History of the Tatmadaw

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Sub-title: ‘They will condone and fund a military coup just to keep their profits flowing. We want Chevron to stop funding the coup,’ a protest organiser says
Description: "Protests against US oil giant Chevron were held in multiple locations on Friday and Saturday as part of “Anti-Chevron Day,” in the lead-up to the company’s annual shareholder meeting scheduled for Wednesday. At the El Segundo oil refinery in California, organisers estimated that 80 people participated in a Saturday demonstration against Chevron’s business in both Myanmar and the Amazon rainforest in South America, and its role in contributing to climate change. Protest organiser Jack Eidt from SoCal 350 Climate Action told Myanmar Now that Chevron should work in concert with the US government to pressure Myanmar’s junta to restore democracy. “We are concerned by [Chevron’s] environmentally corrupt business practices. The case in Myanmar fits with their business model – the pursuit of profits no matter the cost to people and planet. They will condone and fund a military coup just to keep their profits flowing. We want Chevron to stop funding the coup,” Jack Eidt said. In the San Francisco Bay Area, protesters gathered outside the Chevron Richmond Refinery on Friday. In a statement, Nyunt Than, a member of the Burmese American Democratic Alliance, demanded US sanctions be imposed against Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). “More than 800 people have been killed since the military coup in Myanmar on February 1st. Chevron is funding slaughter in Myanmar and to stop it, President Biden must sanction MOGE to make such payment illegal,” he said. MOGE, a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Electricity and Energy, came under direct military control as a result of the February 1 coup. Other Anti-Chevron protests were held in Australia and the Philippines. Civil society groups are also pressuring Chevron through an online petition to CEO Michael Wirth, demanding that the company “stop bankrolling the Myanmar military.” It has received more than 15,000 signatures. Chevron, headquartered in California, is one of the world’s biggest oil companies with a market capitalisation of more than US$200 billion. In Myanmar, Chevron owns 28.3 percent of the offshore Yadana gas field, operated by Total. The company is also an investor in the Yadana pipeline. Chevron subsidiary Unocal was sued by Karen villagers in US courts in 1996 for human rights violations linked to the Yadana pipeline, including killings, forced relocation, forced labour and rape. They received compensation in an out of court settlement..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-05-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Regional bloc's controversial summit with military leader could provide a template for UN agencies also to engage the killer junta
Description: "At first it appeared that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had summoned Myanmar coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to Jakarta to read him the riot act. Before the extraordinary summit, leaders of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines had condemned the lethal violence unleashed since the February 1 coup, with at least 755 protesters killed by the Myanmar police and military, and called for the release of all political prisoners, now numbering nearly 4,000 including elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But after the military leader attended the April 24 meeting, he left with what many viewed as a mere slap on the wrist. ASEAN agreed on a five-point plan for resolving Myanmar’s crisis, which by almost any measure was bland and toothless even by the regional grouping’s policies of consensus and non-interference. In essence, the meeting put equal blame on the Myanmar military’s gunning down peaceful demonstrators, including children as young as five, and the protesters’ use of slingshots and other homemade devices to defend themselves against the security forces’ war weapons. “We tried not to accuse his [Min Aung Hlaing’s] side too much because we don’t care who’s causing it,” Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin told reporters after the meeting. The Myanmar military’s mouthpiece Global New Light of Myanmar reported on April 25 that Min Aung Hlaing had emphasized the importance of close cooperation with ASEAN member countries in accord with the ASEAN Charter, and little more than that. In an April 26 statement, the coup leader said he would carefully consider ASEAN leaders’ recommended steps for solving the crisis “after the situation stabilizes”, and that would be done only if ASEAN’s plan of action facilitated the implementation of the junta’s own policies. The initial reaction from the “National Unity Government” (NUG), a coalition of elected parliamentarians, ethnic groups and other anti-military personalities, was to welcome the outcome of the Jakarta summit. In an April 24 statement, the same day as the meeting was held, NUG spokesperson Dr Sasa stated that he was “encouraged” by the consensus that ASEAN had reached. Rights groups say the danger with Dr Sasa’s statement and media reports that echo similar sentiments is that the main beneficiary of the summit would be Min Aung Hlaing’s coup-installed government. The international community may thus now believe that the time is ripe to tone down its criticism of the junta’s murderous acts in order to give the ASEAN plan a chance. The notion that the ASEAN summit was a “success” also opens the way for other international actors to engage the junta with outcomes that are unlikely to lead to the restoraration of democracy in Myanmar. But, as Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch stated in an April 25 press release: “The lack of a clear timeline for action, and ASEAN’s well-known weakness in implementing the decisions and plans that it issues, are real concerns that no one should overlook.” There is actually very little in ASEAN’s “five points of consensus” that could even be called a plan. The first point states that “all parties should exercise utmost restraint” and stop using violence. The second calls for a “constructive dialog among all parties concerned” while the third says that ASEAN shall appoint a special envoy to “facilitate the dialog process.” The fourth says ASEAN shall provide humanitarian assistance through its coordinating center for disaster management — aid that ultimately would have to be channeled through the military regime and thus unlikely to reach those most in need. The fifth and final point says that ASEAN’s “special envoy and delegation shall visit Myanmar to meet with all parties concerned.” But with the junta’s insistence on adherence to its own “roadmap”, which includes a vague vow to hold new elections perhaps within a year, those points are likely non-starters even if they were implemented — which of course would have to be done through ASEAN’s two golden principles of non-interference and consensus. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen attended the Jakarta meeting, but has stated that what’s happening in Myanmar is an “internal affair.” Other authoritarian member states like communist-ruled Vietnam and Laos will not be keen to create a bloc precedent that could draw into question their own non-democratic systems of government. Despite Dr Sasa’s positive appraisal of the summit, the reaction on Myanmar’s social media has been overwhelmingly negative and verged on outright hostility towards ASEAN, with many condemning the plan as a stab in the back. The 88 Generation group of activists, which brings together veterans of Myanmar’s long struggle for democracy, issued a statement even before the meeting took place accusing ASEAN of always siding with the military and acting “in its self-interest and has never been seen to assist nor solve any political discord within its member states.” The Irrawaddy, a website run by Myanmar journalists, said that “if ASEAN is looking to demonstrate progress, it should go further by condemning the violence and calling for the released of political prisoners and an immediate halt to torture of detainees and other abuses…Myanmar’s implosion has only further exposed ASEAN as the pathetic and irrelevant institution it is.” Meanwhile, the killings and arrests of protesters have continued unabated, even during and after the summit. Kaung Htet Naing, a 22-year-old student, was shot and killed in Mandalay on April 24. Another young protester was killed in the central town of Pyinmana and a 63-year-old woman died in custody after being abducted from her house by police in raids following the Jakarta summit. In the commercial capital Yangon, soldiers and police raided the house of Thura Saw, a former cameraman for the popular TV news channel DVB. Among those arrested since the coup are more than 70 journalists of whom 40 are still under detention while arrest warrants have been issued for another 22 media workers. A draft statement circulating before the Jakarta summit included a demand for the release of all political prisoners, but that was dropped as one of the “consensus points” after the arrival of Min Aung Hlaing. With the Jakarta summit in the bag, the Myanmar junta’s likely next step to win international legitimacy will be to woo UN agencies, whose Yangon-based officials potentially stand to lose their jobs unless agreements can be reached with the junta. That’s worked in the wake of past military massacres. In 1988, when the rest of the world shunned the murderous junta infamously known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC, Oscar Lazo, the head of Yangon-based UN agencies and himself representing the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), invited the SLORC-appointed minister for agriculture and forestry General Chit Swe to attend an FAO conference in Rome. That was hardly surprising considering Lazo had initiated several lucrative projects in collaboration with Aye Zaw Win, the son-in-law of then-military dictator General Ne Win. Lazo’s overture eventually opened the floodgates for the rest of the UN, which was soon back in business in Myanmar. Min Aung Hlaing’s junta has already begun to play the drug suppression card to gain international recognition. If the Global New Times of Myanmar of April 14 is to be believed, Myanmar’s Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Lieutenant General Than Hlaing attended the 64th meeting of the Narcotic Drugs Commission in Vienna from April 12-16 “via video conferencing.” The event, organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), overlooked the fact that Than Hlaing is among 25 junta leaders and other military officers who have been blacklisted and sanctioned by the European Union for what it has termed “serious human rights violations and abuses.” In a March 30 statement, the UNODC claimed that “drug lords entwined with rebel groups in Myanmar’s ungovernable border zone…the notorious Golden Triangle” are taking advantage of the situation by “pumping record amounts of methamphetamines across Southeast Asia.” The statement did not mention official or military complicity in the drug trade and the well-established fact that most of the drug trade is run by local militias that are allied with the Myanmar military. The question after the ASEAN meeting concerns which other international organizations might be willing to look away from the recent atrocities committed in Myanmar to maintain and pave their particularistic interests in the country. In an interview with the Jakarta Post on April 27, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi lauded what she apparently termed as “ASEAN’s Myanmar breakthrough.” But the question now is a breakthrough for whom, the pro-democracy movement, the democracy-suspending junta, or outside groups that see a cynical opportunity in Myanmar’s crisis?..."
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Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2021-04-28
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-02
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Sub-title: Unclaimed attacks on military airbases signal a possible spread of civil war from remote frontier areas to urban centers
Description: "No group has yet claimed responsibility for several, almost simultaneous attacks on military targets in central Myanmar, including air bases recently used to target ethnic armed groups in the nation’s frontier areas. Security analysts, however, believe the shadowy attacks are likely the work of an alliance between ethnic rebels and urban-based pro-democracy dissidents, with the former providing the explosives and the latter knowledge of local conditions in the Myanmar heartland. If that assessment is accurate and the hits were not isolated incidents, it could mean that Myanmar’s long-running, low-intensity civil wars are spreading from ethnic minority areas in the nation’s periphery to major cities and towns. Three months after top generals seized power from a popularly elected government and despite the fact that military and police have gunned down over 750 and arrested well over 4,000 protesters, people are still bravely taking to the streets to vent their anger with the coup. The ongoing popular resistance underscores what is by now widely seen as perhaps the most unsuccessful coup in modern Asian history. That could yet spell ill for coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who has stuck stubbornly to his guns amid rising international condemnation that is deeply isolating the country. There are certain indications provided confidentially to Asia Times by military insiders that veterans of previous ruling juntas, namely the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), are growing wary of Min Aung Hlaing’s perceived as ineffective and polarizing actions and tactics. Recent developments, including the attacks on military airbases, have opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities and scenarios that were largely unforeseen when the tanks rolled into the main city of Yangon three months ago and scores of elected MPs and other politicians were arrested and detained in the capital Naypyitaw. Those include a wider civil war in the nation’s central region heartland, including near the generals’ bunker-like capital at Naypyidaw. On April 29, unidentified militants fired rockets at air force bases in Magwe and Meiktila in central Myanmar. Another explosion detonated at a Myanmar Army weapons storage facility near Bago city, about 70 kilometers north of Yangon. Those attacks came after intense fighting between the Myanmar military, known as Tatmadaw, and ethnic rebels from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) on the border with Thailand. The shadowy unclaimed attacks on airbases also coincided with intensified battles with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the country’s far north, where many pro-democracy activists have sought refuge after bloody crackdowns in urban areas. The Tatmadaw’s attacks have been marked by airstrikes on rebel targets which have included civilian villages. That’s caused the recent displacement of more than 25,000 villagers in Kayin state and at least 5,000 in Kachin state. That adds to the tens of thousands who fled their homes amid earlier fighting in the areas. Long-time observers of Myanmar’s politics have privately drawn parallels between current events and what happened after an even bloodier coup in 1988, when thousands of dissidents also took to the hills and jungles after the Tatmadaw crushed another nationwide, pro-democracy uprising. But, they note, there are fundamental differences between the events of 1988 and current developments. In 1988, young urban dissidents formed the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), donned uniforms and fought alongside ethnic rebels in the frontier areas. At that time, it was much easier to acquire weapons from grey Thai arms markets and dissident groups had ready sanctuaries — and even offices — in neighboring Thailand. However, improved relations between the Thai and Myanmar militaries coupled with severe entry restrictions into Thailand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have at least so far kept the dissidents on the Myanmar side of the border. The old ABSDF exists now only in name as most of its cadres have either surrendered or been resettled in third countries. The ABSDF’s ultimately failed uprising could explain why the new ethnic-urban alliance has taken on a different and potentially more explosive form. Indeed, recent developments seem to signal the beginning of hitherto unseen urban warfare, which the Tatmadaw is ill-equipped to handle. Apart from the obvious alliances between informal groups of pro-democracy activists and ethnic rebels, local resistance forces have already emerged in Sagaing Region and Chin state. Reports indicate similar forces are coalescing in Mon state and Mandalay Region. Social media posts show those local partisans are equipped with hunting rifles and homemade explosives but have nonetheless been able to inflict significant casualties on the police and military, including in Kalay in Sagaing Region. In nearby Chin state, a new force called the Chinland Defense Force reportedly killed 15 junta troops in their area. Shadowy bomb and Molotov cocktail attacks have been reported against police stations in Yangon, Mandalay and Monywa. At the same time, the Tatmadaw must contend with battle-hardened ethnic armies. In the country’s far north, there have been over 50 clashes since Kachin rebels overran and captured a Tatmadaw outpost on the strategic Alawbum mountain near the Chinese border on March 25. Airstrikes have failed to dislodge the KIA, which has carried out subsequent attacks near the Hpakant jade mines in western Kachin state and north of Sumprabum in the state’s north. In Kayin State, the Free Burma Rangers nongovernmental organization reports daily fights between the Tatmadaw and KNLA, despite the fact the two sides entered a ceasefire agreement in October 2015. That agreement, which included the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and eight smaller, rather insignificant groups, was termed a “Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement” (NCA), although it was neither nationwide nor led to even a semblance of peace in frontier areas. Although the KNLA and the KIA have sided openly with Myanmar’s until now peaceful Civil Disobedience Movement, other ethnic groups have been less supportive. In a March 27 interview with Reuters, RCSS chairman Yawd Serk said his group would not stand by idly if the junta’s forces continue to kill protesters but his vow hasn’t been followed up with any clear action. On the contrary, the RCSS has been fighting a rival Shan group, the Shan State Army of the Shan State Progress Party and its ethnic Palaung allies in the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) for control of areas in northern Shan state. Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic army, the 20,000-30,000 strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), has remained conspicuously silent since the coup. Not all Wa agree with the stance: Ten Wa civil society organizations signed on March 25 a written, urgent plea to the UWSA and its political wing the United Wa State Party to say something. That hasn’t happened though, probably because the UWSA is so closely allied with China’s security services, which do not want to get involved with Myanmar’s anti-coup movement. Protesters have targeted Beijing’s perceived support of the regime at the United Nations. Several Chinese factories were torched in Yangon in one spasm of violence. The 7,000-strong Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine state, one of Myanmar’s most powerful rebel armies, which has killed hundreds of Tatmadaw soldiers in recent fighting, has taken a more surprising stance. It entered into ceasefire talks with the Tatmadaw in November last year and was taken off its list of “terrorist” organizations soon after the February 1 coup. Its leader, Twan Mrat Naing, said on April 16 at the UWSA’s Panghsang headquarters that the ousted National League for Democracy government claimed that it would create a federal union with equal rights for all nationalities but failed to deliver on the promise. With that view, it’s doubtful the AA will join any grand alliance between urban dissidents and ethnic armies. Even without a unified ethnic resistance, there is still a chance that the Tatmadaw’s old guard could move to break the stalemate by pressuring or even trying to overthrow Min Aung Hlaing and his top deputies before the situation deteriorates further. The SLORC and SPDC were likewise brutal outfits and no friends of democracy, but former junta chief and commander-in-chief Senior General Than Shwe did initiate liberal reforms that led to a more open society and vastly improved relations with the West and wider world before stepping aside in 2010. Than Shwe is now in his late 80s and political analysts in Myanmar believe that the current chaos is hardly the kind of legacy he would want to leave behind. Whether the aging general has the wherewithal, influence or inclination to try to rein in Min Aung Hlaing is unknown, but the anarchy unleashed by his coup is clearly not in the military establishment’s short or long-term interests..."
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Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2021-05-01
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-02
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Description: "When the soldiers of the Burma Independence Army, led by the Thirty Comrades, infiltrated Burma from neighboring Thailand in a brave action to oust the British, the modern history of the Burmese armed forces was born. The fragile, inexperienced and ill-equipped army had faced many ups and downs in Burma?s often turbulent political history. A year before independence in 1948, Aung San, the founder of the BIA and Burma?s independence hero, was gunned down by rivals, aided by British army officers. The country descended into turmoil and civil war. The legendary Thirty Comrades were also divided, dominated by two political factions. Gen Ne Win led and united the army, while his comrades went into hiding in the jungle, joining ?multi-color insurgent groups? aiming to topple the government. Ne Win, also a prominent member of the Thirty Comrades, o?nce proudly said that the Burmese army was founded by farmers, workers and other people of Burma, not by mercenaries. But he later fell victim of his own words, when he quelled street protests and dissent in the country by ordering troops to shoot and kill just to prolong his rule. So it?s no surprise to hear Burmese people saying that the armed forces were Ne Win?s pocket army. When the country was rocked by nationwide protests in 1988, Ne Win warned the nation in a state television address: ?If in future there are mob disturbances, if the army shoots, it hits—there is no firing into the air to scare.? Historians note that Ne Win and Aung San had entirely different views o?n the army, with the latter wanting to steer it away from politics. Thus, throughout the history of the army, we have learned that things are not black and white. There are military leaders who adhered to the wishes of the people and sided with them. Burmese will definitely remember and admire them. In this issue, we have singled out a number of the country?s fine, professional soldiers who were admired by the people. There are many more unnamed and unknown heroes who sacrificed themselves for the country and its people—too many for us to name all. We have also chosen some military leaders who have stubbornly stuck to their guns, driving the country into limbo. They definitely fall into the category of the villainous. However, all in all, we hope you will enjoy this special feature, marking the 62nd anniversary of Burma?s Resistance Day, now officially called Armed Forces Day..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 15, No. 3
2007-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-05-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Where guards shadow visitors and tout for tips... "... The Defense Services Museum on Shwedagon Pyay road is one of several in Rangoon displaying exhibits that range from the bizarre to the outrageous. The gloomy Soviet-style structure stands out from the old colonial buildings surrounding it not least because of the armed guards at the front. Welcoming visitors from the high wall of the entrance hall are portraits of Burma?s generals, organized in a tree graph with Snr-Gen Than Shwe suitably at the top. Beyond the grand but musty entrance hall is a series of cavernous rooms housing exhibits ranging from armored cars and heavy artillery to photos of bridges and Burmese gas and oil plants
Creator/author: Toby Hudson
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 13, No. 7
2005-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2006-04-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Burma?s Armed Forces Day now has a new meaning, different from that envisaged by founding father Aung San and his comrades who took an oath in blood in 1941 It was a crucial meeting. Young Burmese men were on a high as they talked enthusiastically about freeing their homeland from its colonial yoke. They all drew blood from their arms and drank it in an oath of loyalty... This is not fiction, but an historic milestone in Burma?s modern political history...Burma?s armed forces now claim that they remain ?the only institution that has discipline, loyalty, unity and deep commitment to protect the sovereignty and independence of the country.? Founding father Aung San would have rejected such a view. Today?s military leaders appear intent on maintaining their grip on the country, while paying lip-service to democratic reform in the future. Aung San wanted the armed forces to be an honorable institution, incorrupt, driven by self-sacrifice and self-discipline dedicated to serving the country. Many ordinary Burmese remember the founding father?s words: ?There are others who are not soldiers who have suffered and made all kinds of sacrifices for their country. You must change this notion that only the soldiers matter..."
Creator/author: Yeni
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 13, No. 3
2005-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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