Myanmar Mass Murder Made in America

January 31, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The Southeast Asian state of Myanmar has recently become the epicentre of an expanding humanitarian crisis. But because the current government of Myanmar is headed by a regime favoured by American and European interests, little attention and even less action has been given to the conflict. 

A January 10, 2017 Guardian article titled, "65,000 Rohingya flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh following crackdown: UN," reports that:

At least 65,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar � a third of them over the past week � since the army launched a crackdown in the north of Rakhine state. 

The figure, released by the UN, marks a sharp escalation in the numbers fleeing a military campaign which rights groups say has been marred by abuses so severe they could amount to crimes against humanity.

The same article claims:

The stories have cast a pall over the young government of Aung San Suu Kyi, with mainly Muslim Malaysia being especially critical. 

Myanmar�s government has said the claims of abuse are fabricated and launched a special commission to investigate the allegations.

However, anyone at all familiar with Myanmar's recent history and the nature of the current government's support base knows that the unfolding tragedy among the Rohingya minority was not only predictable, but with Aung San Suu Kyi coming to power, inevitable.

The fact that Suu Kyi's political party came to power on a decades-long tsunami of US and European cash and political support, despite US-European knowledge of Suu Kyi's supporters harbouring racist, even genocidal intentions toward the Rohingya, makes the West at the very least partially responsible for the current crisis.

The Warning Signs Were There For Years 

The Guardian would also link the violence against the Rohingya to what it calls, "hardline Buddhist monk Wirathu," in the very last paragraph of its article, giving readers little explanation as to just how prominent a role both Wirathu and his saffron-clad followers have played both in bringing Suu Kyi to power and persecuting the Rohingya with genocidal violence.

Such lies of omission are common throughout the Western media indicating a systematic attempt to conceal the true nature of Suu Kyi and her followers. In fact, so contradictory is the image the Western media has built up for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the reality of her political movement's violence, that many are unable to accept the truth even when evidence finally becomes widely known.

In 2007, the Western media eagerly reported on what it dubbed the "Saffron Revolution," a political protest led by Suu Kyi's political allies, including thousands of monks wearing their saffron-coloured robes.

But these same activist groups, including various monk "associations" have systematically been involved in the persecution of and violence against Myanmar's Rohingya minority.

Occasional articles like the UK Independent's 2012 report titled, "Burma's monks call for Muslim community to be shunned," reveal both Myanmar's "hardline Buddhists" and even activist groups celebrated in the West for "promoting democracy" are involved in persecuting the Rohingya.

The report would state:

Monks who played a vital role in Burma's recent struggle for democracy have been accused of fuelling ethnic tensions in the country by calling on people to shun a Muslim community that has suffered decades of abuse. 

In a move that has shocked many observers, some monks' organisations have issued pamphlets telling people not to associate with the Rohingya community, and have blocked humanitarian assistance from reaching them. One leaflet described the Rohingya as "cruel by nature" and claimed it had "plans to exterminate" other ethnic groups.

The Independent would also admit that:

Ko Ko Gyi, a democracy activist with the 88 Generation Students group and a former political prisoner, said: "The Rohingya are not a Burmese ethnic group. The root cause of the violence� comes from across the border."

It is difficult to discern what then, the Western media means by "democracy activist" when such "activists" openly display racism, bigotry, discrimination, and support a growing conflict that involves both calls for genocide, and violence aimed at carrying out genocide. The 88 Generation Students group has for years repeatedly weighed in on the Rohingya conflict, backing calls to deny them citizenship, voting rights and even basic human rights.


Myanmar's Minister of Information Was Trained by America 

Not only has the US and UK substantially funded and backed Suu Kyi's political party, but ministers within her government have been trained by US-funded programmes, including Myanmar's current Minister of Information Pe Myint.

The Myanmar Times article, "Who�s who: Myanmar�s new cabinet," would provide Pe Myint's background, reporting (our emphasis):

Formerly a doctor with a degree from the Institute of Medicine, U Pe Myint changed careers after 11 years and received training as a journalist at the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation in Bangkok. He then embarked on a career as a writer, penning dozens of novels. He participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1998, and was also editor-in-chief of The People�s Age Journal. He was born in Rakhine State in 1949.

The Indochina Media Memorial Foundation (IMMF) in Bangkok is run by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT), a collection of US and European media representatives. And according to a Wikileaks document titled,  "An Overview of Northern Thailand-Based Burmese Media Orgranizations," the IMMF's funding is revealed (our emphasis):

Other organizations, some with a scope beyond Burma, also add to the educational opportunities for Burmese journalists. The Chiang Mai-based Indochina Media Memorial Foundation, for instance, last year completed training courses for Southeast Asian reporters that included Burmese participants. Major funders for journalism training programs in the region include the NED, Open Society Institute (OSI), and several European governments and charities.

The NED (National Endowment for Democracy) is both funded and directed by the US Congress and the US State Department. In essence, Myanmar's current Minister of Information and the lies his ministry tells on a daily basis, particularly in regards to his government's brutality toward the Rohingya, has been made possible in part by US government funding and support.

The fact that the Western media is still stepping around Suu Kyi and her supporters' role in the violence against the Rohingya, indicates that support is still being provided.

It appears that the plight of the Rohingya will, if anything, only be further exploited to deepen the West's influence over Myanmar's current government. While human rights abuses real or imagined have been used to justify entire wars waged by Western military forces elsewhere, very real abuses in Myanmar are being carefully spun to protect the very government and its support base responsible for carrying them out.

Such transparent hypocrisy exposes Western foreign policy as entirely predicated on opportunism and self-interest rather than any actual principle. Many times, as is the case in Myanmar, such opportunism and self-interest find themselves trampling such principles entirely.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook�.

Is the US Positioning Itself for Military Presence in Myanmar?

January 12, 2017 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The governments of the United States and United Kingdom have spent decades and millions of dollars creating the political opposition fronts that constitute support for Myanmar's new (and first ever) State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. This support includes backing Suu Kyi's saffron-clad street fronts who make up a nationwide network of "monk" alliances and associations.

And it is these alliances and associations that have served at the forefront of persecution against Myanmar's Rohingya minority.

Also for years, this violent persecution has unfolded in what was otherwise a media blackout across North America and Europe. When violence reaches fevered pitches, American and European media organisations intentionally introduce ambiguity as to who precisely is leading anti-Rohingya violence.

The conflict carries with it all the hallmarks of an intentional strategy of tension; used within Myanmar to galvanise Suu Kyi's otherwise morally and politically bankrupt opposition fronts and now, it appears to be ready for use within Washington's wider strategy of "pivoting to Asia."

Myanmar's "New Rohingya Insurgency" 

The International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based foreign policy think tank funded by some of the largest corporations on the planet, poses as a conflict management organisation. In reality, it introduces manufactured narratives that are then picked up and eagerly promoted across American and European media outlets, to shift public perception and pave the way for shifts in Western geopolitical aspirations.



Their most recent manufactured narrative involves what it calls a "Rohingya insurgency." Their narrative is already circulating across American and European media, including the Wall Street Journal whose article, "Asia�s New Insurgency Burma�s abuse of the Rohingya Muslims creates violent backlash." claims (our emphasis):

Now this immoral policy has created a violent backlash. The world�s newest Muslim insurgency pits Saudi-backed Rohingya militants against Burmese security forces. As government troops take revenge on civilians, they risk inspiring more Rohingya to join the fight.

The article also admits:

Called Harakah al-Yaqin, Arabic for �the Faith Movement,� the group answers to a committee of Rohingya emigres in Mecca and a cadre of local commanders with experience fighting as guerrillas overseas. Its recent campaign�which continued into November with IED attacks and raids that killed several more security agents�has been endorsed by fatwas from clerics in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Emirates and elsewhere. 

Rohingyas have �never been a radicalized population,� ICG notes, �and the majority of the community, its elders and religious leaders have previously eschewed violence as counterproductive.� But that is changing fast. Harakah al-Yaqin was established in 2012 after ethnic riots in Rakhine killed some 200 Rohingyas and is now estimated to have hundreds of trained fighters.

The Wall Street Journal and ICG both apparently expect readers to believe that Saudi Arabia is backing armed militants in Myanmar simply to "fight back" against Aung San Suu Kyi, her government and her followers' collective brutality against the Rohingya.

In reality, Saudi Arabia and its sponsors in Washington, London and Brussels, only intervene when geopolitically advantageous. Just as Saudi Arabia is backing armed militants everywhere from Yemen to Syria to advance a joint US-European-Gulf campaign to reassert primacy across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Saudi Arabia's support of supposed militants in Myanmar is driven by similar hegemonic ambitions.


US Intentions in Asia Pacific Underpin, Use Rohingya Crisis  

At the core of the United States' "pivot to Asia," was always the encirclement and containment of China and reasserting US primacy in Asia. This is part of a much longer-term policy that stretches back as far as the close of World War II, the arming and backing of separatists in Tibet, Taiwan and the Vietnam War itself, as revealed in the Pentagon Papers. leaked in the early 1970s.

The US "pivot" included attempts to overturn political orders across Southeast Asia which have (with the exception of Myanmar) failed. It also included attempts to push through the highly controversial and unpopular Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement which has also so far failed. And instead of reasserting American primacy in Asia, Washington has convinced many nations across the region it had hoped to use against China, to turn further toward Beijing for military, economic and political cooperation.

Options for the United States are narrowing and it seeks to consolidate and expand in the few places it has seen success in Asia Pacific. This includes Myanmar, and exasperating the Rohingya crisis may serve as a possible vector toward doing this.

US Military Intervention, However Small, Will Exclude China 

With Washington's oldest and closest ally in the Middle East backing armed militants aimed at inflaming further the Rohingya crisis, the perfect pretext for US military intervention has been created.

Just like the US has moved itself into the Philippines under the pretext of confronting "terrorism" and has since proven itself difficult to remove, the US likely seeks to train with Myanmar's forces and eventually base a contingent of  American troops in Myanmar as well.

Once this is done, it will be likewise difficult for Myanmar's government, whoever may be leading it in the future, to undo it. Myanmar will find itself with another pressure point steering its policy in Washington's favour and Beijing will find itself with yet another US military installation based along its immediate periphery.

The US Could Easily End This Conflict, Instead it Carefully Cultivates It 

If the United States really wanted to assist their allies in Myanmar's current government, they would take Saudi Arabia before the UN Security Council, denounce its backing of militants in Southeast Asia, and begin arranging a series of punitive political and economic sanctions.

Instead, Saudi Arabia has enjoyed some of the largest US weapon deals in American history; billions of dollars in tanks, aircraft, munitions and training programmes, as well as unity in agenda everywhere from Yemen to Syria regardless of minor, superficial fallouts that may have been reported.



For instance, the London Telegraph in an article titled, "US halts arms sale to Saudi Arabia over civilian casualties in Yemen," would reveal that the "halt" only included certain forms of munitions, and that other arms deals were still underway. It also revealed that not only was the US still assisting Saudi Arabia, but was assisting them specifically in their war on Yemen.

The article would admit:

Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen to the north, began airstrikes against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in March of 2015. 

The US has offered military aide to the campaign, though the Pentagon insists its role has been limited. 

"As of today our assistance continues. It's been very limited, consisting of refueling and limited advice on how to conduct strikes," Navy Captain Jeff Davis said recently.

In reality, Washington is playing a double game, and using the Saudis to carry out support for militant groups, the fuelling of conflicts globally and even the waging for war Washington itself could not readily justify doing on its own. Sometimes Saudi Arabia creates conflicts aimed directly at consuming Washington's enemies, at other times, Riyadh creates conflicts Washington can use as a pretext for a particular prescribed course of action

Arming militants in Myanmar to create a pretext for direct US military intervention, likely in the form of joint-training with Myanmar's troops and the permanent stationing of US troops in the Southeast Asian country, seems the perfect task for Saudi Arabia.

The US, through its actions (and inaction) signals its support for this activity and very soon will likely signal to the world precisely how it plans on taking advantage of this manufactured crisis of opportunity. For the corporate-funded International Crisis Group, it has once again "introduced" a crisis that serves the interests of its sponsors and proposes a series of "solutions" that will only further work in Washington, London and Brussels' favour and at the cost of everyone in Myanmar, regardless of which side of the current crisis they fall on.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook�.

Myanmar: Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi Oversees Genocide

December 14, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Reading commentary, analysis, and even alleged "reports" from the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar, it would appear that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi - poster child of American and European "democracy promotion" - is helpless to avert what is quickly expanding into wholesale genocide against the nation's Rohingya minority. 

In reality, Suu Kyi's political coalition has for decades been bolstered by highly politicized sectarian factions, including saffron-clad "monks" who have regularly employed street violence in support of Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. These same factions - also for decades - have pursued a policy of racially and religiously charged, politically-motivated violence against Myanmar's Rohingya population. 

Myanmar's Rohingya - many of whom have lived in the nation for generations - had at one point coexisted with Myanmar's majority ethnic groups. It was only relatively recently that enterprising political factions decided to use racial and religious tensions as a means of galvanizing and radicalizing opposition aimed at undermining the then military-led government and bringing Suu Kyi to power.

It was warned years before Suu Kyi came to power that should her party win elections, free reign would be granted to her supporters to fully and openly pursue their genocidal agenda. The NLD has won the elections, and that genocidal agenda is now unfolding.

Covering Up Suu Kyi's Ties to Sectarian Extremists... for Years    

This fact is omitted across the Western media's current reports, in an effort to exonerate Suu Kyi from any responsibility for the ongoing violence.

CNBC News, for example, in an article titled, "Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi under fire as Rohingya crisis escalates in Rakhine," claims (emphasis added):

A year after becoming Myanmar's de-facto leader, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi is coming under a barrage of international criticism for her failure to end alleged military crimes in the country's northwest.

About 1.1 million people in the state of Rakhine identify themselves as Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority that has long suffered persecution in the Buddhist-majority nation. The group's origins in Myanmar can be traced back to the fifteenth century, according to the Council of Foreign Relations, but Rohingyas have yet to be granted citizenship and remain unable to vote.

Strategically omitted from CNBC's coverage is the fact that it was Suu Kyi, her NLD, and street demonstrations led by her "saffron" supporters that protested the previous government's attempts to grant the Rohingya provisional citizenship and voting rights ahead of the elections that saw Suu Kyi's NLD come to power.

Australia�s ABC News would report in a 2015 article titled, �Myanmar scraps temporary ID cards amid protests targeting ethnic minorities without citizenship,� that (emphasis added):

Myanmar�s government says identity cards for people without full citizenship, including Muslim Rohingya, will expire within weeks.

The scrapping of ID cards snatches away voting rights handed to them just a day earlier (Tuesday), after Myanmar nationalists protested against the move.

The Rohingya, along with hundreds of thousands of people in mainly ethnic minority border areas, who hold the documents ostensibly as part of a process of applying for citizenship, will see their ID cards expire at the end of March, according to a statement from the office of president Thein Sein.

The "nationalists" were of course, Suu Kyi's "saffron" supporters.


Saffron and Secular Savagery 

Readers may remember Myanmar's "Saffron Revolution," a 2007 "pro-democracy" protest named after the "saffron" robes of the "monks" who led the street protests. Backed by the United States and British governments, the protests followed the same pattern of "color revolutions" carried out elsewhere to advance Western interests, including across Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

The "Saffron Revolution" is now rarely mentioned by the Western press, though in 2007, the US State Department-funded propaganda platform, The Irrawaddy, would report in their article, "Suu Kyi Greets Monks at Her Home; 10,000 Monks Demonstrate in Mandalay," that:

Detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, dressed in yellow, came out of her home, where she is under house arrest, to pay respect to protesting monks who marched in front of her home on Rangoon�s University Avenue on Saturday afternoon, witnesses said.

The Irrawaddy would also report:

On Thursday, The Federation of All Burma Young Monks Unions called on students and civilians to join hands with monks in public demonstrations against the military regime which has ruled the country for almost 20 years. 

Human Rights Watch, in a lengthy report titled, "The Resistance of the Monks: Buddhism and Activism in Burma" (PDF), further exposes the role several sectarian factions in Myanmar played in bringing Suu Kyi to power. It mentions by name the many sectarian unions and associations that were involved in creating the power base and street fronts that helped bring Suu Kyi into power.

Those mentioned, also concurrently involved in anti-Rohingya violence, include the All Burma Monks Alliance under which many others fall.

The UK Independent in a 2012 article titled, "Burma's monks call for Muslim community to be shunned," would mention several by name:

The Young Monks' Association of Sittwe and Mrauk Oo Monks' Association have both released statements in recent days urging locals not to associate with the group. Displaced Rohingya have been housed in over-crowded camps away from the Rakhine population � where a health and malnutrition crisis is said to be escalating � as political leaders move to segregate and expel the 800,000-strong minority from Burma. Earlier this month, Thein Sein attempted to hand over the group to the UN refugee agency.

The All Burma Monks Alliance would even send representatives to Washington DC to attend a US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) event alongside other political allies of Suu Kyi and her NLD party - who while secular - also support discrimination and violence against the Rohingya.

The US Funds Them All... 

The Alliance's own website in a 2012 post titled, "Trip to Washington D.C," states (emphasis added):

On September 19 and 20, 2012 the All Burma Monks Alliance monks traveled to Washington, DC and joined many friends in welcoming Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to the United States. They watched as she received the Congressional Gold Medal, which is the highest honor given by the US Congress. They attended the event honoring her at American University and another event which honored recipients of the National Endowment for Democracy�s 2012 Democracy Awards. 

These included Aung Din [a] leader of the 1988 student movement and a former political prisoner who is co-founder and executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

Aung Din - far from the only secular supporter of anti-Rohingya violence - is also the author of several crypto-racist articles circulated throughout Western policy think tanks defending discrimination and violence against the Rohingya. One, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) under the title, "Rohingya Is More than a Human Rights Issue for Myanmar," complains:

...the United States should avoid pressuring Myanmar to accept the Muslims in Rakhine state as an indigenous ethnic group and give them citizenship immediately. In Myanmar, neither the government nor the people will bow to such pressure, and changing their status to an indigenous people is not under consideration.

Aung Din's "US Campaign for Burma," is a Washington-based front both funded by the US government, and lobbying the US government for funding to other pro-NLD fronts both in and bordering Myanmar.

Among these US-funded fronts, included the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation in Bangkok. Run by Western journalists concurrently heading the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT), the foundation trained pro-NLD agitators in communication and media.

One of the "graduates" of this foundation was Pe Myint, Myanmar's current "Minister of Information." He now uses the "Ministry of Information" to prevent even the use of the term "Rohingya," and regularly disseminates propaganda further inflaming national tensions.

In other words, from the "saffron-stained grassroots" to the highest levels of Suu Kyi's government, anti-Rohingya violence is so deeply ingrained and has been for years, it was only through the Western media's monopoly over information until now that has prevented this impending - and now unfolding catastrophe - from being noticed and averted.



Considering the extensive support the US has provided to place Suu Kyi, her NLD, and various supporting factions into power, and considering America's track record for implementing regime change around the world, is it any wonder ultra-violent racists are hacking Rohingya minorities to death in Southeast Asia, while Washington's proxies in Ukraine commit similar atrocities in the name of Neo-Nazism, while Western proxies in Libya and Syria do so under US-Saudi inspired Wahhabism?

While it is tempting to wade into the sectarian minutia of each and every one of these conflicts, there is but one common denominator, cynically inflaming tensions among groups that have in the past and could in the future coexist. This cynical process is carried out not for religious or ideology reasons but for self-serving geopolitical gain.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine�New Eastern Outlook�.

Irony Redefined: "Human Rights Champion" Suu Kyi Jails Dissidents

October 28, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Myanmar's defacto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi of the  National League for Democracy (NDL) political party, has paved her time since coming to power earlier this year with both irony and hypocrisy. She has not only illegally declared herself "leader" of the Southeast Asian state in contravention of its constitution, she has also embarked on an iron-fisted purge of her political opponents identical to the one she fought against as she struggled to seize power to begin with.

During elections earlier this year, Myanmar's constitution prevented Suu Kyi from holding the nation's highest office due to her inordinate amount of time overseas, her status of having been married to a foreign, and her children's dual citizenship. Instead of adhering to the law, her party once in power, simply contrived an entirely new post for her, State Counsellor of Myanmar, which makes her the "defacto leader" of Myanmar.

Canada's The Globe and Mail in an article titled, "St�phane Dion says Aung San Suu Kyi is the �de facto� leader of Myanmar," would note that Canada's government recognized this legal side-stepping, stating:

Dion called Suu Kyi, now Myanmar�s foreign minister, �the de facto national leader� of her country �because they have a strange rule that if you have married somebody who�s not of the country, you cannot be the leader of the government and of the state.� 

Suu Kyi, the internationally recognized democracy advocate, is barred from becoming president because her late husband was British, as are her two sons. The rule was crafted during Myanmar�s decades of military rule, which Suu Kyi fought against during years of house arrest before finally prevailing last fall.

In essence, she is unelected, and illegally holding power. For a woman who's Western backers - particularly in the United States and United Kingdom - have held her up as a champion for democracy and the rule of law, she and her party's first act upon taking power was trampling both.

The Inhumane Humanitarian  

Another myth built up around Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi by the West has been her advocacy for "human rights." Her advocacy for human rights, however, appears only to extend out to protect only as far as her immediate political allies are concerned. For groups beyond this self-serving political protection, and particularly regarding her political opponents, she and her NDL are just as eager to jail, crush, or kill political opponents as they claimed the ruling military government had been.

In addition to escalating violence targeting the nation's Rohingya's population, several activists online have been sent to jail for "insulting" the ruling government and Western-backed media fronts and organizations.

Myanmar's Eleven Media Group (EMG) in its article, "Facebook offender brought to court for insulting Suu Kyi," attempted to distance what Suu Kyi and her political supporters had once called draconian censorship as now, a simple matter of enforcing the law. It would state:

A Facebook user named Zaw Zaw (aka Nga Pha) was brought to the North Dagon Township court on October 24 to face prosecution for his defamatory posts about State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. 

He has been charged under Section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law. 

�He�s being sued for defamatory writing and photos about the State Counsellor [posted on Facebook],� said plaintiff Nay Myo Kyaw, a 34-year-old resident of North Okkalapa Township. 

Around 50 people showed up at the hearing wearing shirts affiliated with a group called the Network of Supporters of the Rule of Law. They shouted: �You deserved it for insulting a good person.�

The article also admits:

The Myawady Township Court sentenced Aung Win Hlaing (aka A Nyar Thar), the first man to be prosecuted under the current government, for defamatory posts on Facebook about President Htin Kyaw, to nine months in jail after he was convicted under Section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law. 

Aung Myint Tun (aka Ko Pho Htaung), a member of the National League for Democracy, is still facing legal action under the same law for the wording of a resignation letter. 

Another man named Yar Pyay was arrested and is being prosecuted for creating a fake Facebook account under the name of Nay Myo Wai, the chairman of Peace and Diversity Party. 

Hla Phone was also arrested and is being prosecuted for defamatory posts on Facebook about the Commander-in-Chief.

EMG - ironically awarded for its work in opposing the previous military-led government by Reporters without Borders - would also admit that it itself had taken advantage of Myanmar's laws to silence its own critics, claiming:

Eleven Media Group (EMG) also filed complaints about repeated defamatory posts on Facebook against the group. Though EMG lodged complaints against film director Mike Tee, who is the owner of a Facebook account named Than Tun Zaw, and another Facebook user named Myat Maw for offensive posts about the group and its staff, the legal process has yet to begin. EMG lodged the complaints on January 27 and March 31 this year.

One would expect such a tidal wave of abuse - as defined by the West in regards to media, governance, and censorship around the world - to be met with sweeping condemnation from the West's various human rights advocacy organizations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and a no doubt embarrassed Reporters Without Borders - yet the silence is as deafening as it is telling.

Taking Over Where Accused Dictators Left Off 


The West's champions of democracy, rule of law, and human rights in Myanmar appears to have simply taken over right where Suu Kyi and her NDL party had claimed the military-led government left off. And despite the overt nature of Suu Kyi's breaches of Western standards of "democracy" and "human rights," the US is on track to lift all sanctions from Myanmar as Suu Kyi and her government open the nation, its people, and its resources to exploitation by Western corporations.

The overt nature of both the West's and Suu Kyi's hypocrisy illustrates that "democracy," "rule of law," and "human rights" are merely facades behind which the West and its proxies wield their power - hiding behind such principles rather than truly upholding them. And in reality, such behavior undermines these principles more than any overt abuse by an openly  tyrannical regime ever could - because genuine advocates thus become associated with hypocrites like the Western governments supporting the current regime in Myanmar, their faux-nongovernmental organizations aiding and abetting the regime, and proxies like Suu Kyi and her NDL themselves.

International audiences must keep this example of hypocrisy in mind as the West attempts to overturn other governments in Southeast Asia and beyond under similar pretexts and using similar rhetoric - supporting supposed "pro-democracy" and "pro-human rights" advocates who have every intention of trampling both upon seizing power.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine�New Eastern Outlook�. 

How the US Took Over Myanmar's Ministry of Information

August 11, 2016 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - Uncharacteristically, Myanmar's Ministry of Information-run newspaper, the Burmese-language Myanma Alinn Daily, levelled commentary toward neighbouring Thailand. It is uncharacteristic, because until of late, the paper and the Ministry of Information itself has generally refrained from commenting on the politics of other nations.

And not only did the Ministry of Information-run newspaper comment on Thailand's politics, it did so in a way supporting a wider Western-crafted narrative attempting to undermine the legitimacy of Bangkok's current government in order to pave the way in the region for yet another American-European backed political front, the first being that of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar itself.

Reuters' article, "Myanmar paper: Thailand risks 'substandard democracy'," would report:

A state-run newspaper in Myanmar says Thailand risks "substandard" democracy if a military-backed draft constitution is approved in a referendum on Sunday. 

The irony of the comment is hardly lost on voters and political observers alike across the region. For decades Myanmar suffered economic stagnation under harsh military rule while Thailand was seen as an Asian "tiger" economy with extensive freedoms and a developing democracy.

Reuters would further report:

"If the draft of the constitution in Thailand were to be approved in the upcoming referendum, the democracy in that country would become substandard and limited," said an editorial in the Burmese-language Myanma Alinn Daily, which is run by the Ministry of Information and rarely comments on politics in other countries. 

Zaw Htay, a spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi, asked if the editorial reflected the government's official position, referred questions to the Ministry of Information.

The US State Department-Trained Minister of Information  

Myanmar's new Minister of Information is Pe Myint, who according to the Myanmar Times article, "Who�s who: Myanmar�s new cabinet," is (our emphasis):

Formerly a doctor with a degree from the Institute of Medicine, U Pe Myint changed careers after 11 years and received training as a journalist at the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation in Bangkok. He then embarked on a career as a writer, penning dozens of novels. He participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1998, and was also editor-in-chief of The People�s Age Journal. He was born in Rakhine State in 1949.

To understand why Pe Myint's training at the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation in Bangkok (IMMF) is key, readers must turn to Wikileaks and a US diplomatic cable titled, "An Overview of Northern Thailand-Based Burmese Media Orgranizations."

In it, it states (our emphasis):

Other organizations, some with a scope beyond Burma, also add to the educational opportunities for Burmese journalists. The Chiang Mai-based Indochina Media Memorial Foundation, for instance, last year completed training courses for Southeast Asian reporters that included Burmese participants. Major funders for journalism training programs in the region include the NED, Open Society Institute (OSI), and several European governments and charities.

The diplomatic cable would also reveal that:

A number of active media training programs attract exiles and those from inside Burma to Chiang Mai for journalism courses ranging from one week to one year. These training programs identify would-be journalists who are active in communities inside Burma, as well as NGOs in Thailand, and help them secure reporting positions with Burmese media outfits in the region. The training programs help ensure that future generations will be able to succeed the founders of the current organizations.

Finally, to put into perspective just how directly the training of journalists from Myanmar and the funding of their media operations upon graduation serves US interests, the US cable would admit:

In a refreshing take for U.S. diplomats interacting with foreign media, the exile journalist community here remains steadfastly pro-American. Groups such as DVB and The Irrawaddy continually seek more input from U.S. officials and make frequent use of interviews, press releases and audio clips posted on USG websites. A live interview with a U.S. diplomat is a prized commodity, one even capable of stoking a healthy competition among rival news organizations to land a scoop. A 2006 Irrawaddy interview with EAP DAS Eric John multiplied into several articles and circulated widely throughout the exile community and mainstream media. 

USG funding plays some role in this goodwill...

In essence, US-European government cash is being used to construct an entirely parallel media network both inside and outside Myanmar. And it was from this US-European network that the current Minister of Information was drawn.

(Myanmar's current Minister of Information, Pe Myint)

Pe Myint, even as recently as this year, still participates in US government-funded activities, including the January 2016 Information Symposium (.pdf) held in Yangon. His "goodwill" toward the US and its interests are likely still a residual effect of the large sums of money Washington and the capitals of Europe have invested in him as he worked his way up into the highest levels of power within Myanmar's government.

US Uses Parallel Institutions to Overwrite National Sovereignty 

Likewise, the US runs a variety of other training programs and NGOs focusing on governance, law, legislation, education and many other aspects a modern nation-state needs to function, but also aspects Myanmar already has.

The purpose of creating an alternative system parallel to Myanmar's existing institutions is to eventually reach critical mass, achieve regime change, then completely replace Myanmar's existing institutions with those completely controlled by the US government and the special interests it represents.

It is, in other words, the manifestation of modern-day imperialism, the same imperialism Myanmar had fought against nearly a generation ago to escape, only to find itself now fully enveloped by again.

That the current Minister of Information in Myanmar is using his position and the state's newspapers to propagate narratives in line with US and European geopolitical interests, and the fact that he was quite literally trained by the US State Department's ecosystem of NGOs in Southeast Asia is no coincidence. This is precisely how global centres of power throughout the entirety of human history have exercised and projected their power far beyond their borders, across the globe in hegemonic pursuits.

Myanmar's unravelling national sovereignty, with institutions at the highest levels of power now virtually run by the US State Department and its army of collaborators, is a warning to the rest of the region regarding both the true purpose and objectives of foreign-funded NGOs and the threat to national security they truly represent.

Inside the Mind of a Collaborator 

Finally, it is worth looking back at the history of European colonialism to understand just why in any given nation there are those willing to trade national sovereignty, freedom and independence for a role, however minor, in the hegemonic designs of a foreign power.

Perhaps there is no better way to put it than the words published in the "International Journal of African Historical Studies," in a paper titled, "African Collaborators and Their Quest for Power in Colonial Kenya," by Evanson N. Wamagatta.

In the paper it states:

[Referring to collaborators] They were collectively "an indispensable channel through which the dictates of imperial rule are handed down; and up through them are transmitted the responses and reactions of the governed." There were many individuals who aspired to collaborate because the allure of what colonialism had to offer. Collaboration attracted those who hoped to benefit from the wealth, power, prestige, and influence derived from the colonizers, and thereby preserve or improve their social, political, or economic standing.

Myanmar has little to gain itself, as an independent nation, risking a diplomatic row with neighbouring Thailand by commenting on Thailand's internal politics. However, it does have much to gain as an intermediary for the United States and Europe, or at least Minister Pe Myint does.

While Reuters refers to "irony" regarding what it claims is a reversal of regional roles for Myanmar and Thailand, the real irony lies in Myanmar posing as a freer nation today, despite being closer than ever to reverting back to its days under foreign subjugation.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook�.