Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing partied with classmates from the 19th intake of the Defense Services Academy just days after his regime’s Western Command in Rakhine State fell, belting out songs as morale among frontline soldiers and supporters hit a new low.
On Dec. 20, the day the command fell, Min Aung Hlaing attended the grand closing ceremony of the National Sports Festival in Naypyitaw, and just three days later he was having fun at the 47th anniversary of the DSA’s 19th intake in Yangon, videos circulating on social media show.
In one video, he sings a popular song about missing his lover in all three seasons. Netizens were quick to mock Min Aung Hlaing’s off-key singing, noting that his musical talents are as poor as his military and administrative skills.
Brigadier General Kyaw Kyaw Than, the captured chief of staff of the Western Command, in a video released by the Arakan Army (AA) on Dec. 26, claimed that it fell because the junta failed to send reinforcements in time.
He said his troops defended themselves against the AA’s offensives despite suffering heavy casualties until they ran out of supplies, ammunition, medicine, and even drinking water. He pleaded with the regime boss to accept his defeat in Rakhine and stop bombing and committing violence against civilians.
But Min Aung Hlaing seems unfazed. While battles rage on in northern Shan, Kachin, Karenni, Chin, and Rakhine states as well as central Myanmar, he remains busy organizing dancing and singing competitions and sports events, and—perhaps most important for a person of influence in Myanmar—building and consecrating pagodas.
