India blunders into Burmese sham election minefield

A recent meeting between Burmese and Iranian leadership

India’s shameful role in sham poll

Less than two weeks after junta boss Min Aung Hlaing promised an election next year, Indian Ambassador to Myanmar Aghay Thakur met Myanmar’s poll chief Ko Ko on Monday to discuss cooperation between the two countries’ election bodies.

While the international and domestic community has condemned the poll plans of military rulers who seized power from a democratically elected government in 2021, the world’s largest democracy has been keen to assist in the sham process.

During Monday’s meeting, the Indian ambassador offered to provide technology and training for the junta’s election commission.

The regime claims it is now “systematically” compiling voter lists with software developed by local experts.

Min Aung Hlaing’s promise of an election looks farfetched, however.

His regime has been ceding large swaths of territory since late last year as ethnic forces make impressive gains in Rakhine and northern Shan State. Meanwhile over 3 million people have been displaced by fighting across the country, according to the UN.

Given current conditions, observers doubt the regime can even compile voter lists.

Conscripts graduate into nightmare conflict

The third batch of civilians conscripted by the junta began military training at 14 regional commands on Tuesday, followed by graduation ceremonies for the first batch at the same venues on Friday. Training for the first batch began in April.

Desperate to replenish troops amid mounting losses to nationwide resistance attacks, the junta has accelerated forcible recruitment in the past four months since enacting the national conscription law in February, drafting around 15,000 people so far.

Normally, fresh recruits are rarely sent straight to the front line. But amid the intense fighting in Rakhine, northern Shan State and Mandalay Region’s Mogoke, there is no guarantee that the first-batch conscripts will not be posted straight into battle.

The conscription law, which allows the military to summon all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve in the armed forces for at least two years, has sparked an exodus of young people to neighboring countries. Other citizens have joined ethnic forces battling against the regime rather than fight for a military notorious for indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations. The junta said it will penalize conscription evaders with up to five years in prison.

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Gearing up with Iranian weapons?

Junta Foreign Minister Than Swe held talks with his Iranian counterpart on the sidelines of the ACD ministerial meeting, spotlighting the murky ties between the regimes.

As the Myanmar military regime expands ties with Middle Eastern countries, junta Foreign Minister Than Swe joined the 19th Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) ministerial meeting on Monday in the Iranian capital Tehran, holding separate talks with his Iranian counterpart Dr. Ali Bagheri Kani on promoting bilateral ties.

Iran has been accused of selling weapons to groups involved in civil wars in Syria and Yemen, and to Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.

Iran is believed to have supplied the Myanmar military regime since the 2021 coup.

An Iranian delegation visited Myanmar in January 2022, marking either the second or third Iranian visit since the Myanmar military seized power in a coup in February 2021, the Asia Times reported.

A Boeing 747 cargo plane from Iran operated by Iranian cargo airline Qeshm Fars Air landed in Naypyitaw and Yangon three times between January and April 2022.

The US Treasury imposed sanctions on Qeshm Fars Air in 2019 for allegedly transporting weapons to Tehran-backed groups in the Syrian civil war. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control specified two Qeshm Fars Air–owned aircraft of concern, one of which, with the registration “EP-FAA”, appears to have been the plane that flew to Myanmar.

One of the flights delivered a consignment of 21 boxes thought to contain military drones and engines.

Defectors from the Myanmar military have confirmed that the army has used Iranian drone engines, which were installed at Meiktila air base in Meiktila Township, Mandalay Region.

The arrival of aircraft from Tehran has raised speculation about secretive military-to-military cooperation between the junta and Tehran. If confirmed, observers say, this would further complicate the situation in Myanmar and disrupt regional stability. But now, the regime and Tehran are publicly seeking closer ties.

Faced with sanctions from Western countries, the regime has sought to foster ties with Russia, China, India, Belarus and Iran. It has also resumed diplomatic ties with North Korea.

At the ministerial meeting on Monday, Than Swe explained the junta’s “efforts to ensure peace, development and democracy in Myanmar,” junta media reported.

Than Swe also commended current ACD chair Iran for its leadership and welcomed Thailand’s upcoming assumption of the chair. He also expressed condolences over last month’s deaths of the late Iranian President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Dr. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash.

The junta foreign minister also met his Thai counterpart Maris Sangiampongsa, Nepalese counterpart Narayan Kaji Shrestha Prakash and Qatari counterpart Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi on the sidelines of the ministerial meeting to discuss promoting bilateral ties, and closer cooperation within the ACD as well as in the regional and international arenas, junta media reported.

The ACD was formed in 2002 on the initiative of Thailand. Myanmar is a founding member. Representatives from 31 member countries and regional and international organizations attended the ACD ministerial meeting in Tehran.