Worried about the ever-present threat of drone and rocket attacks on the capital, not to mention assassination attempts, Myanmar’s most hated top general is by all accounts a nervous wreck these days, and rumored to take the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam every night.
Lately, coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has been avoiding the limelight amid concerns that his itinerary will be leaked to opposition forces.
Military sources in Naypyitaw speculated that he fears assassination or some other form of removal from power. Can he trust anyone in his cabinet?
First, in the first week of April, drones attacked Naypyitaw targeting an air force base, army headquarters and Min Aung Hlaing’s residence. The Myanmar opposition hailed the attack as a success and said it planned more.
The junta insisted it had intercepted the drones, shooting down seven—including one which exploded on a runway—and that there were no casualties. But psychologically, it dealt a blow to the junta leaders’ sense of security. How were drones able to penetrate Naypyitaw’s airspace?
Naypyitaw is heavily guarded and has been shielded from the fighting that has raged elsewhere across the country. Key ministries, military headquarters and Min Aung Hlaing’s residence are also believed to be equipped with anti-drone and other air defense systems.
In the second week of April, as the country celebrated its traditional new year water festival, rocket attacks struck Pyin Oo Lwin, a garrison town located at the site of a former British hill station near the central city of Mandalay, and home to the Defense Services Academy (DSA).
This attack by anti-coup fighters killed four people and wounded 12, including cadets from the military’s elite officer academy, junta officials admitted. But what has not previously been reported is that a rocket also landed on a mansion where Min Aung Hlaing and his family were staying. It is not known whether they were at the residence at the time, but the incident shocked Min Aung Hlaing and his entire family, sources close to family members said.
The next day, Min Aung Hlaing, who had reportedly planned to join the water festival celebration in Pyin Oo Lwin, disappeared, leaving only his wife Kyu Kyu Hla and her bodyguards to show up. Inside sources said Min Aung Hlaing flew to Meiktila Airbase in Mandalay Region, instead.
Meiktila is home to the Myanmar Air Force’s central command and a large number of regime forces are stationed at the airbase.
Then Min Aung Hlaing disappeared from the public scene again. But he is not alone in being out of view.
His No. 2, Vice Senior General Soe Win, commander-in-chief of the army and deputy head of the State Administration Council (as the junta calls itself), disappeared for nearly a month after an April 3 visit to Ba Htoo, a garrison town in southern Shan State, finally reappearing on state TV’s evening news on Monday.
According to unconfirmed reports, he was injured in a drone strike on April 9 when resistance forces attacked the headquarters of the Southeastern Command in Mon State’s Mawlamyine.
Opposition groups claimed Soe Win and other senior officers including Lieutenant General Nyunt Win Swe, former chief of the Yangon Command, were meeting there to discuss how to defend Myawaddy, a key town for border trade with Thailand, from Karen rebels. (Myawaddy was temporarily captured by rebels but they have since withdrawn from the town.)
Junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun twice denied reports that Soe Win was receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained in a drone attack. Putting aside the truthfulness of his denials, it remains a strange and unexplained fact that Soe Win completely disappeared from public sight during a critical time for the regime. During his absence, Myawaddy fell into rebel hands and fighting broke out near the Thai border, among other developments.
On Monday, the regime-controlled state-owned media reported that Soe Win and Nyunt Win Swe met officers and other ranks receiving treatment at a military hospital in the Mon State capital Mawlamyine to offer “words of honor and encouragement” for their injuries “sustained during their performance of national defense and security duties.”
What we can say for sure is that the junta’s two top leaders, Min Aung Hlaing and Soe Win, were directly targeted and attacked in April. Min Aung Hlaing apparently survived the attack on him, while Soe Win went missing for nearly a month.
If the drone attack on the Southeastern Command in Mon State’s Mawlamyine really injured Soe Win and Nyunt Win Swe, then it was an amazing stroke of luck for the resistance.
Unsurprisingly, Soe Win’s disappearance also prompted speculation of an internal rift between the junta’s two top leaders. Thus, news organizations, including this one, raised the possibility of a purge of the No. 2. But based on the military’s usual playbook, such a move would inevitably be followed by a public announcement that Soe Win was “permitted to retire for health reasons.”
Somewhere, most likely in Naypyitaw or Meiktila, Min Aung Hlaing is now holed up, feeling nervous and insecure. (One thinks of the fear experienced by thousands of civilian families, hiding and with nowhere to run, as his jet fighters cold-bloodedly and indiscriminately bombed and strafed their homes over the last three years.) Myanmar people believe in karma. The past actions of Min Aung Hlaing and his entire regime will come back to haunt them.
The junta chief asked his close confidants to find out who leaked his itinerary to the opposition side, according to Yangon-based junta watchers. Of course, it was one of his many enemies. Whom can he trust?
By now, it seems safe to say the ever more nervous and ruthless Min Aung Hlaing no longer trusts the ministers and generals around him.
He is now heavily reliant on his trusted intelligence chief Lieutenant General Ye Win Oo, head of the Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs, and a few other key aides. They all carry revolvers these days.
And Min Aung Hlaing? He carries a gun and a bottle of alprazolam.
