Min Aung Hlaing
Igor Blazevic
On 17, April, Thai Prime Minister reposted a Facebook post by Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pampree Bahiddha-Nukara welcoming the news that former Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and former president Win Myint had been moved from prison to their respective homes.
It is really a pity that Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pampree Bahiddha-Nukara is making such statement and that Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin is reposting it. They should be more considerate with the feelings of the hard-tested people of Myanmar who have endured over three years of military terror.
First, there are no positive steps done by military junta. Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint have not been “moved from prison to their homes”. They are still prisoners and hostages of the junta. They have been “moved” from one prison to another prison. That is all. What the junta is doing is once more throwing smoke bombs to divert attention from the fact that their rule is crumbling and they are suffering humiliating defeats. The military is cracking on all sides and the junta is trying to hide that behind the fog of false narratives.
Second, calling imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint “former” is adding insult to injury. Political leaders of this friendly neighbouring country should be more careful in the language they chose.
Third, it is not Aung San Suu Kyi or U Win Myint who are “former”. It is coup maker Min Aung Hlaing who will be “former” and not too much time will pass before this will happen.
The people of Myanmar have proven with their own heroism and readiness to endure hardship and struggle that they are the only ones who will decide who will be “former” and who will shape the future of Myanmar.
It is, however, no surprise that such a statement is coming from Deputy Prime Minister Pampree and Prime Minister Srettha.
China and Thailand (ASEAN) have been playing a very problematic diplomatic game since the end of last year and since Myanmar military junta started to suffer one significant defeat after another.
China and Thailand do not want the junta to be a total winner, but they are also afraid of the military being defeated. They see how incompetent, hated and weak the junta is. They understand that the military is not able to consolidate control over the country. However, they cannot imagine Myanmar without dominant military rule. Neighbours are afraid of the military collapsing.
For that reason, they are trying to persuade the junta to become more “cooperative” and “tame”. They are trying to make them more acceptable.
Min Aung Hlaing junta is not able to be tame and acceptable, but neighbours believe that the moment is right, that the military is so weakened and in existential crisis, that they will be ready for some compromises.
That is why both Thailand and China are so loudly welcoming “positive steps” when there are no positive steps in reality – just the junta’s pathetic and well-known stupid game of cheating and creating false narratives.
China and Thailand want to persuade and pressure all Myanmar stakeholders to come to the negotiating table.
They also want to take revolution out of the political future of Myanmar. They do not believe in the possibility and they do not want deep and big change in Myanmar – one in which the military will be removed from politics and Myanmar will become decentralized, federal democratic country.
Neighbours do not want what the people of Myanmar want. That is why they are meddling.
Neighbours want to bring back the 2011 situation, in which the military will remain in the centre of Myanmar politics and will reman the dominant player. Neighbours would also like to find someone else who will politically “represent” the Bama population and they would like to break the current NUG & EROs alliance to make the EAO a separate political actor, which will represent ethnic nationalities.
China and Thailand want to bring back Myanmar politics in the 2011 triangle of an “elite pact”. They do not want the victory of the people’s revolution.
This is why they are helping the junta play this manipulative game with Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint. They want to give the impression that there is “positive development” when there is none.
Neighbours would like, anyhow they can, to replace the revolutionary NUG-EROs alliance with someone with the reputation and popularity of Aung San Suu Kyi to become part of an “elite pact”.
This will not work.
Min Aung Hlaing has never been and is still not able to agree to any compromising move. In his disillusioned Napoleonic mind, he will continue to try to gain control through destruction, terror, lies and cheating. He will do that until his own fall.
There is very little reason to assume that Aung San Suu Kyi will accept becoming a puppet of manipulative games that intend to help the military junta survive.
The people of Myanmar and resistance forces, both from ethnic and from the Bama side, have learned the hard way that they cannot trust the military. Now when they have the military on the ropes and they have a historic opportunity to remove military regime, they have little reason to accept military dominance once again.
Unfortunately, key Myanmar neighbours believe that bringing back Myanmar politics to the triangle of the elite pact can work. This is what China and Thailand, each on its own, are trying to achieve.
By doing that, they are prolonging the conflict in Myanmar and they are deepening the suffering of the people of the country.
