A spokesman for the junta blamed the heatwave that was sweeping through Myanmar for both this and the amnesty of nearly 3,000 additional detainees. But the Generals’ unease isn’t solely related to the weather.
The junta, which took over in a coup in February 2021, has lost a great deal of land in recent months to ethnic armies that have allied with the armed democratic movement. Myawaddy, a town near the Thai border, was taken over by the ethnic militia known as the Karen National Union during the most recent fighting in Kayin state.
Source: DW
The fight is expanding from the ethnic periphery to the Bamar heartland, as evidenced by the resistance militia’s drone assaults on senior generals at military sites, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s residence in the capital, Naypitaw.The armed branch of Myanmar’s “government-in-exile,” the National Unity Government (NUG), known as the People’s Defence Force (PDF), has been able to step up the opposition. In Shan state, a network of towns and villages was taken over by a combination of three ethnic forces in October. Burmese soldiers were driven out of bases near the Indian border by Chinese forces the next month.
The Arakkan Army seized control of a sizable portion of Rakhine and Chin earlier this year. Numerous soldiers have joined the various PDF factions across the nation, while thousands of soldiers have fled the junta. In a desperate move, the regime declared conscription, which prompted hundreds of young people from Myanmar to flee into Thailand.
Source: BBC News
If the junta thinks it can now negotiate with the NLD and go back to a civilian power-sharing structure where it has the upper hand—like it had before the coup—it may be misguided. Having come this far, the NUG can only accept such an arrangement at the risk of the country disintegrating, as its constituents include parties representing minority ethnic border states in addition to the NLD.
Countries like Thailand and China now appear to understand this.Delhi chose to align itself with the junta and abandoned its pretext of advocating for a “return to democracy” while being behind the times when it came to the events in Myanmar. This is true, even if India’s major connection projects in Myanmar have been derailed and its borders in the Northeast are unstable due to the Generals’ power grab. However, there is still time to act. The security czars in Delhi need to look past Naypitaw and establish formal contact with the democratic forces in the nation.
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