Pariah seeks friends
After being shunned and sanctioned by the international community, Myanmar’s military regime is working to join BRICS, a regional bloc led by its key allies and arms suppliers, China and Russia.
Junta information minister Maung Maung Ohn said on his recent visit to Moscow that Myanmar was willing to take observer status in BRICS before applying for full membership, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported on Sunday.
“In the future we would like to apply for full membership in the integration. Many have already applied in our region, Southeast Asia, and we would like to do it,” he said.
Maung Maung Ohn was in Moscow to attend the seventh BRICS Media Summit hosted by TASS from September 13-17.
BRICS, an intergovernmental organization, states its aim is to amplify the voice of major emerging economies to counterbalance the Western-led global order. It was founded in 2006 by Russia, Brazil, India and China, with South Africa joining in 2010. Recently, it expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UAE.
The regime began exploring the possibility of joining BRICS last year, amid crippling sanctions imposed by the international community for its war crimes. It also explored the possibility of taking loans from the BRICS’ New Development Bank, which would help plug its huge budget deficit.
Census trumps rescue
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has been pushing for the return of hundreds of thousands of flood victims to their homes even though his regime is doing little to help them.
The junta boss is worried that the mass displacement will affect his plan to organize a population census scheduled for next month. The census is critical for compiling voter lists which Min Aung Hlaing needs to proceed with his poll plan to justify his 2021 coup and cement his grip on power.
According to the regime, confirmed fatalities rose to 293 people on Thursday, with 4,471 houses destroyed and 168,704 others damaged by floods and landslides in 53 townships. A total of 161,592 people are taking shelter at 425 relief camps, it said.
The regime said that 766,586 acres of paddy and other crop fields were flooded, and 129,150 farm animals including cows and buffaloes crucial for farming were killed. A total of 919 schools were submerged, and other schools are being used to shelter flood victims.
The extent of the damage may be far worse than figures released by the regime show.
Though he has asked people to return home as early as possible, many flood victims have no homes to return to after their houses were swept away by floods or buried by landslides. And many need help to clean up their villages after floodwater rampaged through.
He told farmers who have lost their homes and farms to “grow more in the hot season to compensate for what they have lost in floods” as “dams and reservoirs are full of water now.”
Min Aung Hlaing has ordered schools to be reopened by the end of this month. He told flood victims to send their children back to school but did not reveal any plan to ease the trauma of children who lost their parents in floods.
Finally, Min Aung Hlaing promised his regime would take only six months to restore normality in flood-hit areas. Given that many flood victims even in Naypyitaw, the junta’s nerve centre, have yet to receive help, that promise sounds implausible.
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