Business
TrueMoney Myanmar, owned by Thailand-based financial technology company True Corporation, has ended its eight-year partnership with Asia Green Development Bank. The bank, part of the Htoo Group, is owned by Tay Za, a target of Western sanctions. In a statement, TrueMoney Myanmar announced that as of December 16, its new partner would be Myanma Apex Bank, whose owner, prominent local businessman Chit Khine, is currently in regime custody.
TrueMoney has some 23,000 agents nationwide, and provides a range of financial services, including phone top up, bill payment, money transfer, and domestic remittance services.
Junta affairs
Khin Yi, the chair of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), met with the heads and representatives of 37 other political parties at the party’s headquarters in Naypyitaw on January 5, a day after their attendance at a junta-organised Independence Day event. He described the meeting on social media as an “informal” gathering to introduce the USDP’s new leadership to other parties. He also wrote that they all “agreed on a solution to help the nation with collective strength” during the two-hour long meeting.
Two days later, he met with over 200 representatives of 29 social-welfare and religious organisations at the party’s branch office in Yangon. He said on social media that he had a chance to explain the party’s nationalism-based policies and discuss issues of race and religion as well as current affairs during the three-hour meeting.
Khin Yi, a retired military and police general and former immigration minister, was known for organising pro-military rallies under the administration of ex-general Thein Sein, prior to the 2015 election of the now-ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government. A loyalist of coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, he was handpicked last year to take over as USDP chair during a leadership shake-up. Since then, the party has been gearing up for military-organised elections, expected to be held this year. Opposition groups and international observers have widely dismissed the planned polls as a ploy to strengthen the military’s grip on power.
On January 6, Min Aung Hlaing also signalled that the regime was preparing to move forward with its election plans by calling for the compilation of “correct data” on voters lists. Local administration offices under the control of the junta—which seized power two years ago after accusing the NLD of rigging the 2020 election—have ordered members of the public to report household registration data and other personal information to the authorities to ensure that they are eligible to vote.
Meanwhile, the regime’s State Peace Talk Team, led by Lt-Gen Yar Pyae, met with representatives of ethnic armed groups, including the United Wa State Party, the National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Shan State Progress Party, in Naypyitaw on January 6 and 7 to discuss plans to hold elections in their respective areas.
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Australian economist Sean Turnell, who spent more than 21 months behind bars in Myanmar before being freed as part of an amnesty in November, has violated the terms of his release, according to a junta statement that has been circulating widely on social media since last week. Dated December 6, the statement claims that Turnell, who was detained on charges of violating the Official Secrets Act while acting as an economic advisor to the ousted NLD government, made “false claims” about the regime to media outlets and on social media following his return to Australia. His pardon has therefore been withdrawn and he will now have to serve the remainder of his sentence if he returns to Myanmar, the statement said. Myanmar Now has been unable to verify the authenticity of the statement and could not reach the military’s spokesperson for comment on the announcement.
Resistance
On January 4, Myanmar’s Independence Day, Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the country’s publicly mandated National Unity Government, said that Myanmar people will fight for their “second independence” and build a new nation with the unity that they have achieved. He also criticised the military, saying that it was no longer the institution that it was when it played a vital role in helping the country win its independence in 1948. Decades of corruption and the brainwashing of soldiers by power-hungry leaders have systematically ruined it, he said.
“[Military leaders] cultivated the habit of bullying the people with arms and this is why there have been military coups in our country’s history and the people have to suffer longer under the military rule,” he said in a statement.
