The Burmese junta, weakened after a series of setbacks against its opponents, is showing off its strength this Wednesday March 27 with a parade marking National Armed Forces Day, against a backdrop of renewed accusations of atrocities.
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The parade began late in the afternoon in the capital, Naypyidaw, a new city created ex nihilo by the army in the middle of the jungle, according to images broadcast by state channel MRTV. The live broadcast showed hundreds of soldiers marching in step with flags and weapons, in front of civilians in traditional clothing.
The latest developments in the civil conflict, which intensified after the 2021 coup, have placed the junta in a weak position against its ethnic and political opponents. The coordinated offensive by three ethnic minority groups near the Chinese border at the end of October marked a major turning point in favor of the adversaries of power, who took control of certain strategic towns and roads, observers noted.
The massive losses, coupled with defections and recruitment difficulties, meant that the army “ is threatened in its existence “, recently assured Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur in charge of human rights in Burma. But, despite signs of “ despair “, the junta remains ” extremely dangerous “, he recalled earlier, in February.
The authorities indicated in February that they wanted to impose military service of at least two years on men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27. This announcement took thousands of young Burmese by surprise, who are now seeking to flee the country.
An end to the conflict seems distant for the moment, especially since junta leader Min Aung Hlaing admitted this week that the elections promised since the putsch may not cover the entire territory due to the ongoing instability.
Gala dinner
The army, which justified its takeover with unsubstantiated accusations of massive fraud during the 2020 vote won by the pro-democracy party ofAung San Suu Kyiassures that he wants to organize a new election “ free and fair ”, but without specifying a timetable.
The renewal of the state of emergency, which has become automatic in the face of the resurgence of its adversaries, constantly postpones the deadline for these elections, in which the movement, which has been dissolved, will not participate, while for its part, the winner 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is now in prison. The regime has been repeatedly accused, by human rights groups and opponents, of burning villages, carrying out summary executions or resorting to aerial bombardments and artillery strikes to punish communities refusing its power.
“ At least 20 people have been killed by army airstrikes this month alone… While the military regime holds parades in the streets of Naypyidaw, the people of Burma continue to suffer from the persistence of fighting in the country “, declared the British Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, quoted in a press release on Wednesday.
Almost a third of the population, more than 18 million people, require humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations. During the 2023 parade, Min Aung Hlaing, surrounded by tanks and missile launchers, promised, in front of around 8,000 soldiers, “ decisive measures ” For ” fight for good » opponents of the army.
This year’s festivities, which commemorate the beginning of the Burmese army’s resistance to Japanese occupation in 1945, were launched Tuesday with a gala dinner attended by representatives of Moscow, an ally of Naypyidaw, reported a Burmese state media. The conflict in Myanmar has killed more than 4,700 people since the coup, according to a local monitoring group.
Read alsoThree years after the coup in Burma: “We hope that this year will be that of freedom”
Myanmar military was behind anti-Rohingya campaign on Facebook, UN investigation finds
The Burmese army was behind dozens of Facebook pages that spread hate speech against the Rohingya before the launch of persecution against this predominantly Muslim minority in 2017, according to a United Nations investigation made public on Wednesday March 27. Facebook was accused of helping to spread this hate speech before hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were forced into exile in Bangladesh by a campaign of persecution that is now the subject of a UN investigation for genocide . In 2021, Rohingya refugees initiated lawsuits against the social network and demanded $150 billion in compensation, accusing it of not having blocked hate speech targeting them.
According to the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Burma (Iimm), there is evidence that the Burmese military secretly orchestrated this hate campaign. In a way ” systematic and coordinated “, they have ” broadcast content intended to instill fear and hatred against the Rohingya minority », Say the investigators. “ This was achieved by creating an underground network of pages on a social media site with the potential to reach an audience numbering in the millions. », they add. Their analysis focuses in this investigation on the content posted online on 43 Facebook pages between July and December 2017.
Investigators concluded that seemingly unrelated pages, most with no obvious affiliation with the military and some devoted to celebrity news or popular culture, ” were part of a network with clear links to the Burmese military “.
They identified more than 10,000 instances of hateful content, which were removed by Facebook in August 2018. These posts were based on “ narratives that the Rohingya posed an existential threat to Burma through violence, terrorism or “Islamization” ”, according to the Iimm. Other messages insinuated that they were harming the “racial purity “. The links between these pages were established in particular by correspondence from authors, administrators and publishers, as well as by the recurrence of IP addresses also used by the Burmese military. The Iimm was created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to investigate “ international crimes » committed in Burma.