Min Aung Hlaing vows to restore Myanmar to pre-coup status

By Admin 26 Aug 2024

DMG Newsroom
26 August 2024, Sittwe

Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing pledged to restore pre-coup levels of peace and stability across the country when he met members of the Mandalay Region military council on Sunday, a statement dismissed by observers as unrealistic.

“We will continue to do what is necessary to restore the country to its previous condition. For that to happen, we need the understanding and cooperation of the people,” Min Aung Hlaing said.

He also called for implementing what he called a people’s security system. “The peace and stability and rule of law will improve if people participate in people’s security system,” he said.

It is the only way to implement a multi-party democracy system that people aspire to, he added.

The junta’s poll plan has been widely dismissed as a sham intended to maintain the junta’s grip on power.

The Myanmar military seized power in a coup from the democratically elected government in February 2021, plunging the country into civil war.

One Arakanese politician said: “Nationwide clashes today are a consequence of the coup. So, if the regime wants to restore the country to its previous condition, it must relinquish power. Otherwise, revolutionary organisations will continue to fight the regime.”

“There is also a need to take ethnic revolutionary organisations into consideration. They have existed before the coup. Their revolutionary objectives must be fulfilled. Only then, the civil war that has been going on for more than 70 years will end,” he added.

The regime has lost control of at least 76 towns since November of last year. Fighting has been raging in Arakan, Chin, Shan, Kachin states and Sagaing, Magwe and Mandalay regions.

More than 3 million people have been internally displaced by the fighting across Myanmar, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on August 17.

In addition to armed conflicts including the junta’s indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations in many locations, the Myanmar economy has been in free fall since the coup, with hyperinflation, unemployment and power cuts taking a heavy toll on millions across the country.