What exactly is the US alarmed about? That TDF/TPLF finally puts an end to #TigrayGenocide committed by US ally Abiy Ahmed in #Ethiopia? When has the US and the West ever done something to stop genocide? Some history that doesn't square well 🧵1/8

https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1455056375726419975

Remember that the Rwandan genocide was not stopped by external intervention. Western troops pulled out! The Rwandan genocide also didn't just magically stop. The only reason the slaughter ended was because of the military victory by the Rwandan Patriotic Front: Tutsi rebels! 2/8

As Ethiopia's regime is about to collapse under the military pressure of the #Tigray & #Oromo resistance, Barkawi's & Laffey's writing comes to mind (again): awaiting liberation at the hands of the West is as pointless today as it's always been, in #Ethiopia as in #Myanmar 🧵 1/3 All that the West, inc. Abyi Ahmed's US allies, did was talking about humanitarian aid & a few sanctions in the context of genocide. Tigrayans have chosen not to await this kind of "liberation" and have managed to fight back against what was said to be Africa's strongest army 2/3

These days I am often asked whether a Federal Army (FA) in #Myanmar can actually materialise to the point that it poses a challenge to the Tatmadaw, one of the world's largest militaries

IMO such questions are framed in the wrong way

Some thoughts on why FA is important 🧵 1/10

https://twitter.com/NUGMyanmar/status/1391427762028568580

Sure, the creation of a Federal Army faces many challenges, not least real resource constraints, such as a lack of funds and access to weapons & collective action problems across the spectrum of armed groups in Myanmar. That's a no-brainer which everyone involved understands 2/10

Supporting #Myanmar’s generals has a long tradition for Germany and its companies since the dictatorship of Gen Ne Win. The most immediate relic of this is the wide-spread use of German-designed G3 rifles by Myanmar’s security forces
Some thoughts 🧵 1/6 #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

https://twitter.com/JusticeMyanmar/status/1378220579040460802

While more modern Chinese MA rifles have gradually become the Tatmadaw’s murder tool of choice, the G3 has long been the standard rifle of Myanmar’s security forces, be it in their wars against EAOs, the genocide against Rohingya or massacres of civilian protestors then & now 2/6

Great thread by @ZweLwinMyanmar: urging people not to panic over fake news about Chinese soldiers in #Myanmar, to consider evidence carefully & to question how fake news only help the Tatmadaw. In his words: "Keep calm & analyse!"

Some more thoughts: 1/8
#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

https://twitter.com/ZweLwinMyanmar/status/1362152850474881034

.@ZweLwinMyanmar makes excellent points about photos being used out of context & the lacking credibility of Burmese police shouting in Chinese. Please read his thread.

I could not agree more, even though we all appreciate how frightening the situation is.

2/8

We need to seriously stop fabricating baseless rumours that Chinese soldiers are in #Myanmar. They are not and they will not be. Outside observers claiming anything else is senseless, irresponsible and dangerous.

#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar #myanmarcoup
Some thoughts - thread 1/10 I understand that people in Myanmar are afraid and that media restriction and secrecy on side of the Tatmadaw is aiding this kind of fake news. There's a reason why "rumour" has such a prominent place in Myanmar politics after decades of dictatorship. I can't blame them. 2/10

This is actually big news and devastating for the KNU. It is also very illustrative of the state of the peace process under ASSK as well as what might come for EAOs and peace in #Myanmar more generally. #MyanmarCoup

Apologies, short thread again 1/5

karennews.org/2021/02/burma-… Mahn Nyein Maung (MNM) has also been called Burma's Papillon for his "miraculous" escape from the high security prison on Coco Island aka “Burma's Devil's Island” He was then imprisoned again in Insein and released with the KNU ceasefire in 2012 after which he returned to KNU 2/5

As there is increasing talk about the need to rethink Western donor engagement with #Myanmar, get up to speed with the following open-access article by @schulmanic & me, in which we urged exactly this two years ago:

Some takeaways - 1/6

#MyanmarCoup

bulletin.ids.ac.uk/index.php/idsb… The article historicises Myanmar's transition of 2011, which demonstrates that Western donors' understanding of the country's transition primarily through the lens of "democratisation" was not only analytically wrong but also politically problematic. 2/6

Some good reflections here on why it's not nitpicking to highlight that the coup happened largely within the confines of 2008 constitution. Re the question what the NLD has done to challenge the military’s practical hegemony over #Myanmar politics from within those constraints:

https://twitter.com/DrLeeJones/status/1356240368895983619

One of the biggest practical challenges the NLD mustered to Tatmadaw's power from within these constraints was removing the General Administration Department (Myanmar's bureaucratic backbone) from military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs, placing it under civilian controlled.