The Mekong Memo: Myanmar

Myanmar 20260421

August Whitcraft — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 01:45:03 GMT

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Headlines:

The General's Pardon, the General's Prison

One in Seven Never Arrives

Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack

Telenor's Paper Trail

A Pack Costs More Than a Day's Wage

Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders

The General's Pardon, the General's Prison

Win Myint walked out of Taungoo Prison on April 17 after five years, two months, and sixteen days, freed by the same man who arrested him. That more or less summarizes the week. Min Aung Hlaing, one week into his role as "civilian president," gave amnesty to 4,514 prisoners to celebrate the Thingyan new year, commuted all death sentences, and shaved a sixth off of Aung San Suu Kyi's 27-year sentence, leaving the 80-year-old with only 22 and a half years still to serve. Win Myint is now at his daughter's house in Naypyidaw under what sources say is “strict surveillance.” Of the 4,514 released, the Political Prisoners Network Myanmar confirmed that 292 were political prisoners, and more than 22,000 are still detained. Suu Kyi's son Kim Aris hasn't heard from his mother in more than two years and continues to ask for proof she's alive.

Read more: CNA (analyst skepticism), DVB (son's demands), DVB (surveillance details), DVB (concurrent casualties), New York Times (re-arrest conditions)

One in Seven Never Arrives

A fishing trawler carrying roughly 250 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants sank in the Andaman Sea on April 9. The boat was headed to Malaysia from the Bangladeshi port of Teknaf, and the disaster left only nine survivors. The wreck is the latest story after what UNHCR said was the deadliest year on record for the Bay of Bengal crossing. 2025 saw nearly 900 dead or missing, meaning one in seven of the 6,500 who tried to make the journey never arrived. The camps in Cox's Bazar, home to around half a million children, have seen food rations cut and education spending gutted, even as fighting in Rakhine keeps pushing new arrivals across the border. More than 2,800 have attempted the crossing through April 13 of this year.

Read more: AsiaNews (Rakhine conditions), ReliefWeb (IOM rescue appeal), ReliefWeb (Save the Children), DVB (Penang interception)

Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack

Beijing put a lid on fertilizer exports in late March to protect its domestic supply, but this is a huge problem for Myanmar because planting season is getting near and a 50-percent cut in fertilizer use could reduce rice yields by up to 15 percent, according to a WFP warning. China normally accounts for about half of Myanmar's 1.1 million-ton yearly fertilizer imports. Urea bags that traded hands for 90,000 kyat before the shortage now need 150,000 on the open market. The regime has made some controlled-price stock available for 105,000 kyat to rice farmers in Naypyidaw's Lewe Township. "Ten bags of rice do not even cover the cost of one bag of fertilizer," one farmer said.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Telenor's Paper Trail

A class-action lawsuit filed in Norway on April 8 names 1,253 customers who say that Telenor forked over personal data, including addresses and last-known locations, to the junta after the 2021 coup. The company's own transparency reports show it complied with 96 percent of the 153 data requests it was given. One request, made in September 2021, targeted activist Aung Thu while he was already in prison. He was re-arrested under counter-terrorism laws at the prison gates on his release the following month. Telenor, majority-owned by the Norwegian government, entered the market in Myanmar in 2013 with a promise to connect a country just opening up. It then walked away in 2022 with 18 million customers on its books. The plaintiffs, represented by a Swedish rights organization, want a minimum of €11 million in damages.

A Pad For More Than a Day's Wage

The junta is widening its ban on sanitary pad distribution in the Sagaing and Mandalay regions with a claim that the products are being diverted to treat wounded resistance fighters and protect their feet (!). Medical workers say that’s nonsense. A pad can’t stay in place, can’t absorb enough blood, and can’t keep a gunshot wound clean. What it will do is push hidden-market prices from 3,000 kyat a pack to 9,000, (compare against a 7,800 kyat daily minimum wage). Aid groups have turned to reusable pads, but women without clean water to wash themselves then are at risk of infection, irritation and UTIs. The Sisters2Sisters collective says the policy is deliberately brutal and gender-based violence.

Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders

Myanmar Air Force Yak-130 and MiG-29 jets dropped nine bombs on a Karen National Union hospital in Bue So township, Kayin State, on April 20. At least one landed on Thai territory near Mae Wan on the Salween River. The target was about half a kilometer from the border opposite Mae Sam Laep village in Sop Moei district, Mae Hong Son province. Thai rangers from the 36th Ranger Regiment evacuated panicked residents to Huai Kong Kaad village after the impact.

Myanmar 20260414

August Whitcraft — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 06:37:33 GMT

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Headlines:

A Cabinet Pre-Screened by the Treasury

Beijing Brings Gifts, Delhi Brings Handshakes

12 Percent Came Home

Rakhine Takeover Gets a Deadline

Outposts Fall, Bombs Rise

ASEAN's Courts Do What ASEAN's Diplomats Won't

Anwar Plays Both Sides of the Table

Kyiv Comes to Kabaw

Britain Slams the Door on Students

A Cabinet Pre-Screened by the Treasury

As previously reported, Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as president on April 10, five years after his coup. What has received less attention is that at least 15 of the 44 cabinet members and regional chief ministers in the new government currently appear on Western sanctions lists, including defense minister General Tun Aung, accused of overseeing aerial bombardments that killed civilians, and home affairs minister Lt-Gen Nyunt Win Swe, who led the violent crackdown on Yangon protests in 2021. The 69-year-old gave the commander-in-chief post to General Ye Win Oo, his handpicked successor from military intelligence. Twenty-eight of the 30 Union ministers are current or former generals or members of the post-coup junta.

Sources: The Irrawaddy (ASEAN recognition), Cambodianess (regional attendance), Myanmar Now (sanctions breakdown), DVB (UCC details), Asialink (Ye Win Oo background)

Beijing Brings Gifts, Delhi Brings Handshakes

Jiang Xinzhi, a special envoy of Xi Jinping, met the newly inaugurated president on April 10 to let Naypyidaw know that commitments on the Belt and Road and border security cooperation remain in place. India sent Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh. New Delhi has gone from cautious engagement to active participation in the junta's legitimacy pageant over the past few months, and now joins Beijing in treating the general's sham election as a done deal; Western diplomats appear to have stayed home. China made the terms concrete the next da with the signing of an enhanced recovery deal for the Shapin-Kanni field for a Chinese oil firm (neither production capacity nor deal value was shared). The Union Minister called it a project with "immediate benefits," though he didn't specify for whom. Min Aung Hlaing thanked Beijing for "long-term and valuable assistance" and promised to protect Chinese personnel and projects.

Sources: People's Daily (Beijing framing), DVB (India's legitimization), Asian News Network (oil specifics)

12 Percent Came Home

Only 631 conscripts from the junta's first batch of 5,155 recruits have been discharged after finishing their mandatory two years of service, which ended April 8. That's 12 percent. Military defectors tracking the program say the rest were either killed in combat or have forcibly been kept in uniform, and they suspect even the small number released is being used as recruitment bait for families still deciding whether to turn over their sons. The regime won't say how many are dead. Most families hear nothing, leaving them to assume the worst. Conscription has now reached its 23rd round since the law took effect in February 2024; roughly 100,000 men and women have been pressed into service so far. The junta claims that those who finished training are now fulfilling their "responsibilities for national defense and security" in units nationwide but refuses to disclose casualty figures.

Source: DVB

Rakhine Takeover Gets a Deadline

The Arakan Army says it will control all of Rakhine State by the end of 2027. Commander-in-chief Maj-Gen Twan Mrat Naing said as much at the group's 17th anniversary ceremony. The AA has taken 14 of 17 townships since its began its push in November 2023, leaving only Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung remaining in junta hands. Kyaukphyu is a big deal because it's home to the Chinese-backed deep-water port that was supposed to anchor Beijing's access to the Indian Ocean. The AA was formed in 2009 with 26 members and one gun.

Sources: Myanmar Now (deadline), Mizzima (displacement)

Outposts Fall, Bombs Rise

Resistance forces seized two outposts in Bago Region and Mon State between April 7 and 12, killing 13 junta troops with help from the Karen National Liberation Army and All Burma Students' Democratic Front. The PDF and allied fighters took Bilin's Laykay outpost after five days of fighting that left five soldiers dead, 10 wounded, and two captured. At least 30 troops abandoned the Letyet outpost in Shwegyin Township after eight of their own were killed. In Longlone Township, a drone hit junta soldiers drinking and singing karaoke at a police station, reportedly killing two. The victories came at a cost. Junta airstrikes from April 1 to 5 damaged or destroyed at least 30 homes and two monasteries in Bilin, displacing more than 13,000 civilians from 13 villages. A separate rescue operation in Nyaunglebin freed more than 300 civilians the junta had been using as human shields, killing at least 10 junta troops and wounding 20, though 11 resistance fighters died in the effort. A Spectator correspondent embedded with resistance forces in Karenni State sees the same thing, that the revolution has lost momentum since the high-water mark of 2023, when liberation felt close and morale was high.

Sources: DVB (displacement), ReliefWeb (airstrike lethality), Spectator (momentum)

ASEAN's Courts Do What ASEAN's Diplomats Won't

Civil society groups in Indonesia and Timor-Leste have filed domestic genocide cases against Min Aung Hlaing, taking advantage of universal jurisdiction to try and prosecute what they say are crimes against humanity in courts outside the country where they took place. The strategy treats regional neighbors' courtrooms as tools that, despite optimistic hope from some quarters, ASEAN's summits never became: a challenge to the bloc's non-interference doctrine. For victims who've watched diplomatic forums produce almost nothing more than hot air, courts in Jakarta and Dili may provide what summits have not, and a path that doesn't require the cooperation of those accused.

Sources: Jakarta Post (possible paywall), Weekly Blitz (secondary source)

Anwar Plays Both Sides of the Table

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met both Min Aung Hlaing and the National Unity Government's prime minister within a day of each other, and made both meetings public. Malaysia want a stop to the killing, free-flow of aid and a political transition. The junta's response was to hold elections and seat a military-controlled parliament. Now ASEAN may have a discipline problem, and needs to decide whether to hold the line on inclusive engagement or let a non-compliant regime reset the terms.

Source: The Edge Malaysia

Kyiv Comes to Kabaw

Indian authorities arrested six Ukrainians and one American accused of sneaking across the border to train resistance fighters, indicating that the civil war continues to pull in foreigners from unexpected corners. The India-Myanmar frontier's rugged terrain offers plenty of crossing points beyond official checkpoints, so it’s a common entry point for those looking to avoid detection.

Source: Frontier Myanmar

Britain Slams the Door on Students

We close this week with a report on the human cost of Britain's new visa brake, which came into effect March 26, and that bars students from Myanmar, Sudan, Cameroon, and Afghanistan from getting student visas. Naw Sai, 29, who escaped the junta to Thailand after studying in the US, had his PhD offer from LSE withdrawn before it was formalized. The anthropology program accepted his proposal on conflict and peacemaking out of about 120 other applications, only to pull it days later. The new policy is affecting an unknown number of accepted students, and there is no appeals process available to those who are impacted.

Source: Novara Media

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Myanmar 20260407

August Whitcraft — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 04:28:53 GMT

News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.

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Headlines:

Same Sam, But Different

Junta Opens Parliament, Kills 100

Genocide Case Lands in Jakarta

New Delhi RSVPs to the General's Party

Beijing Claps, ASEAN Shrugs

Highway Opens, Hill Roads Choke

Federal Council Oversees a Fractured Alliance

Empty Pumps, Full Prices

Same Same, But Different

Min Aung Hlaing locked in his presidency Friday with 429 of 584 votes in a parliament that his junta stuffed with loyalists. This turn give him an “official” grip on power that he took at gunpoint five years ago. The 69-year-old stepped down as military chief on Monday and passed command to Ye Win Oo, his former spymaster, in a move that the constitution demanded, but fooling nobody about who runs the show. The parliamentary vote comes after elections in December and January that the UN and Western governments roundly dismissed as a sham. The general is now likely to be a bit of a diplomatic headache for ASEAN. The group has kept him out of their summits for the past five years, but may struggle to justify shutting out a man with a civilian title, no matter how he got it.

Read more: Chosun (vice presidents named), CNBC (USDP party dominance), The Guardian (UN atrocity accusations), Independent (90% parliament control), Yahoo Finance (female VP first)

Junta Opens Parliament, Kills 100

About 100 civilians have been killed by airstrikes in the three weeks since parliament opened. Jets are increasingly flying in fleets of up to eight aircraft against single targets. The deadliest attack was March 20, when planes pounded a monastery sheltering displaced families, killing about 80, including monks and children. On Monday, shortly after the new military chief took command, jets bombed a clinic in Budalin for about an hour, killing seven patients. Further strikes struck Arakan Army-held areas in Rakhine, killing four civilians.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Genocide Case Lands in Jakarta

Civil society groups filed a genocide complaint against Min Aung Hlaing at Indonesia's Attorney General's Office on Sunday. Its the first case officially received under the country's new penal code that allows universal jurisdiction over serious international crimes. The complaint, filed by Rohingya activist Yasmin Ullah along with Indonesia's former attorney general Marzuki Darusman and representatives one of Indonesia's largest Muslim groups, accuses the new president of overseeing the 2017 military campaign that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. An ASEAN member state accepting a genocide case against an ASEAN leader is new ground, especially since Indonesia is home to the bloc's HQ.

Read more: Straits Times (displacement figures), The Star (prosecutor confirmation), Anadolu Agency (ICC warrant context), DVB (fifth jurisdiction attempt)

New Delhi RSVPs to the General's Party

Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh will represent India at the new president's inauguration in Nay Pyi Taw on Friday, after arriving today to start four days of meetings on trade and development assistance. The Indian Army recently installed a weapons training simulator at a junta combat school, celebrating the moment with the hashtag #IndiaMyanmarFriendship. New Delhi has so far remained mostly quiet on the election itself but has kept the engagement running. Bilateral trade is strong, reported at $2.15 billion last fiscal year.

Read more: The Print (inauguration), Hindustan Times (diaspora engagement), DVB (weapons simulator), Economic Times (trade growth)

Beijing Claps, ASEAN Shrugs

Xi Jinping personally messaged Min Aung Hlaing, joining Russia, Belarus and Nicaragua in backing the junta's civilian rebrand. Beijing said that it's willing to work with the new government to promote the Belt and Road, keep the peace, and "deliver greater benefits to the people of both countries." The Philippines said it will keep engaging through ASEAN. The United Wa State Army was the first ethnic force to send felicitations, praising the new president's "remarkable successes" in national stability, and the Mongla-based National Democratic Alliance Army quickly followed their lead. Both groups run autonomous enclaves on the Chinese border and have every reason to keep on his good side.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Wa congratulations), DVB (genocide case filed), China Daily Asia (Belt and Road), China Daily (Xi personal message), Manila Times (Philippines response)

Highway Opens, Hill Roads Choke

After a two-year shutdown, the military reopened the 132-kilometer Asian Highway from Hpa-an to Myawaddy on Thursday, but at the same time blocked alternate routes through the Dawna Hills that Karen armed groups control. The highway helped to support more than a billion dollars of annual trade with Thailand until fiscal 2023-24, but the junta is still not allowing formal imports even with the road open, forcing Thai goods onto mountain back roads where a dozen checkpoints run by four regime-aligned militias collect daily fees. Regime troops closed the Nadi Linn Myaing junction at the base of the Dawna Hills on Thursday morning, also cutting access to those routes. Traders say nothing has changed significantly and they remain dependent on the smuggling networks the junta is trying (but apparently struggling) to strangle.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Federal Council Oversees a Fractured Alliance

A new opposition steering council was formed March 30, promising unity even as two of the resistance's most important allies are battling each other in Shan State. The Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union brings together the National Unity Government and several of the most important ethnic armed groups including the Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, and Chin National Front. The council's six objectives are mostly centered on ending military involvement in politics and getting a federal constitution drafted.

Read more: Shan Herald (SCEF objectives detailed), Frontier Myanmar (Brotherhood alliance fractures)

Empty Pumps, Full Prices

Lineups have been forming overnight in Yangon and Mandalay as the country's 90-96% import dependency comes into contact with supply shocks from Iran conflict. Diesel prices are now up to nearly MMK 4,000 a liter, up from MMK 2,260 at the time of the coup, and gasoline prices are up by more than half. Authorities limited purchases to 50,000 kyats each visit under a chaotic QR-based rationing system that apparently isn’t working very well. The rice paddies are getting hit hard too, as farmers are unable to afford to run diesel-dependent machinery as planting season arrives.

Myanmar 20260331

August Whitcraft — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 02:55:55 GMT

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Headlines:

The General Gets a New Suit, Keeps the Keys

Spymaster Gets the Sword

Kyiv's Wheels Roll in Naypyidaw

No Fuel, No Fly

Eight Liters a Week Buys You a Smile

Verified, Filed, Forgotten

One Down, One to Go

Four Hours for a Liter

The General Gets a New Suit, Keeps the Keys

The junta's parliament (to nobody’s surprise) nominated coup leader Min Aung Hlaing as a vice-presidential candidate on Monday after he stepped down as commander-in-chief, putting loyalist former spymaster Ye Win Oo in as his military successor (see next story) in a planned transition from junta rule to nominally civilian government. The 69-year-old general, who has ruled by decree since toppling Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government in 2021, is all but certain to win the presidency given that around 80% of parliamentary seats belong to serving military officers or members of the junta's political wing. Min Aung Hlaing handpicked Ye Win Oo over more senior candidates and created a new Union Consultative Council to keep control of security and foreign policy. A handful of ASEAN and Western governments have already said they won't recognize the result.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (Soe Win purge), UPI (ASEAN rejection), BBC (election timeline), Times of India (VP process), KDH News (seat figures)

Spymaster Gets the Sword

Min Aung Hlaing handed command of the Tatmadaw to General Ye Win Oo on Monday, the same day the junta boss was nominated for president. Ye Win Oo, 60, spent his career in intelligence rather than frontline command and comes from the 77th intake of the Officer Training School instead of the Defense Services Academy track that normally produces the country's top commanders. He personally led the February 1, 2021 raids that arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, then ran the interrogation centers where human rights groups and former detainees have reported boiling liquids, chemical burns, sexual violence, and fatal beatings. The appointment came with the passing-over over more senior and popular generals, including deputy commander Soe Win. Soe Win's supporters had wanted him to replace the junta chief after humiliating military defeats in 2024, but Min Aung Hlaing decided to go with the man that one analyst called his "eyes and ears" instead. He's the first former military intelligence chief to run the armed forces.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Kyiv's Wheels Roll in Naypyidaw

The junta trotted out locally assembled BTR-4U armored fighting vehicles at its March 27 Armed Forces Day parade, the first visible proof that a 2018 joint production deal with Ukraine has survived years of radio silence and a coup. The wheeled infantry fighters, built under a partnership with Ukrspecexport, were supposed to start coming off the line in the second half of 2020. They appeared alongside MMT-40 tanks and 2S1U-based howitzers, all allegedly linked to the same industrial cooperation deal, indicating that the military has been able to keep its armor production line alive despite everything else falling apart. The vehicles provide the Tatmadaw a wheeled platform that’s better suited to the country's degraded road network than older tracked stock. No comments at the present time about how Kyiv is currently sending defense exports to a regime under Western sanctions.

No Fuel, No Fly

Five domestic carriers grounded planes for four days after aviation fuel stocks hit lows in a supply shock the government blamed on what’s happening in the Middle East. MAI, Myanmar National Airlines, Air Thanlwin, Mann Yadanarpon, and Mingalar all stopped domestic ticket sales and paused most local routes on March 21 before picking up full schedules again on March 25 once the state secured emergency supplies. The transport ministry told airlines to prioritize routes that are difficult to get to by road. MAI and Myanmar National Airlines briefly put a limit on international flight baggage allowances to stretch reserves; those restrictions were also lifted on March 26.

Eight Liters a Week Buys You a Smile

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz reportedly removed up to a fifth of global oil supply from the market in late February, and since Myanmar imports 90% of its fuel, the math became quickly uncomfortable. Motorcycles are now permitted eight liters per week, private cars 35 liters, and taxis 90 liters. Long lines formed outside stations in Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw beginning in early March as the junta said that it had 50 days of strategic reserves, but promised that 16 tankers were en route. Many stations stopped selling entirely or put a limit on daily sales, actions that served mostly to push black-market prices higher.

Read more: ReliefWeb (crisis origins), Euronews (quota details)

Verified, Filed, Forgotten

The UN World Food Programme is getting ready to cut aid to many of the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, repatriation talks aren't offering much comfort for those who are likely to be impacted. Bangladesh has shared data on 829,036 refugees with Myanmar; Myanmar has verified about two-fifths of the names and admitted about a third of them are former residents, but the conflict means that for the moment, no one is going anywhere. 100,000 refugees are going to be mightily uncomfortable when monsoon rain hits Cox's Bazar in the coming months.

Read more: Frontier Myanmar (WFP aid cuts), The Daily Star (verification figures), ReliefWeb (monsoon risk)

One Down, One to Go

Hong Kong pulled a 25-year-old resident out of a forced-labor scam compound in Myanmar Friday, leaving just one outstanding rescue case. The man, who said his captivity was "like a horror movie," got transferred to Thailand. Since 2024, Hong Kong has fielded 32 similar requests from residents who became trapped in Southeast Asian scam compounds, many of them in border zones like Myawaddy. The remaining case involves a resident believed held in one of the areas most resistant to outside pressure.

Read more: SCMP (victim account), Hong Kong Free Press (statistics)

Four Hours for a Liter

The junta put fuel rationing in place beginning March 27, but the system immediately (surprise!) resulted in worse shortages and price spikes. In Yangon, petrol and diesel prices rose up to more than 1,200 kyats a liter within a week, and Mawlamyine saw petrol hit 4,825 kyats. Reports from Mandalay were that lines began forming at 5am, with stations selling only a liter or two to motorbikes despite the official limits being higher (as mentioned above). Residents say that they suspect collusion between officials and fuel station operators, saying that stations are only sell tiny amounts while street prices continue to go up.

Myanmar 20260324

August Whitcraft — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 04:12:43 GMT

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Headlines:

Junta Runs Dry

Lights Out Till the Rains Come

Same Generals, New Suits

Rebel Toll Booth on the Rare-Earth Highway

Bombing Its Own POWs

Delhi Busts Drone Smugglers

Papers, Please

Junta Runs Dry

Myanmar's domestic airlines stopped selling tickets this week as jet fuel ran out, with Myanmar National Airlines telling customers to "check again around April" and Myanmar Airways International stopping all domestic routes while keeping its Bangkok and Singapore flights running. The military government blamed Middle East tensions and trotted out a nationwide fuel rationing system using QR codes that limit purchases to once or twice a week depending on engine size. Diesel prices rose sharply on March 20, and the regime ordered all government employees to work from home every Wednesday starting March 25 to save fuel. The central bank sold $96 million to oil companies at favorable rates this month to help with imports, and junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun insists the country has reserves with more tankers on the way. The Straits Times reported a 50-day stockpile claim, though other accounts say “40 days,” and either figure sits awkwardly alongside airlines with empty tanks and desperate families watching rice and cooking oil prices climb.

Read more: Straits Times (50-day stockpile claim), Nation Thailand (airline suspension details), Mizzima (exact price spikes), Azernews (WFH Wednesday policy)

Lights Out Till the Rains Come

Yangon entered rotating four-hour blackouts on March 18 as the grid has a more than 1,000-megawatt shortfall, with the electricity ministry warning that outages will continue through June when monsoons normally arrive. Daily demand hit 4,664 megawatts, but generation is only about 3,600, squeezed by low reservoir levels and a regional heatwave that has residents cranking their air conditioners and water pumps. The ministry is keeping industrial zones powered, but residential districts are getting carved into Group A and Group B rotations. Residents say the four-hour windows rarely arrive on schedule. A South Okkalapa resident said that the scheduled windows sometimes slip by hours, leaving families rushing to pump water and cook before the next cut. The ministry calls it a "mechanical necessity" to keep what's left in the reservoirs.

Read more: Mizzima (Group A/B rotation), Mizzima (oil shock context)

Same Generals, New Suits

The junta-backed parliament came together for the first time since the coup. The military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party swept 232 of 263 lower house seats and 109 of 157 upper house seats that have been announced so far. Khin Yi, the USDP chairman, is now the lower house Speaker, and former general Aung Lin Dwe is heading the upper chamber. Both of them were elected without opposition. The real event comes March 30, when parliament will start the "new president” selection process, which is expected to install Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (he'll need to resign as Commander-in-Chief first to satisfy constitutional requirements that bar civil servants from the presidency). Combined with the 25% of seats reserved for unelected military appointees, the generals completely control the legislature.

Read more: Mizzima (sanctions advocacy details), DVB (March 30 process), Fair Observer (turnout figures reported)

Rebel Toll Booth on the Rare-Earth Highway

China's biggest external source of the heavy rare earths that go into EVs and missile guidance systems isn't a country with a functioning government, it's not even a country - it’s a warzone in Kachin State. The region's ion-adsorption clays, concentrated around Chipwi and Momauk, shipped $624 million worth of dysprosium and terbium to China in 2025, according to Kachin News Group, with the cumulative tab since 2017 roughly $4.3 billion. The Kachin Independence Organization now controls the mining zones and is charging a $4,800-per-tonne levy on exports. That puts a non-state armed group at a chokepoint in a supply chain that can't be rerouted in any short order. New mines elsewhere will take years of approvals and require enormous amounts of capital; recycling tech isn't anywhere close to filling the gap. China still handles more than 90 percent of global rare-earth refining, so the ore flows in only one direction.

Bombing Its Own POWs

As previously reported in The Memo, the junta killed 287 of its own troops held prisoner by resistance forces across nine airstrikes targeting detention facilities, according to another report this week from BNI Myanmar Peace Monitor. One strike hit an Arakan Army facility in Rakhine State where captured officers were being held. The bombing campaign, which ran from February 26 to March 11, killed more than 300 civilians overall and injured 177 POWs. Despite grounded airlines and rationed fuel, the military has somehow been able to keep warplanes in the air throughout the period.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (fuel shortage context), Myanmar Peace Monitor (POW casualty data)

Delhi Busts Drone Smugglers

India's National Investigation Agency arrested seven foreign nationals (six Ukrainians and one American), after they allegedly trained ethnic armed groups in drone warfare and smuggled jamming equipment from Europe by way of India's northeast. The prize catch is Matthew VanDyke, founder of Sons of Liberty International, a self-described security analyst with previous stints in Libya and Ukraine. He allegedly recruited battle-hardened vets to teach the Kachin, Chin, and Arakan armies drone assembly and signal-jamming tactics that they would use against regime forces. The groups have previously reported links to Indian insurgent outfits that operate across the border. Mizoram's chief minister flagged nearly 2,000 foreigners visiting the state between June and December 2024, many of them “not genuine tourists.” The court has given the NIA custody until March 27.

Read more: NDTV (border security stakes), Daily Pioneer (confession details, custody)

Papers, Please

The junta put a new passport law into effect last week that civil society groups warn is going to allow authorities to track citizens more closely and make it harder for citizens to leave the country. The law arrives at the same time that “Training 23,” the latest round of military conscription efforts, kicked off nationwide with ceremonies at military commands across the country.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (surveillance concerns), GNLM (ceremony details)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Myanmar 20260317

August Whitcraft — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 01:05:05 GMT

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Headlines:

Generals Trade Fatigues for Gavels

Dead Men Don't Defect

From 9 Airstrikes to 1,140

Brotherhood's Over

Dusting Off the Dam Nobody Wanted

Resistance Rockets Hit Where It Hurts

Names Released, Prisoners Not

Generals Trade Fatigues for Gavels

Parliament came together once again on Monday for the first time since the 2021 coup, seating a legislature that’s ben designed to rubber-stamp military rule. Retired brigadier general Khin Yi, the Union Solidarity and Development Party chairman and a close ally of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, was elected speaker of the lower house. His counterpart in the upper house, scheduled to open Wednesday, is expected to be another ex-general. The USDP won more than four-fifths of contested seats in the stage-managed elections, and the constitution automatically gives the armed forces another quarter of all seats outright, giving top brass an effective lock on roughly 90% of parliament and control over who becomes president. Min Aung Hlaing is expected to swap his uniform for the sash next month. The regime is also setting up a five-member Union Consultative Council that would let him keep his finger on both military and civilian issues directly. The exiled National Unity Government held a parallel session online, claiming that despite the election, it remains the country's rightful leadership.

Read more: AP News (90% control figure), The Irrawaddy (Saffron Revolution history), StratNews Global (Council formation details), Nikkei Asia (civil war context), Outlook India (2026 convening date)

Dead Men Don't Defect

On March 8, four jet fighters and four Y-12 aircraft pounded a detention camp in Ann Township for three hours, killing 116 of the junta's own captured soldiers held by the Arakan Army and wounding 32. Among the dead were Brigadier General Myint Shwe, several majors, and military medical staff. Captured Deputy Commander Thaung Tun says the regime flew reconnaissance beforehand and the prison was clearly identifiable from the air with guard posts, and uniformed detainees visible below. This wasn't the fog of war. According to The Irrawaddy, it is the sixth such strike on POW sites in Rakhine State since 2024, together killing 226 captured troops and family members and wounding 93 others, each time with no active fighting underway. The pattern points to a calculated decision that it’s better to get rid of surrendered soldiers than to let them sit out the war and encourage others to lay down arms.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

From 9 Airstrikes to 1,140

From 9 airstrikes in 2021 to 1,140 in 2025, outgoing UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews painted a picture of escalation in his final report to the Human Rights Council. More than 100,000 homes have been burned, one in five people is hungry, and nearly one-third of the population now needs aid. Airstrikes killed at least 982 civilians (including 287 children) in 2025, a 53 percent increase over 2024.

Brotherhood's Over

The MNDAA has captured Kutkai from the TNLA, splintering the Brotherhood Alliance that rattled the junta with coordinated offensives starting in late 2023. The takeover is the first time one member of the northern Shan coalition has taken territory from another, turning allies into combatants in a corridor that’s critical for China and her Belt and Road projects. The MNDAA and TNLA had operated together in Kutkai since pushing out regime forces, but tensions over control of trade and tax collection reportedly came to a head. The AA, the alliance's third member, has so far stayed silent on the fighting. Beijing watched the Brotherhood hand the generals their worst defeats in years. Now it's watching them hand each other something worse.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Dusting Off the Dam Nobody Wanted

The junta still plans to restart the Myitsone dam project in Kachin State, 15 years after public pressure forced its suspension. The Chinese-backed hydropower project, valued at $3.6 billion, would flood an area at the confluence of the Irrawaddy's headwaters, a symbolically charged site locals describe as "stabbing the heart" of the country. With no elected government to answer to and a war on multiple fronts, the regime is reviving a project that hands Beijing one of its longest-sought infrastructure prizes. Karen civil society groups used the International Day of Action for Rivers on March 14 to make a declaration demanding cancellation of large-scale dam projects on the Salween River and an end to mining operations contaminating Indigenous communities with toxic runoff.

Read more: Frontier Myanmar (resource conflicts), Mizzima (arsenic contamination)

Resistance Rockets Hit Where It Hurts

Eighteen 107mm rockets launched from three positions slammed Ketumadi Airbase on the night of March 12, targeting aviation fuel storage and a drone warehouse in a timed strike by four resistance groups. The Brave Warriors for Myanmar claim that an Iranian "ghost fleet" supply chain of aviation fuel to the regime collapsed after the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in late February, and the junta is lower on fuel than they want to admit. The claim has not been independently verified.

Names Released, Prisoners Not

The junta amnestied 7,337 prisoners on March 2, making the announcement to come alongside the parliamentary reopening. Although generous on paper, the amnesty is less magnanimous in practice. Documentary filmmaker Shin Dawei’s name appeared on an official release list yet reportedly remains detained. The military hasn't shared who was actually freed or how many were rearrested. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says there have been more than 22,000 political prisoners created since the takeover, and more than 2,000 dead in detention. All 7,337 on the amnesty list were charged under Sections 50(J) and 52(A) of the Counter Terrorism Law, the statute most frequently used to jail dissidents.

Myanmar 20260310

August Whitcraft — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:21:43 GMT

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Headlines:

Eighty Percent of the Seats, Forty-Four Percent of the Vote

The Fuel Shell Game

The General's Man Gets His Uniform

War Zone, Boom Town

Register Your Phone or Lose It

Shadow Cabinet's Self-Probe Clears Shadow Cabinet

Beijing's Death Row Reaches Across Borders

Justice, Al Fresco

Britain Shuts the Door

India's Hidden Headcount

Eighty Percent of the Seats, Forty-Four Percent of the Vote

The military's USDP swept more than 80 percent of elected seats in parliament but managed to muster just 44 percent of the popular vote before the winner-takes-all system worked its magic. In Bamar-majority constituencies where no ethnic parties mounted serious challenges, more people voted against the USDP than for it, even though the 54 percent turnout skewed heavily toward regime supporters who faced less fear of reprisal at the polls. Compare this to 2015 and 2020, when the NLD won clear majorities of the popular vote, or even 2010, when the USDP hit 75 percent only because the NLD boycotted. This time the field was mostly cleared, opposition parties struggled to break through, and the National Democratic Force got disqualified outright. The junta built every advantage into the system and still couldn't crack half the ballots cast.

The Fuel Shell Game

The junta claimed that it had 40 days of fuel reserves on March 4. Two days later, hundreds of vehicles were lining up at stations across Mawlamyine, Hpa-An, Myeik, Dawei, and Myawaddy, with some pumps already shut. The crunch comes after three secret jet fuel shipments from Iran between early December and just before the US-Israel conflict choked off the Strait of Hormuz (according to port documentation obtained by Nikkei Asia). Min Aung Hlaing rolled out odd-even license plate rationing on March 7, ostensibly to manage supply disruptions. The timing has been good for the general's family, who are cashing in on a sudden EV frenzy as drivers look for alternatives. In resistance-held territory, 92-octane has hit more than 10,000 kyats per liter, when you can find it at all. A Kawthaung maritime operator says fishing boats may have to stop entirely, as even Thailand's Ranong is running short.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (family EV profiteering), BNI Online (southern shortages), Nikkei Asia (Iran shipments), Frontier Myanmar

The General's Man Gets His Uniform

Min Aung Hlaing promoted Ye Win Oo, his personal "eyes and ears," to Army Chief on March 9, tightening his grip on the military command structure five years after seizing power. The appointment stacks loyalists in top positions while resistance forces control swaths of territory across the country. A few days prior to that, Yangon University awarded Min Aung Hlaing an honorary doctorate, a ceremony that prompted an exiled teacher to write that the institution once dedicated to truth is now honoring a man whose army has bombed schools and killed students. His forces, meanwhile, keep losing ground to ethnic armies and resistance groups who have taken dozens of towns since late 2023.

Read more: The Irrawaddy, Independent UK

War Zone, Boom Town

Yangon condo prices have roughly doubled since 2020, with prices in some outlying townships tripling. The people buying aren't optimists, they're hedging. A three-bedroom unit at Inno City, a South Korean mixed-use project finished in 2023, now will trade hands for about $476,000, up from $286,000 before the coup. Internal migration from conflict zones has flooded the commercial capital, and restrictions on holding foreign currency leave few options besides bricks and mortar. One thirty-something buyer calls it a "valuation gap," snapping up properties still priced in pre-2020 kyat, renovating, and flipping as the market catches up to dollar terms. Real GDP is expected to contract 2 percent for the fiscal year ending March 2026, and inflation sits above 20 percent, but property flippers have found their moment.

Register Your Phone or Lose It

The junta is starting mandatory IMEI registration this month, connecting every mobile device to its owner's national ID and SIM card. Unregistered phones get cut off April 1. The stated goal is curbing illegal imports and collecting taxes, but digital rights researchers at the Myanmar Internet Project see it as a surveillance tool. A SIM card connects to at least three nearby cell towers, letting authorities track approximate user locations, and the regime already holds biometric data from its E-ID program. The researchers suggest wrapping phones in aluminum foil to block signals, using Signal over Wi-Fi instead of direct calls, and enabling device encryption before the deadline.

Shadow Cabinet's Self-Probe Clears Shadow Cabinet

Twelve staff members accused the National Unity Government's permanent secretary Kyi Pyar and her husband Nyi Nyi Min of treating the Prime Minister's Office like a family business, spending funds on a dog's birthday party, and threatening dissenters with the People's Defense Forces. The NUG's five-member investigation team confirmed "ethical lapses," issued warnings, and removed the couple's relatives from posts, but cleared them of major corruption. Kyi Pyar resigned on health grounds in February. Public fury hasn't died down. Some took to calling the NUG the "Kyi Pyar Government," and critics pointed out that the investigation team reported to the same office Kyi Pyar ran. The complainants, who launched a Facebook page tracking the case, now face a counter-complaint from Kyi Pyar for leaking secrets and discrediting the government.

Beijing's Death Row Reaches Across Borders

China executed 16 members of Myanmar-based crime syndicates last month for murder, fraud, and human trafficking, all crimes targeting Chinese nationals. Many of the condemned were Myanmar citizens, and the executions were carried out in China after authorities captured the gang leaders. China's top judge mentioned the cases in his annual report to the National People's Congress, writing that crimes against Chinese citizens abroad "shall be punished in accordance with the law." The "four families" gangs operated scam compounds in northern Myanmar that (among other indiscretions) lured Chinese victims into forced labor.

Justice, Al Fresco

The MNDAA held an open-air trial in Lashio seven months after capturing the city. It's part of a pattern where ethnic armed organizations stage justice proceedings in airports and town squares rather than courtrooms. The MNDAA and United Wa State Army, which control border territories along the China frontier, are using public punishment to show their authority in newly captured areas. Defendants are transported conspicuously, and sentencing happens immediately after hearings, sometimes followed by public executions. The performances are for two audiences: locals living under fragmented rule, and Beijing, which has an outsized influence over border stability. For groups that are currently controlling territory the junta lost during Operation 1027, being seen to administer the law is likely as important as the verdict itself.

Britain Shuts the Door

London has barred citizens from Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Cameroon from getting UK student visas, claiming its the result of an almost five-fold increase in asylum applications from student visitors between 2021 and 2025. The move is a killer for scholarship plans intended for people who desperately want credentials that are useful in countries hit by war and drought. Some 135,000 asylum seekers entered Britain through legal routes, and the Labour government is cracking down as the Reform UK and Restore Britain parties climbs in the polls.

India's Hidden Headcount

Biometric enrollment in Mizoram's Lawngtlai district turned up 1,280 Myanmar refugees that the village council at Hruitezawl never bothered reporting, bumping the registered count from 5,034 to 6,314 in a single week. Most of the newfound souls are Khumi people from southern Chin state who say the Arakan Army has been persecuting them. Hruitezawl sits on the Chhimtuipui river border, one of the busiest trading points between Lawngtlai and southern Chin state.

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Tue, 03 Mar 2026 02:49:45 GMT

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Headlines:

10,000 Walk Free, but Not the One Who Matters

Beijing's Power Play Unplugged as Rebels Reach State Capital

Junta Bombs the Marketplace

Follow the Tungsten: Junta Eyes the Mines Funding Its Enemies

Counting the Lost Generation

Jade on Life Support as Junta Hands Gem Trade to Beijing

Lousy With Mines

Beijing Bets on the Generals

The Case for Backing the NUG

10,000 Walk Free, but Not the One Who Matters

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing pardoned 10,162 prisoners on Monday and dropped charges against another 12,487, celebrating Peasants' Day with the junta's largest amnesty since the coup. The sweep includes 7,337 people convicted under counterterrorism laws the regime has used to jail political opponents, journalists and student activists over the past five years. Among those freed were former Naypyitaw mayor Myo Aung and journalist Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison in May 2023. Aung San Suu Kyi, 80, was not listed as one of those released. The Nobel laureate remains locked up on a 27-year sentence, virtually incommunicado, while her son publicly questions whether she's even alive. More than 22,800 political prisoners are still being held as of Feb. 27, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Read more: AP News (named released journalists), The Irrawaddy, Yahoo (political prisoner count), GNLM

Beijing's Power Play Unplugged as Rebels Reach State Capital

The Arakan Army reached the outskirts of Sittwe on Monday, bringing the ethnic armed group in striking distance of a state capital for the first time. The advance was cause for an immediate Chinese response and a power plant contractor in Kyaukphyu, 70 kilometers south, pulled its staff and equipment from the Belt and Road port city as fighting closed in. Beijing has spent years talking up Kyaukphyu as the western anchor of its infrastructure corridor to the Indian Ocean; the power plant is supposed to supply a $1.3 billion deep-sea port and special economic zone. Now the Arakan Army controls most of Rakhine State and the military holds little beyond Sittwe itself, where regime troops are reportedly digging in for what looks like a siege. The contractor's withdrawal is the first time combat has directly disrupted a major Chinese project in Myanmar.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (combat proximity/casualties), The Irrawaddy

Junta Bombs the Marketplace

Military jets hit a trading junction near Mindon township twice on Sunday morning, killing at least 25 people and torching 14 vehicles at a commercial exchange point where goods move between Magway and Rakhine State. The attack targeted a road where locals and truck drivers load and swap merchandise, not a military position. Most victims were traders from Rakhine, where the Arakan Army controls 14 of 17 townships and the junta has choked off trade routes for months. Another airstrike hit a village market in Rakhine's Ponnagyun township last Tuesday, killing at least 17. The military hasn't mentioned either attack.

Follow the Tungsten: Junta Eyes the Mines Funding Its Enemies

The Tatmadaw is massing forces around the Mawchi mines in Karenni State, a tin and tungsten complex that's been bankrolling resistance fighters since they took control of it last year. The junta's buildup appears to be in advance of an offensive to retake one of the region's most valuable mineral deposits, which the Karenni resistance has turned into a cash cow that’s been keeping weapons and supplies flowing.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Counting the Lost Generation

2025 killed more children in Myanmar than any year since the coup, with girls hit hardest, according to the UN human rights office's annual update. Nearly a quarter of the population have had to deal with “severe” food insecurity, a figure the UN says we should expect to rise as the regime continues to mismanage the economy and block support aid. Civilian deaths from airstrikes also hit record levels. It was also no surprise that the report said that the military's nationwide elections lacked "basic elements of freedom, fairness, and representativeness.” Both the junta and opposition armed groups have allowed transnational criminal networks (including drug production and scam centers) to grow in areas under their respective control.

Read more: The Irrawaddy, Mizzima (food insecurity)

Jade on Life Support as Junta Hands Gem Trade to Beijing

For the first time, Myanmar's jade showcase will be held on Chinese soil. The regime signed an MoU with Yunnan officials on February 24 to hold a gems exhibition in China's Jiegao border zone, after its own jade emporiums failed to bring in buyers like they used to. Natural Resources Minister Khin Maung Yi is promoting the arrangement as anti-smuggling cooperation. Chinese traders have largely stayed away from Naypyitaw's annual fairs since the coup, spooked by border closures and Beijing's crackdown on WeChat-based transactions. The regime's November 2025 emporium had than 5,000 jade lots available, but most buyers stayed home.

Read more: The Irrawaddy

Lousy with Mines

Myanmar recorded 2,029 landmine and UXO casualties in 2024, double the previous year's toll and more than Syria, Afghanistan, or Ukraine. Civilians were 86 percent of victims. Shan State saw the highest casualties, followed by Sagaing, Magway, Rakhine, and Bago. Both the junta and resistance forces have sprinkled the devices near phone towers, mines, and fuel pipelines, and neither side has really shown any interest in marking where they’ve been planted.

Beijing Bets on the Generals

The junta's Union Solidarity and Development Party claimed 339 of 586 parliamentary seats in the election, giving military-aligned blocs 86% control once the 166 seats automatically reserved for the Tatmadaw are added to the tally. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is setting up a consultative body to ease himself out of daily admin even as he continues with his hand on the tiller. China is backing this consolidation to ensure it protects its access to rare earth minerals. According to one analysis, a possible Trump administration rapprochement with Naypyidaw could undercut Beijing's influence just as it thought it had locked in a compliant neighbor.

The Case for Backing the NUG

A new op-ed in Eurasia Review presents the junta as a strategic distraction that benefits Beijing, and argues that Western capitals should push ahead to formally recognize the National Unity Government as Myanmar’s legitimate authority. The article makes parallels with the stats quo in Iran, casting both regimes as Chinese assets designed to tie down Western resources while Beijing locks up economic corridors and port access for itself. The NUG recognition argument has gained some attention in Washington and European policy circles, though it currently has ~zero traction in ASEAN capitals, where member states are publicly staying committed to dealing with the junta through the bloc's five-point consensus.

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