Caretaker Government by War-dogs in Burma

                  (Based on Burmese posts from the FACEBOOK in July 2021.) 

Newest Burmese dictator General Min Aung Hlaing (MAH) has formed a so-called Caretaker Government after removing third highest ranking general and other seemingly disloyal army generals from their army posts.

On August-1 MAH shamelessly declared himself as the Prime Minister of newly-formed Caretaker Government of Burma. As the six month anniversary of his February-1 coup he delivered a state speech to the country. In his speech he declared to hold the power two more years till August-1 2023.

Even though he promised to hold a general election soon he said he still needs two years to stabilize the country which he himself has destabilized by his coup. He as the military chief was to retire in last July at the age of sixty-five years, but he refused to retire and stage a coup and then killed thousands of anti-coup protesters and imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands of politicians and activists opposing his dictatorship.

He also happily admitted that he himself has let COVID Third-wave kill at least 100,000 or even more people of Burma in one month of July alone. Instead of staying home those stupid people dared to come out and protest against my coup. “Good riddance,” the nice general laughed.

Removal of His Heir-apparent and other Generals

After the coup MAH quietly demoted his designated-heir General Mya Htun Oo from the third-most-powerful post of Chief-of-Staff (Combined army, nay, & air force) to the ceremonial post of Defense Minister without any meaningful control over the armed troops.

According to the orderly-succession plan laid down carefully by former dictator General Than Shwe in 2011 to avoid any more coups in Burma, now 60-year old Mya Htun Oo (born in 1961) was to become the military chief when MAH (born in 1956) had to retire on his 65^th birthday in July 2021.

But the power-mad and money-crazy MAH has already thrown away Than Shwe’s plan into the gutter, and been trying desperately to cling onto the power like mad Ne Win the first dictator of our long-suffering Burma had done for nearly 30 years.

When General Mya Htun Oo tried to resign publicly from the army in February as he disagrees with MAH Coup he was put under house arrest to be killed later in Naypyidaw by MAH. MAH’s right hand man General Soe Win saved his life and MAH put him under an office-arrest at the Defense Ministry in Naypyidaw.

The media-savvy moderate General was also very friendly to the press and normally he was the front man of the Myanmar Military (Tatmadaw) at the press conferences and media briefings, but he suddenly and suspiciously disappears from the public since the coup in February this year.

General Sein Win (former Defense Minister from August-2015 to February-2021) and General Ye Aung (former Border Affairs Minister from 2018 to 2021) were forced to retire while General Kyaw Swe (former Home Affairs Minister from 2016 to 2021) has been put under house arrest in his Rangoon house.

General Yar Byay (former senior peace negotiator) was also arrested and now spending his days playing golf in Rangoon after a few months long house arrest. He claimed he was lucky to be alive.

Tussle over Naming of ASEAN’s Special Envoy

Razali Ismail, a Malaysian and former special envoy of the Secretary-General for Myanmar, and  Virasak Futrakul, former deputy minister of foreign affairs of Thailand, and Erywan Yusof, Brunei minister of foreign affairs were leading candidates among the names nominated by ASEAN for the post of ASEAN Special Envoy to Burma (Myanmar).

Dictator Min Aung Hlaing’s preferred candidate was Thai Foreign Minster Virasak Futrakul, but he dropped out willingly and ASEAN has chosen Brunei Foreign Minister Erywan Yousof. Erywan’s selection by ASEAN was responded negatively by Burmese dictator MAH and he declared he would never let Erywan Yusof meet detained Aung San Suu Kyi or any other opposition figure detained by the military.