Myanmar reels from the devastation of the recent earthquake, but the military junta continues to prioritize control and violence over the well-being of its people. While communities dig through rubble with their bare hands, desperate to rescue loved ones, the military junta continues airstrikes, blocks aid, and punishes those who try to help.
Yet the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), an emerging forum for economic cooperation in the region, has decided to extend a platform to the regime as if it were a legitimate government.
Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing is to attend this week’s BIMSTEC forum in Bangkok, where so far he has quite rightly been persona non grata under ASEAN rules but will now presumably be treated with the diplomatic courtesy reserved for heads of state.
This decision doesn’t just insult the people of Myanmar—it seriously undermines the credibility of BIMSTEC as a regional institution. It also damages Thailand’s standing as host and leader. And it weakens the region’s collective security.
Min Aung Hlaing is not a head of state. He is a mass murderer. Under his command, the military junta has shut down over 20 hospitals by targeting Civil Disobedience Movement doctors and healthcare workers. As a result, communities have been left with no trauma care, no doctors, and no medical infrastructure, even in the wake of a devastating natural disaster.
Offers of help have been turned away. Taiwan—home to one of the world’s top disaster rescue teams—offered immediate support, but the junta rejected it. Foreign journalists have been barred from entering the country to document the scale of the devastation, preventing accurate reporting and global accountability.
Worse still, the junta continues to use its aircraft not for rescue or aid delivery but for destruction. Military planes and helicopters that could be saving lives are instead being used to drop bombs on villages, even in the aftermath of the earthquake. The regime has prioritized military operations over humanitarian response, using state resources to terrorize rather than protect.
The regime hasn’t stopped there. It is now targeting local volunteers—ordinary citizens who stepped up to help their neighbors when the government would not. Some have been arrested, harassed, or disappeared. Others have been forcibly conscripted by the military, pulled away from rescue efforts, and forced to serve the regime against their will.
This is not the behavior of a government. This is the behavior of a criminal gang.
By continuing to include the junta in BIMSTEC proceedings, regional leaders grant it the legitimacy it craves. Every invitation, every photo op, every diplomatic courtesy sends a message—not just to the regime, but to the people of Myanmar and the region: that violence is tolerable, and that power matters more than principle.
This choice has real consequences. The junta is not just a threat to Myanmar’s people, it is a regional security threat. Under its protection, cyber scam operations have flourished, trafficking thousands and targeting victims across Southeast Asia, including Thailand. The regime also enables and profits from drug trafficking, fueling addiction, instability, and cross-border crime.
Thailand, more than any other country, bears the consequences of having these gangsters for neighbors. The networks do not stop at the border. They undermine Thai security, exploit vulnerable populations, and erode public trust in regional cooperation.
BIMSTEC was founded to advance shared prosperity, peace, and mutual respect. Continuing to engage a regime that bombs survivors, rejects humanitarian aid, blocks journalism, enables criminal networks, and punishes volunteers is a betrayal of those very principles.
Legitimacy must be earned. Min Aung Hlaing and his regime have earned nothing but condemnation.
It’s time for BIMSTEC and Thailand to draw the line. End this regime’s participation. Stop granting a platform to a junta that exists only to oppress and exploit. Stand with the people. Reject the perpetrators. Our region’s security and credibility depend on it.
Miemie Winn Byrd, Ed.D., a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, is a Burmese-American security analyst based in Honolulu, Hawaii.
