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Myanmar is an excellent example of how not to run a country. Given the current state of affairs, a military takeover was inevitable, and the scenario is now a complete disaster.
It is no longer Aung San Suu Kyi s game, yet the army also wishes it didn t have such high-risk ambitions. Both are now ensnared as tiny cogs in a contest where they are at best proxies and at worst the main casualties of both internal and external wars.
The West is confronting China, and Myanmar is a hopeless battlefield for the time being, still mired in its own ethnic conflict.
Kul Chandra Gautam, a Nepali diplomat, is a former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. (www.kulgautam.org). He is also the author of the recently-published Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations
Kul Gautam, UNICEF Regional Director for Asia-Pacific meeting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon in 1998.
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb 8 2021 (IPS) - The 1 February 2021 coup d’état by Myanmar’s military (Tatmadaw), has been widely condemned by all the world’s democratic leaders, human rights activists and genuine friends of the people of Myanmar around the globe. In an unusual manner for the world’s top diplomat, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has gone so far as to urge the world community to make sure that Myanmar’s military coup fails.
Tuesday, 9 February 2021, 6:59 am
By Richard S. Ehrlich
BANGKOK, Thailand By
seizing power, Myanmar s new coup leader Commander-in-Chief
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has protected his murky
financial investments and the military s domination, but
some of his incoming international cash flow might now be up
for grabs.
Sr. Gen. Min spent much of his military
career as a quiet, publicity-shy officer steadily promoted
to higher positions before grabbing absolute power at dawn
on February 1, six months before his mandatory retirement on
his 65th birthday July 3.
Among other goals, Sr. Gen.
Min apparently hopes he has protected himself, his family,
and military colleagues from possible investigation over
February 1, detained internationally disgraced
civilian leader Aung
San Suu Kyi and other recently
elected officials, and declared a
one-year State of
Emergency because voting was marred by terrible
fraud.
at dawn six
months before his term expires in June
prompting
speculation he may have been motivated to
protect his extensive, murky
financial investments and
block any weakening of the military s
political
domination.
ruling and a State of
Emergency would be enforced for one year,
starting
immediately.
election which was held on the 8th
of November were found to have huge
discrepancies and the
Union Election Commission failed to settle this