Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing wrapped up a three-day state visit on Sunday to Vietnam, where the Southeast Asian neighbors vowed to boost defense and security ties. There was nothing unusual about the trip itself, except that it marked the ex-general's sixth official trip abroad since assuming Myanmar's presidency in April, when he was voted in by a parliament stacked with loyalists following military-run elections in December and January that were widely considered a charade. As Myanmar's newly minted head of state, Min Aung Hlaing has been hosted by the leaders of India, China, Laos, Thailand, Russia and now Vietnam — six countries in five months.
He'll be heading to Cambodia on Friday to make it seven. "Since the December-January elections and Min Aung Hlaing's transition to president after giving up his role as commander-in-chief, he's really put a renewed focus on diplomatic partnership and trying to shore up the government's allies in the region,” said Hunter Marston, head of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank. "Even if they're relatively short trips to regional friends and allies, I think it shows that there is an acceleration of Naypyitaw's strategy to diversify its partnerships and to normalize relations bilaterally,” he added, referring to Myanmar's capital.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Marston and other analysts told DW that Myanmar is slowly returning to the international stage, aiming to shed its pariah status despite the mountain of war crimes allegations leveled against the regime — some against Min Aung Hlaing himself. Since Min Aung Hlaing's military toppled the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, civil war has killed some 100,000 people and displaced over 3 million. Last month, the United Nations said human rights conditions in the country had sunk to a new low, as the military keeps up a campaign of forced recruitment, arson and often indiscriminate air strikes on contested and resistance-held areas.
That record has also made Myanmar one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world and brought on a number of court filings for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at The Hague and elsewhere. Despite that record, "the military regime is emerging to some extent from its isolation, but engagement is still largely limited to countries that were working with it to some extent prior to the recent sham elections," said Scot Marciel, a senior adviser at the consulting firm BowerGroupAsia. "The military clearly hopes increased engagement will give it legitimacy that will help it cement its status, but it has not gained any legitimacy among the Myanmar public," Marciel, a former US ambassador to Myanmar, added.
Even among its Southeast Asian neighbors, holdouts remain. Since the coup, the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is one, has barred Min Aung Hlaing and his foreign ministers from attending the bloc's most senior-level meetings. Malaysia, Indonesia and current ASEAN chair, the Philippines, are especially adamant that it stay that way until Myanmar makes meaningful progress on a peace plan for the country that all the members agreed to in April 2021.
Myanmar's regime has made little progress on the plan so far and rejected repeated requests for ASEAN's special envoys to the country to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, who was arrested the morning of the coup and has been held in custody since. Last month, the country's newly installed parliament passed a motion flatly rejecting the bloc's peace plan, and its Foreign Ministry said ASEAN's special envoys were no longer needed. Under the circumstances, Min Aung Hlaing and his ministers are unlikely to be attending ASEAN's senior leaders summits "any time soon,” said Pinitbhand Paribatra, an associate professor of international relations at Thailand's Thammasat University.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
