The head of Myanmar’s ruling military council marked Armed Forces Day on Wednesday with a speech saying that the nation’s youth were being tricked into supporting the resistance against army rule, and that ethnic armed groups allied with the resistance engage in drug trafficking, natural resources smuggling and illegal gambling.
Burmese Senior General Min Aung Hlaing spoke in the capital, Naypyidaw, where thousands of military personnel paraded in an annual show of strength, even as the army has suffered a series of unprecedented battlefield defeats that have tarnished its once invincible reputation.
Min Aung Hlaing touched on familiar themes, urging the international community not to support the resistance forces, whom he blamed for disturbing the process for planned, but not yet scheduled elections.
Photo: AFP
Earlier this month, he told Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency that elections might be held in parts of the country that are peaceful and stable.
Many Western nations have applied sanctions against Myanmar’s ruling generals because of their 2021 seizure of power and brutal suppression of opposition.
Military offensives since then have displaced more than 2 million people, UN data show.
Min Aung Hlaing said that it is “disheartening to witness youths becoming scapegoats of insurgents, misled by false narrative propaganda through media sabotage.”
He also accused unnamed ethnic armed groups of “destroying the path toward forming a union based on democratic values and federalism.”
The army in 2021 overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, whom it accused of winning the 2020 election through massive voter fraud, presenting what it said was evidence disputed by independent poll-watching groups.
The military’s suppression of protests against its takeover triggered nationwide armed resistance. Thousands of young people fled to jungles and mountains in remote border areas and made common cause with ethnic guerrilla forces battle-hardened by decades of combat with the army in pursuit of autonomy.
Over the past five months, Min Aung Hlaing’s army has been routed in northern Shan State, is conceding swathes of territory in Rakhine State in the west and is under growing attack in other regions.
As losses have risen and morale has plummeted, authorities activated a conscription law.
The military and some of the ethnic minority groups with strongholds in border regions have been accused of having links to illegal activities such as drug production and offering protection to casino complexes that have served as centers for carrying out illegal scams online.
The parade marking this year’s 79th Armed Forces Day was held in the sunset hours for the first time since Naypyitaw became the capital in 2006.
Previously, it was held at sunrise.
Burmese Major General Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the ruling military council, said that the change was due to the unusually hot weather caused by the El Nino phenomenon.
Armed Forces Day marks the day in 1945 when the army of Myanmar, then known as Burma, began its fight against occupying Japanese forces who had taken over after driving out the British.
Statements by the British and Canadian embassies marking Armed Forces Day, said that civilians across the country are being targeted in attacks by the military that include airstrikes on homes, schools, healthcare facilities and places of worship.
Canada in its statement urged all countries to “immediately stop the sale or transfer of arms, military equipment, dual-use equipment, aviation fuel and technical military assistance to Myanmar.”
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant