Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing is under fire again after the military he commands, known as the Tadmadaw in Myanmar, suffered yet another unprecedented, humiliating and historic string of defeats to ragtag armies.
Military supporters and ultra-nationalists are grumbling, some obliquely and others directly, about his failed leadership.
Criticism escalated after the ethnic Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army captured the Tatmadaw’s Northeastern Command, which had a decades-long reputation for vast combat experience and victories, including repelling invasions. The ethnic army seized the command’s headquarters in northern Shan State’s Lashio cty on August 4 after a one-month battle. i
This is the second time Min Aung Hlaing’s military acumen has been questioned. In January, after another string of humiliating defeats in northern Shan State, some of his staunchest supporters called for his resignation.
Former Lieutenant-Colonel Hla Swe, chair of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party in Naypyitaw since the 2021 coup, has joined the chorus with an indirect attack on Min Aung Hlaing is a column he penned in the August 15 issue of military-backed Bullet News Journal, which he runs.
In the column, he describes how previous military leaders worked tirelessly to achieve victory in important battles.
Then military chief General Saw Maung personally went to the frontline in Kyugok town during the Sisiwan Tarpan Battle against the Communist Party of Burma in 1986, Hla Swe points out.
Kyugok is a town in northern Shan State’s Muse Township that fell to the Brotherhood Alliance in mid-November last year during the first phase of Operation 1027.
Hla Swe continues his Bullet News Journal report by noting that Saw Maung’s deputy – Than Shwe – closely supervised the Sisiwan Tarpan Battle from the Northeastern Command in Lashio town – the capital of northern Shan State – as well as the Northeastern Command.
Other senior military officers were not shy about visiting the frontline to command troops in battles with the Karen National Union, Hla Swe continued.
“I was lucky to have met such good leaders when I was young,” he said in Bullet News Journal.
Pauk Kodaw, a monk and staunch military supporter, wrote on social media: “Mr. State Administration Council chairman, Prime Minister, Acting President, and Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services, we who support and love the Tatmadaw are getting disappointed with you.”
Ultra nationalist monk U Wirathu mocked Min Aung Hlaing on social media, accusing him of donating northern Shan State to resistance armies.
“May Senior General Min Aung Hlaing attain Nirvana quickly for his donation of northern Shan State,” he wrote. He also told regime soldiers “not to defend towns anymore to avoid disrupting and hampering Payar Dagar’s donations of towns.”
“Paya Dagar” is a term used to refer to someone who has funded the construction of a pagoda. It became one of Min Aung Hlaing’s sobriquets after he constructed his titanic Maravijaya Buddha statue in Naypyitaw.
Adding insult to injury, U Yee Mon – defense minister of the civilian National Unity Government – released data on August 10 saying that the regime now controls fewer than 100 of the 350 towns across the country.
Defeats in Mandalay have increased anger among staunch supporters of a military once considered invincible.
Military supporter Min Swe wrote on social media: “What will the military chief and deputy military chief do if places like Natoegyi [town] in central Myanmar fall? The fall of Lashio is already too much to take. It is not acceptable if places like Natoegyi and Mandalay fall.
He suggested suicide as an option, writing: “You all, kill yourselves … I mean, the Tatmadaw leaders!”
Still, despite the rising anger against him, Min Aung Hlaing remains ensconced in Naypyitaw, the junta’s nerve center.
As one formerly junta-controlled town after another falls to resistance forces, he’s been meeting with his cabinet to discuss staging traditional performing arts competitions and national sporting events. He’s also attended a gems expo and sporting events
