cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/6592761
Thailand has invited regime leader Min Aung Hlaing to a regional summit that it will chair next month, becoming the second country in the world after Russia to welcome the leader of a 2021 coup that has devastated Myanmar.
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My understanding was more like a “transition to democracy” which may have been slow or stalled but was better than an outright junta.
You might say, the government lacked the resources to establish control in some regional and rural areas, but they had bigger problems.
Another aspect is that she was not the progressive darling of the left that the West imagined her to be. They stripped her Nobel prize after her support for persecution of the rohingya.
I was told there was a dramatic change in her outspokenness before and after she was released as a political prisoner. It’s just very suspect, and makes me think it was a sham all along.
(ie, I think she was released with strings attached)
I think it appeared democratic from the outside, but when we visited after the election, there were still some very ominous signs posted on the highway from the airport to Yangon along the lines of “one Myanmar, one people” (there were ethnic groups trying to break away at this point).
Either way, what is happening there is incredibly sad. The people were friendly, and I was hoping for them to have more access to global trade & hopefully improve their poverty situation.
I’ve visited also, and have family there, although certainly not an expert - far from it.
My take is simply that culturally, there’s a deeply held kind of zenophobia. It’s exacerbated by poverty, inequity, and the way they’ve been so closed off for so long.
I don’t mean that in a judgy derogatory way - given the circumstances an unbridled hatred of the rohingya is not unexpected.
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Myanmar lacks infrastructure to pull people out of poverty. Building up is the only really proven way to reduce poverty and everything else is just a temporary solution.
This is a rather disappointing action by Thailand as it legitimizes the military government.
I mean, pot to kettle? Current gov in Thailand is also mostly military and also got in charge in the same way… Not all that surprising.
Doesn’t Thailand have a military coup every few years? When I visited back in 2014 there were signs all over the airport telling tourists not to join the protests against the latest military coup or you’ll end up in a Thai jail!
True, but after however many years in not sure it really matters.
