Threadbare thinking
Despite racking his brain, Min Aung Hlaing has come up with few ideas to revitalize a national economy wrecked by his coup three years ago. Amid sporadic babbling about wild economic schemes divorced from reality, all he has done is to urge people to consume less cooking oil and fuel, and call for domestic production of paper and steel. The aim is to reduce the outflow of US dollars so that he can use them to buy weapons.
Apparently oblivious of his regime’s failure to realize his previous instructions, Min Aung Hlaing issued a fresh order at a meeting on cotton farming and the garment industry in Naypyitaw on Thursday.
He called for a boost in production of cotton and quality clothes, declaring this would create job opportunities and help reduce garment imports.
Fighting has been raging in the cotton-growing heartlands of central Myanmar, Shan and Chin states, disrupting cultivation. Meanwhile, many garment factories have either shut down or suspended operations because of serious power shortages and increasing production costs. A lack of orders due to international sanctions against the regime hasn’t helped matters.
So, it can be confidently anticipated that Min Aung Hlaing’s latest economic plan will meet the same fate as its predecessors: failure.
Smokescreen for horrific war crime
The military regime has again denied burning two resistance fighters alive last year in Magwe Region.
During the 55th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 1, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted a video clip that shows two resistance members being burned to death in his oral update on Myanmar.
The junta’s permanent mission to the UN hit back at the statement, claiming the oral update was “overwhelmed by the sweeping allegations and propaganda” of resistance forces fighting the regime.
“Careful examination of the video reveals that the weapons being carried by the perpetrators have never been used by the Tatmadaw [Myanmar military],” reads the regime’s retort published on the Facebook page of the junta-controlled Foreign Ministry earlier this week.
Two members of the resistance’s Yaw Defense Force were burned alive while being hanged from a tree by junta-allied Pyu Saw Htee militias at Myauk Khin Yan village in Magwe Region’s Gangaw Township on Nov. 7 last year.
After the video clip went viral in the first week of February, the regime said its “community-based defense teams” had nothing to do with the crime, and that no resistance fighters had been captured in the village.
Around the time of the execution last year, pro-junta Telegram channels reported the capture of two resistance fighters and showed their photos. They matched those of the two young men burned alive, exposing the junta’s lie.
‘No deal with Brotherhood Alliance’
An unconfirmed report says the regime and Brotherhood Alliance made five commitments during their latest peace talks. Read more
Racing ahead with conscription
The junta is racing to impose conscription and has already prepared venues for military training for the first group of 5,000 conscripts who will be selected after the Myanmar New Year holidays next month. Read more
Anger as Thai lawmakers host anti-regime figures
Members of the shadow National Unity Government attended a seminar at Parliament House in Bangkok led by a Thai opposition lawmaker over the regime’s strenuous objections. Read more
