Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing has pledged to restore pre-coup levels of peace and stability in Myanmar during his recent trip to Mandalay – a statement starkly at odds with reality.
Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Mandalay city on Sunday, on his first trip to the regional capital since resistance groups launched offensives in late June. The same day, anti-regime groups seized control of Thabeikkyin town, just a three-hour drive from Myanmar’s second-largest city, where the military’s Central Command is based.
Thabeikkyin is the fourth town to be seized by resistance groups in Mandalay Region after the fall of Mogoke, Singu and Tagaung. Madaya town, 38 kilometers north of Mandalay is reportedly also on the brink of falling.
Min Aung Hlaing was seen surrounded by his personal bodyguards during his trip to Mandalay, where the regime has beefed up security.
According to junta media, the regime boss visited the Central Command on Monday. It is not clear if he will visit Mandalay Region’s Pyin Oo Lwin, the seat of military academies and the target of advancing ethnic forces. Pyin Oo Lwin lies 214 km south of Lashio, where the regime has ceded its Northeastern Command to ethnic armies.
The regime has lost control of nearly 80 towns in Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Chin, Rakhine and northern Shan states and central Myanmar, and is poised to lose more towns in central Myanmar and the western Rakhine State in the months to come.
Faced with expanding territory losses, Min Aung Hlaing has repeatedly postponed his plan for a national poll before announcing the voting would be held in stages.
Up until this weekend, the junta boss had remained ensconced in the regime’s nerve center, Naypyitaw, even after a string of major military defeats in northern Shan State and the unprecedented fall of a regional command. His trip to Mandalay followed harsh criticism of his leadership by military supporters.
On Saturday, the junta boss visited Taungoo in northeast Bago Region on the border with Karen State. Taungoo, located around 100 km south of Naypyitaw, is being targeted by Karen National Union (KNU) and allied resistance groups.
Min Aung Hlaing said in his August 6 security address that military intelligence showed three KNU brigades were planning to conduct operations to seize territory along the Sittang River, which runs through Taungoo.
The civilian National Unity Government reported that at least five junta personnel were killed in a resistance drone attack on the junta’s Taungoo Airbase on Monday.
Amid growing calls from military supporters for him to step down, Min Aung Hlaing has offered a series of excuses for major defeats and territory losses.
The junta chief has complained his regime is losing the war because the enemy is using high-tech drones from China, while attributing the armed uprising to “low education levels in the country.”
