News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.
The Mekong Memo is proudly presented by:
Horton International is your premier partner for executive search in Southeast Asia. Whether you're a small startup or a global corporation, our reliable and effective recruiting solutions are tailored to meet your unique needs. With extensive experience and offices across the region, we excel at overcoming recruitment challenges and securing top talent for your organization.
Click here to learn how Horton can make your life easier.
The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.
Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.
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.
Read more: Funds for NGOs
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.
Read more: BNI
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.
Read more: Jakarta Post
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.
If you value the Mekong Memo, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.