25th February 2021
Tonight saw a massive police presence on Aung Mingalar Road in Tamwe, Yangon. For those of you unfamiliar with Yangon, this is a residential area to the North East of downtown and is a solid, safe area, home to families with good incomes. I can’t find out the reason for the demonstration of force unless they were snatch squads going about their business. It is the home constituency of President U Win Myint, so perhaps they are just reminding people who is in charge.
Another picture would show that they have thoughtfully supplied an ambulance, although I am not sure where they would have got the medical staff from.
This would seem to explain why they are there:-
They have just been reinforced (reinforced? Really?) by troops from the 77th Light Infantry Division) (LID) who seem prepared for action.
Followers of these updates from Myanmar will be familiar with my comments regarding the release of prisoners from prison and their possible (probable?) use as Agents Provocateur. Well people have been causing problems in Yangon and of course it will give the police an excuse to get further involved on the grounds of protecting the public. The Military media team will be releasing pictures of these troublemakers to justify their actions and place the blame on the demonstrators. The International MSM will be given press releases and pictures which the Military will claim shows the violence now being perpetrated by the CDM demonstrators.
A clue in the above picture as to the bona fides of the participants is the presence of a tattoo on the right wrist of the knifeman. This is typical of the released prisoners.
The World Bank has just announced that it has put a stop to all disbursements for projects currently underway in Myanmar. This covers electricity, education and health infrastructure development.
Elsewhere, the economic pressure mounts.
Japan is considering halting new assistance projects in Myanmar for the time being in response to the military coup earlier this month, government sources said Thursday, as international criticism of the takeover mounts.
Japan, a major donor to Myanmar, has joined other Group of Seven advanced economies in condemning the coup and the Myanmar security forces’ use of violence against peaceful protests.
Unlike its G-7 partners, Japan has maintained connections with both the military, known as the Tatmadaw, and ousted civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, according to Japanese Foreign Ministry officials.
Japan intends to continue efforts to convince the Myanmar military to release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and others detained and swiftly restore democratic government in Myanmar, the officials said.
Japan extended massive official development assistance totaling nearly 190 billion yen (US$1.8 billion, 2.52 trillion kyats) in fiscal 2019, by far the largest among the 30-member Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to Japan’s Foreign Ministry. China has not disclosed its assistance figures for the country.
In 2016, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Daw Aung San Suu Kyi that Japan’s public and private sectors would contribute about 800 billion yen over five years to agriculture, human resources, manufacturing, energy, urban development and financial services essential to nation-building in Myanmar.
Source The Irrawaddy 25th February.
In the North, Kachin state is again providing headaches. I have previously commented on the effects of extreme violence in Myitkyina, capital of Kachin state and now matters are deteriorating in Putao in the far north. This is a buffer between China and India and is of great strategic importance.
The military has been broadening its footprint in the far northern town of Putao for the past decade, likely due to its rich natural resources and its strategic geographic location near the borders of both China and India. Coup mastermind and military chief Min Aung Hlaing made official visits to Putao twice in 2020, citing an interest in the “development” of this isolated settlement and the surrounding areas.
Just three days before the coup, on January 29, the entire unit of Myitkyina’s regional Infantry Battalion 21 — around 200 men and their family members — was deployed to Putao to be permanently based there. On the same day, the former Vice President Myint Swe — the current Acting President following the arrest of the NLD’s President Win Myint — toured Putao with the now detained former chief minister Dr. Hkyet Awng.
Source The Diplomat 25th February.
This is going to be a flash point as the KIA have said that they do not support the coup and will intensify their opposition to the ongoing peace process.
In an act of economic vandalism, the Military has started arresting and detaining business leaders.
Having arrested hundreds of politicians, activists and social workers for taking part in Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement against the military coup d’état on February 1, the ruling junta now has another target in its campaign to cower an outraged public into submission: the local business community.
Scores of major, medium-sized and small business owners and contractors across the country have been rounded up, interrogated and even detained by the Office of the Chief of Security Affairs, the most dreaded branch of Myanmar’s military intelligence agency, which is known locally by its acronym sa ya pa.
Among those businessmen is Zaw Zaw, a magnate and the founder and chairman of the Ayeyawdady – or Aya – Bank and the chairman of the Myanmar Football Federation.
Another is Chit Khaing, the founder of the Myanmar Apex Bank and president of the Eden Group, a major construction and service company. A third tycoon who was interrogated but may have been released is Maung Weik, whose Maung Weik and Family Company has investments in real estate, trading and construction.
Those three – and others whose names and identities are not yet known – were accused of having made donations to the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won landslide victories in the 2015 and 2020 elections which made it possible to form a government.
Notable former sa ya pa commanders include new president Myint Swe – the military sacked President Win Myint on the night of the coup and Myint Swe, the former military-appointed vice-president assumed to post – and the new defense minister, General Mya Tun Oo.
While the arrests of celebrities infuriated the public and can only lead to further discontent, rounding up businesspeople and subjecting them to sa ya pa-led interrogations will hardly bolster confidence among domestic as well as international investors.
And without getting the economy back on track in the midst of the COVID-19 health crisis, a general strike and mass arrests, the future of Myanmar’s new military regime definitely hangs in the balance.
Source Asia Times 25th February
And so, the economic decline continues.
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