Myanmar More or Less?
Myanmars Buddhist festival of lights saw Aung San Suu Kyi and a nude model imprisoned, government battles with disparate separatists and a new flower species discovered
UPDATE: In the third of a series of Long Mekong Daily discovery tours, today we visit Myanmar for an overview of a state caught between two regional powers, India and China, and one extra-regional power, the US. While the Myanmar ethnic majority continues to support the government, India continues to arm the military and China seeks to ensure economic activity, separatist forces continue their 70-plus year post-independence struggle in disorderly fashion with external support, and ASEAN has little space between to provide a workable stabilisation plan.
On Wednesday 12 October, a court in Myanmar sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to three years in prison on charges of accepting a bribe. The 77-year-old Nobel laureate, the daughter of Myanmars first independence leader and military General faces charges for at least 18 offences ranging from graft to election violations, carrying combined maximum terms of nearly 190 years. Aung San Suu Kyi has called the accusations against her absurd and denied any wrongdoing. She is being held in solitary confinement in the capital, Naypyitaw, and her trials have been conducted in closed courts. Opponents of the government say the charges against Aung San Suu Kyi are aimed to block her re-entering politics. The government insists Myanmar's courts are independent and those arrested are receiving due process. CNA
Letters from Myanmar officials, analyzed by Human Rights Watch, stated that two of three vessels delivered by Japan between 2017 and 2019 were used to transport more than 100 soldiers and material to the town of Buthidaung on the Mayu River in Rakhine State, where the military is fighting the Arakan Army ethnic armed group. On September 13, 2022, the Rakhine State government’s transport minister ordered the Rakhine Department of the Inland Water Transport (IWT) to “ready” the Japan-provided “Kisapanadi I” and “Kisapanadi III” vessels for “Sittwe-Buthidaung-Sittwe voyages,” said a letter labeled confidential from the national IWT to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, on September 21. The letter stated that, on September 14, the two ships transported “over a hundred Tatmadaw [Myanmar] troops, as well as their supplies and materials” to Buthidaung. HRW
Rakhine State-based ethnic armed group the Arakan Army (AA) seized a Border Guard Police outpost in northern Maungdaw in Rakhine State in a pre-dawn attack on Monday, according to the armed group’s statement. The Leik Ya outpost is on the road leading to Kyein Chaung Village, where the No. 7 Border Guard Police Station is located, and Taungpyo Village. The junta side suffered heavy casualties in the fierce fighting, and some regime personnel surrendered to the AA, according to Maungdaw residents. In its press release about the fighting, the AA said it captured three prisoners of war, retrieved the bodies of some junta personnel and seized weapons and military equipment. Irrawaddy
A Myanmar woman, Nang Mwe San, was found guilty of distributing nude photos and videos on social media sites for a fee, under Section 33 (A) of the country's Electronics Transactions Law, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years. She has been jailed for six years by a military court for posting the nude pictures on adult subscription site OnlyFans, amongst other platforms. Nang Mwe San, a model and former doctor, had been charged two weeks ago for "harming culture and dignity", military authorities said. She had also previously taken part in protests against the military, which seized power in 2021 in a coup. She is believed to be the first person in Myanmar jailed for OnlyFans content. Another model, who had also posted pictures of her participation in protests on social media, was also arrested in August under the same law. Thinzar Wint Kyaw is to face trial in October. BBC
An estimated 20 Myanmar government soldiers and militia members were reportedly killed in ambushes near Taze Township, Sagaing Region, on Tuesday morning. Taze People’s Defense Force (PDF) and other rebel groups ambushed around 80 soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militia members near Shwetakyaw village in the township, the Kaduma Platform, a media wing of the PDF, reported. Government troops have been raiding villages in the east of the township since October 6. During an hour of fighting, 10 regime forces were killed and at least 20 others were injured, Kaduma reported, quoting resistance fighters. The Irrawaddy was unable to independently verify the casualty numbers. Irrawaddy
Myanmar project Future Laobans, directed by Maung Sun and produced by jailed filmmaker Ma Aeint, won the Busan Award at the Asian Project Market on the 11th of October. The project picked up the US$15,000 cash prize in Busan. Currently in script development, Future Laobans is about three young scavengers in Myanmar who smuggle a jade stone across the border with dreams of becoming millionaires. Filmmaker Ma Aeint was jailed in Myanmar in April on charges of anti-junta activity and is serving a three-year sentence. She was mentioned as part of protests at the BFI London Film Festival today and a raft of international film festivals, including Cannes and Berlin, have previously called for her release. Screen Daily
The people of Myanmar prayed for peace and for those who lost their lives in conflicts as the Buddhist-majority nation marked Thadingyut or the festival of lights. Myanmar celebrated the three-day festival of lights from Oct 8-10 when thousands visited pagodas to pray and offer flowers, lit candles, and released colourful paper lanterns. The festival falls on the full moon of the seventh month of the Myanmar calendar and commemorates Buddha’s descent to earth from heaven after three months of educating his mother and other heavenly gods, according to traditional Buddhist belief. It also marks the completion of the Buddhist month of fasting. UCA News
Marsdenia Burmanica, is a new flower species from Southeast Asia, was recently named jointly by the Wuhan Botanical Garden and the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Relevant study has been published in Taiwania. Marsdenia R. Brown was established in 1810. It contains about 100 species, mainly distributed in Asia, America and tropical Africa. The phylogenetic relationship and taxonomic classification of this genus are very complicated. In recent years, more than 20 new species of Marsdenia have been described and published. On the other hand, Liede-Schumann et al. (2022) suggested to reduce Marsdenia s.str. to a small clade of Asian species, based on a densely sampled molecular phylogeny of the pantropical, predominantly forest-dwelling tribe Marsdenieae (Apocynaceae), including almost a quarter of the ca. 740 species. Novataxa
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said the prospect of a new election, which is slated to be held in 2023, depends largely on whether there is peace and economic recovery plus political stability in the country, in an interview with Russian news agency RIA. His remark is viewed as implying that the election slated for August 2023 is not certain, considering that Myanmar’s economy is spiralling downward and the armed clashes in many parts of the country are expected to escalate once the rainy season is over. When asked about the possibility of the election being delayed during the interview, Min Aung Hlaing replied, “It is too early to discuss it because it is around five months [until emergency rule expires], and a decision has to be made depending on the situation.” Irrawaddy
At a press conference on Friday, 7 October, a prominent Myanmar exile, Htin Lin Aung, said anti-government forces had received anti-aircraft weapons. However, Htin Lin Aung also stated that anti-government forces did not yet have enough air defence systems to protect all areas from airstrikes and that anti-aircraft weapons would be deployed in some areas and in those areas defence forces will shoot down government fighter jets. Htin Lin Aun also said that defence forces would launch more offensives and that the rebel forces were receiving technical assistance for an early warning system. Nay Phone Latt, another prominent exile, said that in the next year rebels would work with its allies to fight on six fronts and coordinate a one-year plan to increase the number of military offensives against the government. Mizzima