Empty chair at Thingyan
On April 8 and 9, resistance forces carried out drone attacks on the headquarters of Southeastern Command in Mon State’s Mawlamyine Town. Since then, junta spokesman Major-General Zaw Min Tun has twice denied that deputy junta chief Soe Win was badly injured in those attacks.
The last time Soe Win was seen in public was on April 3 when he visited the garrison town of Ba Htoo in southern Shan State.
At the time of the drone attacks, Soe Win was visiting Southeastern Command to oversee a counteroffensive to retake Myawaddy Town on the Myanmar-Thai border from Karen resistance forces.
Soe Win was also a notable absentee at last week’s Thingyan celebrations in Naypyitaw despite having joined the water festival in previous years.
The no-show was followed by rumors that Min Aung Hlaing’s loyalist Quartermaster-General Kyaw Swar Lin would soon replace Soe Win as deputy military chief.
Rakhine ethnic games
After losing eight townships in barely five months to the Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine State, the military regime has accused the ethnic armed group of inciting racial conflict in Myanmar’s westernmost state.
The accusation was leveled after a fire broke out in the Rakhine border town of Buthidaung on Wednesday and allegations began circulating that the regime and local Muslims were behind it.
Meanwhile, India’s New Indian Express reported that over 1,600 Hindus and 120-plus Buddhists were being held hostage by Rohingya terror groups in Buthidaung.
AA chief Tun Myat Naing shared the Indian Express report via Twitter (now X).
Junta spokesman Major-General Zaw Min Tun on Friday responded by accusing the AA of stirring up racial hatred.
Meanwhile, the regime has been forcibly conscripting Muslim Rohingya to fight against the AA in Rakhine while also coercing them into staging protests against the ethnic army.
Anyone who believes the regime has the interests and safety of the Rohingya at heart should cast their mind back a few years.
Before seizing power in 2021, the military conducted a crackdown in 2016-2017 that left thousands of Rohingya dead and forced over 700,000 to flee, mainly to refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.
Amnesty (but not for political prisoners)
At least 20,000 political prisoners remain locked up in Myanmar following the junta’s New Year amnesty on Wednesday in which only a tiny fraction of those released were dissidents. Read more
