Occasionally, a copy of the New Light of Myanmar — the Burmese government’s official mouthpiece — winds up in our office and gets passed around for laughs. The paper on March 25, commemorating Armed Forces Day, which marks the start of the Burmese army’s resistance to the Japanese occupation in 1945, was particularly amusing. In addition to the usual “news” about senior government officials “felicitating” foreign diplomats, March 25 contained in-depth coverage of role of the tatmadaw (Burmese military) in promoting national unity and foiling all manner of sinister neocolonial plots. Of particular interest was this cartoon (below), printed alongside a long article and “poem” extolling the tatmadaw. Both the style and substance call to mind Chick tracts, the radical Christian evangelist comics that turn up in one’s mailbox from time to time.
Laughable though it is, none of this bodes well for the election scheduled to be held in Burma later this year. With such a central role in preventing the “enslavement of the nation”, the military has reserved itself a quarter of the seats in each of the proposed national and regional legislatures and given military-backed parties a significant head-start. During Saturday’s Armed Forces Day parade in Naypyidaw, Senior General Than Shwe also warned against “divisive” and “slanderous” election campaigning. Meanwhile, opposition groups and ethnic nationalists are divided on whether to take part, and if they do, whether to join junta-backed parties or establish independent parties with little chance of success. Positive change, if it does result from the election, will likely be a long time coming. Below, another grab from March 25’s edition of the New Light, highlighting just what the government expects to achieve on this year’s Armed Forces Day. Nothing too ambitious, naturally.
