and commander-in-chief, but to hold an election he would have to relinquish one of those roles.
“Min Aung Hlaing does not want to hold the election, but generals close to him have warned that the situation is getting worse,” the analyst said.
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