Rewarding lapdogs
Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing marked Independence Day on Thursday by conferring honorary titles on over 1,000 individuals who helped design the 2008 Constitution that guarantees the military’s grip on power.
Among them were schoolteachers, rectors, civil servants and artists who, as members of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association – the predecessor of Union Solidarity and Development Party, formed by former dictator Than Shwe – attended rubber-stamp constitution conventions held from 1993 to 1996 and from 2004 to 2007. Only provisions approved by Than Shwe and his deputy Maung Aye were included in the final 2008 charter.
The constitution grants the military a leading role in national politics and a free hand in managing military affairs. It permits the commander-in-chief to appoint 25 percent of lawmakers and control the ministries of defense, border affairs and home affairs. The charter also hands the military chief greater power than the country’s elected president at the National Defense and Security Council.
After staging a coup following the National League for Democracy’s resounding election win in 2020, Min Aung Hlaing has vowed to safeguard the constitution. The junta boss has visited the 2008 Constitution’s birthplace, Nyaungnabin Hall, near Hlegu Township in Yangon Region, at least twice since the coup. He describes Nyaungnabin as a historic place.
Desperate cry for ‘all-out war’
As the Myanmar military suffers humiliating defeats in northern Shan, Karenni (Kayah), Karen, Chin and Rakhine states, as well as in Sagaing and Bago regions, a so-called ‘letter to the editor’ published in junta-controlled Myanma Alin newspapers on December 31 urged more support for an armed force ranked 38th strongest in the world.
The letter urged the junta to devote all of the country’s financial resources to crushing revolutionary forces and proving the might of the Myanmar military.
The vast military expenditure this would entail could be recouped after the civil war, it said.
The letter urged the regime to crush the resistance forces so that they can never rise again.
However, Min Aung Hlaing was apparently too busy to heed the advice. The junta boss reconsecrated two pagodas in Naypyitaw on January 2 and 3, and he even had time to enjoy the final of the junta’s inter-ministry football tournament.
Until the launch of Operation 1027 in late October, resistance groups and observers at home and abroad had few doubts about the Myanmar military’s indomitable strength. But the large-scale offensive has now exposed the vulnerability of the junta, which has lost more than 20 towns and over 400 outposts in just two months.
Dictator plays New Year blame game
Min Aung Hlaing kept this year’s speech brief – just long enough to blame everyone for the disaster he created by seizing power from a democratically elected government almost three years ago. Read more:
