31 July 2022
I’m starting to lay low on advice which also suggests I scrub all my social media. It is no personal danger but is advised as I may be seen to be a specific information source. I had a quick look through here and don’t see anything that should connect or the specific info that can cause problems. So I’ll probably still be around here.
Re the executions, unfortunately this is through bad translation engines but there are at least 8 others facing death sentences. The number could be much higher.
Evening adder:
Surprising no one, the coup council has extended its emergency rule by another six months - I think this means kicking elections down the road again. Expect this to go on for maybe 20 years.
Myanmar junta chief to extend emergency rule for 6 months | Reuters
4 Aug 2022
Sec. Blinken is back in Asia, McConnell raising again the push to sanction MOGE.
Brown nosing China unreservedly, the regime has weighed in on Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Both the visit and the failure of the five point plan are expected to dominate the ASEAN gathering.
Russia’s foreign minister met with the coup foreign minister in Myanmar and now the coup regime is asking them to move their embassy to Naypyidaw, the remote capital constructed by the regime when a fortune teller told them if they didn’t do that, they’d collapse. Nobody is moving there.
Speaking of superstition, a white elephant was born in the country a couple of weeks ago and the regime is trying to market it along with a large ruby find in early July as “signs” of enduring rule that will make the nation grow prosperous. Irrawaddy looks into the history of failed omens.
In spite of all this good news, the regime grabbed 26 year old Japanese filmmaker/journalist Toru Kubota, saying he’s been inciting stuff.
Over at CSIS, Greg Boling takes the global powers to task for their early bet that the junta would prevail. In fact, he says:
On their best days, the regime’s forces might control half of the country. Two dry seasons have now come and gone—the periods when the junta is at its strongest due to advantages in air and artillery power—and the military has made no appreciable gains. Despite killing over 2,000 civilians, arresting almost 15,000, and burning more than 28,000 homes to terrorize the population into compliance, large swaths of the Bamar (Burman) heartland in Magwe and Sagaing Regions remain outside regime control. The Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, Kachin Independence Organization, Chin National Front, and Arakan Army have expanded the frontier territories under their control, with the latter seizing most of Rakhine State. Given battlefield conditions, it is hard to see how the junta can win by force of arms.
8 Aug 2022
August 8 is an important date, commemorating the uprising and violent crackdown of 8/8/88. This led to the tag “88 Generation” and its leaders are still being hunted and imprisoned by the regime (and executed, in the case of Jimmy).
It was a numerology game against the original dictator General Ne Win, who was so obsessed with the number nine that he changed the currency denominations and zeroed out the value of everyone’s cash holdings overnight.
A brisk walk with some risk: 8/8/88 umbrellas.
Caught this on reddit with accompanying explanation:
On 8.8.69, at a zebra crossing in St John’s Wood, photographer Iain Macmillan took the iconic photo that became the cover image of the Beatles’ album Abbey Road. The iconic zebra historical photo of the Beatles at Abbey Road’sphoto made in 1969 led to a new beginning of musicality…
On 8.8.22 Burmese youth made a similar step in front of Sule pagoda downtown showing their own creativity, strategy, and defiance against the old conservative inhumane regime.
Time apart such creativity, strategy, and symbolism will signify the revolution like the music of the rhetoric our70s. Musically, it is one of the strongest 16 minutes in pop history, medley. My favorite song is Suchin rhetoric
“Carry That Weight,” “Something” and “Here Comes The Sun,” tho “All Things Must Pass” and “The End” … “Because” …hope these symbolic titles of the songs too bless the rhetoric our youth…
Such strategy, symbol, and creativity will sustain revolution leading to success for democracy.
Saw a note that this was coming up via Sean Turnell’s wife and here’s confirmation:
17 August 2022
- @FGD135 got the news of the day. Statement here.
- Japan sent an envoy to Naypyidaw last week to talk about the Japanese filmmaker Toru Kobata who had been grabbed after he attended a rally protesting the executions.
- Within the linked UN statement, re prisoners, it speaks sweepingly calling for release of all political prisoners, then specifying Sean Turnell, then specifying children in prison. All important, but I wish they had specified “all foreign detainees” as other multinational statements have done.
- In what I’d call a really weird incident that has ruffled feathers throughout the human rights community, Human Rights Watch (I think) put out a letter addressing MAH as “Prime Minister.” Oops. It had been done under a coalition banner with a large number of other organization logos and all of the organizations are extremely pissed off - not the least of which, Save The Children whose people were burned to death by MAH troops in the Christmas Eve Massacre. Double oops.
- In May ASEAN had made a deal for the delivery of humanitarian assistance to IDPs in Myanmar supervised by the junta. Unsurprisingly, as of August, no aid has reached an internal refugee.
20 August 2022
The fuel situation has really come to a head.
There’s a LOT to unpack here. Recall that the saffron revolution circa 2008 originated with a massive hike in fuel prices, controlled by the regime. At the moment, I’m hearing it’s become pointless to have a car in Myanmar.
Now, it’s not just about a limited global commodity for which Myanmar is highly dependent on foreign imports, it’s also about the regime’s attempt to wrest the economy away from dependency on international currency (the dollar… and it’s arguably much worse if they try to jump to the euro), and about a return to the days of zero accountability on how much of the Kyat is printed, in circulation and legit. So much of the economic disaster might have been avoided if they just look at what Sean Turnell was trying to teach there.
a beautiful country with lovely people and beautiful girls.
I miss my old time in Myanmar.
Pray for my friends there. Hope the situation be like before so I can travel there.
25 Aug 2022
Correct call @DukeTrout.
This week marks the 5 year anniversary of the Tatmadaw’s launch of the terror campaign against the Rohingya. Vigils are being held in front of Myanmar consulates globally, including in Los Angeles right now.
NUG statement:
Secretary of State Blinken’s statement here.
Noeleen Heyzer the UN human rights rapporteur finally landed in Myanmar last week. I am expecting someone to debrief her on the situation of personal concern and I meet with them in a week. Guessing there will be no there there. Her meeting with Min Aung Hlaing and not promoting the NUG is drawing criticism from the same advocates who targeted her some months ago over her attitude as to who is and isn’t in control.
The Economist calls for significant support for the National Unity Government including a release of the pre-regime government’s frozen $1B in assets to the NUG (as many have been calling for since NUG was formed).
Evening add
Sen. Jeff Merkley commemorates the genocide with yet another plea (in a letter co-signed by Feinstein, Booker, Markey & Peters) to the State Dept to sanction MOGE and for more to be done to cut the regime’s access to $$.
Oops. I didn’t catch that in time. I read four out of five lines and maybe too fast.
Eeesh, indeed.
26 Aug 2022
Former British Ambassador and her husband [corrected] arrested on a visa issue. Incidentally there is MASSIVE fucking with visa approvals by the regime since taking power and it has been an ongoing pain for embassies of nations critical of the coup, which means basically everyone. Husband is a well known artist.
Former British ambassador and her husband.
Vicky Bowman, who served as British ambassador to Myanmar from 2002 to 2006, was arrested Wednesday evening at her Yangon apartment along with her husband, Htein Lin, a renowned Burmese artist.
Yet experts say Myanmar has enforced the sharpest restrictions on internet freedom on record.
“Every different style of outage was reflected in the first few weeks [of the coup],” says Doug Madory of Kentik internet monitoring platform.
After sporadic daylong shutdowns in mid-February, the junta began shutting off the internet every night, an act that continued with metronomic regularity for three months. Under the cover of digital darkness, they carried out nightly raids, smashing down doors to drag out high-profile politicians, activists and celebrities. The raids had a profound psychological toll.
Sheesh. Sorry about this. It was in my head but I’d rushed this. Fixing.
29 Aug 2022
Drawing from conversations and Irrawaddy:
NUG ministers did a zoom call with Rohingya based in the camps in dual Burmese and English Q&A. NUG followed that by what’s essentially a reiteration of their call for international justice for the Rohingya.
Informa PLC, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, is sponsoring/hosting a weapons procurement conference which they do on the regular, to which they will welcome the Myanmar junta in Bangkok.
The regime has approved the sale of the historic lakeside Myanmar home of DASSK. Whoever buys it may become even less popular than MAH.
The entire country’s gem/jewelry industry may have just gotten screwed with the arrest of a major gem merchant who had been working to have them turned into finished products for export. Most of the cronies and generals themselves just push the raw gems to the international market. Along with U Aung Thura’s arrest on August 17th for allegedly funding the NUG, the coup regime has seized 193 tons of raw jade.
In case you’re into this sort of thing, there was a reshuffling of generals and a source tells Irrawaddy the regional commanders have greater authority now - they can scramble helicopters, for example, without begging central command for help.
More info on the arrested artist U Htein Lin, husband of arrested former UK ambassador Vicky Bowman. Also UK has bumped up sanctions.
Assassination screw ups: Tiger Force Mandalay apologizes too late for the couple it mistakenly murdered, believing one of them to be Police Major Soe Ko Ko. So I guess Major Ko Ko knows he’s on a list if he didn’t already. In the same linked story, Yaw Defence Force killed six people in a family alleging some of them “belonged to a pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia.” Residents and other resistance groups condemned the acts and the group’s looting the home. YDF is “investigating.” NUG has also opened a probe on extrajudicial killings.
