In a stunning display of irony, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing marked World Environment Day on Thursday (June 5), urging citizens to take responsibility for environmental conservation. His remarks came as parts of Kachin State in northern Myanmar were hit by flooding.
Yet, his four-year-old regime has overseen one of the most destructive environmental records in Myanmar’s modern history.
Decades of military rule have ravaged Myanmar’s ecosystems, with forests stripped bare, minerals extracted at reckless rates, and natural resources sold off to secure successive juntas’ grip on power. The environmental consequences of this plunder have been severe: deadly annual flooding and landslides, storms, record heatwaves, and growing pollution of air and water are taking a heavy toll on a population already suffocated by civil war and economic hardships.
Before the 2021 coup, the civilian government made progress in environmental conservation, including reforestation, earthquake risk mitigation, and bans on destructive logging. Those initiatives have all but vanished under military rule, leading to rampant deforestation and environmental degradation.
As head of a regime conducting relentless air and artillery strikes on resistance-held territories, razing villages, displacing residents, and jailing dissidents – repression and militarization funded by natural wealth – Min Aung Hlaing’s call for conservation rings hollow.
Just when Myanmar people thought the military regime had exhausted every excuse for the country’s ever-shrinking supply of US dollars, Min Aung Hlaing has unearthed a new culprit – flights.
Speaking at the “Rebuilding Myanmar: Post-Earthquake Economic Recovery” forum on May 30, the junta chief lamented that flight tickets were gobbling up precious dollars, thereby suggesting that the reason for Myanmar’s crippling foreign currency shortage is not international sanctions, foreign investment withdrawal, or disrupted trade, but because people are flying too much.
Citing departure lists in April, Min Aung Hlaing said international travel costs money since “you don’t walk to foreign countries.”
Meanwhile, the regime continues scrabbling for cash, pushing to trade in rupees, yuan, baht, ringgit – essentially anything except US dollars. Min Aung Hlaing’s greenback-saving edicts have grown increasingly absurd over the past few years: bike to work, use less (imported) cooking oil, export more! And now he is apparently urging people not to board planes.
The dollar shortage is expected to worsen after the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Thursday invoked Article 33, calling on ILO governments, employers and unions to halt cooperation with the junta for its labor and human rights abuses.
“If Myanmar can’t secure revenue soon, the country itself will slowly disintegrate,” Min Aung Hlaing warned at the May 30 forum.
Myanmar’s regime has appointed economist Dr Zaw Oo as a Central Bank of Myanmar director.
He is a member of the Myanmar Narrative Think Tank, which has hosted economic forums in Naypyitaw, including recovery discussions after the March 28 earthquake and the Myanmar Beyond 2025 event, with foreign diplomats and international advisers.
YANGON—The junta has extended a post-earthquake truce, after the expiry of a previous humanitarian ceasefire it was accused of flouting with a continued campaign of airstrikes.
The junta initially declared a truce in the many-sided civil war after a huge quake in late March killed nearly 3,800 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
