Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing, whose regime’s atrocities against Myanmar civilians have been widely reported, has accused local and international media of distorting the truth about post-coup Myanmar.
Addressing the “Forum on Myanmar Beyond 2025: Challenges and Opportunities in the Multipolar World” in Naypyitaw on Friday, the regime chief said: “I hope that experts here today will sense the stark differences between Myanmar’s image as portrayed by bogus and biased media and the real Myanmar you are witnessing firsthand.”
The forum was organized by the Ministry of Information to “inform the world about the true situation in Myanmar and encourage their cooperation with the regime based on understanding and sympathy, counter accusations against the regime, and enhance the image of the country.”
Experts and analysts from China, Russia, India, Japan, Thailand, Italy and Nepal joined domestic scholars to “discuss the challenges facing Myanmar in a rapidly evolving multipolar world,” junta media reported.
The forum was held just five days after a regime jet fighter dropped four bombs on a displacement center at a monastery in Nawnghkio, Shan State, killing 14 civilians. The massacre was widely reported by both local and international media outlets. Two days earlier, a regime airstrike on a busy market in Mandalay Region reportedly killed 27 civilians, including six children.
Friday’s forum coincided with heavy regime airstrikes on Nyaunggyo village in Bago Region’s Padaung Township, where the ethnic Arakan Army is advancing. The air attacks were covered by media in Myanmar and abroad.
However, Min Aung Hlaing told the forum, suggesting that reports of indiscriminate regime airstrikes and other atrocities were fake news, branding media who published them as bogus.
The foreign scholars and experts in attendance were in no position to disagree with their host, having not visited the conflict zones to witness the miseries of Myanmar people for themselves. The so-called experts were whisked to their hotels upon arrival and taken on a junta-organized tour of Naypyitaw’s Gems Emporium, Bagan, and Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda. Some boarded planes back to their home countries immediately after the event.
The forum was the latest regime backlash against independent media for exposing its cover-ups and deceit.
Following the 2021 coup, the regime cracked down on internet and press freedom, raiding media offices, jailing journalists, and forcing many independent outlets into exile.
Despite the crackdown, Myanmar’s exiled media have continued to report on regime atrocities against civilians, bombing of ethnic minorities, torching of villages, mass killings, widespread displacement, economic decline, human rights abuses, and forced conscription along with the exodus of young people fleeing abroad to avoid military service. They have also exposed growing crime waves in major cities, corruption in junta administration, severe power outages, and skyrocketing commodity prices.
The regime and its propaganda arm, the Ministry of Information, have reacted angrily, accusing exiled and international media of fake news and smear tactics.
However, foreign firms exposed the reality long ago. Most withdrew their Myanmar investments after the coup, unwilling to work with an illegitimate regime that wasted no time in slaughtering civilians demanding democracy.
The regime’s war crimes and atrocities have prompted economic sanctions by foreign governments while territories including the US and EU have issued travel warnings against visiting military-ruled Myanmar.
Friday’s forum came soon after Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to Russia and Belarus, where he sought investment earlier this month. In Moscow, he assured Russian business leaders that the challenges facing Myanmar were merely temporary and nothing to worry about. He likely staged the forum as a follow-up to win their confidence.
