Myanmar Military Deny Reports Min Aung Hlaing In Tears Over Facebook Posts

From our correspondent in New Delhi

A Tatmadaw spokesperson has denied reports in Indian media that Commander in Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing missed a key diplomatic meeting during his current visit to India because he was in his hotel room crying over Facebook posts which criticised him. India is a key supplier of military equipment to the Tatmadaw.

According to Indian media, Min Aung Hlaing failed to attend a lunch with Admiral Sunil Lanba, Chief of Naval Staff. His absence surprised Indian officials as Min Aung Hlaing is known the world over for enjoying luxury lunches and dinners on his trips abroad. The official reason given was that he had a spot of ‘Delhi Belly’.

However, a cleaner at Min Aung Hlaings hotel tipped off local media that at the time he was supposed to be at the lunch meeting she had seen the general in tears in his hotel room, pointing at Facebook posts on his laptop and complaining to his staff.

“I thought soldiers were supposed to be strong but this man cried like a baby,” she is reported as saying.

The Senior General is widely known to be very sensitive about negative posts and jokes about him on social media. He has frequently ordered his officials to make complaints about comments or jokes about him, in order for them to be charged under the notorious section 66d of the telecommunications law. To date the government of Myanmar, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, have been happy to allow these complaints to go ahead.

A military insider told Burma Tha Din; “It’s a nightmare, like so many people in Myanmar he is glued to Facebook, but he gets so upset if people makes jokes or critical comments about him. We are soldiers but instead of guns we have to carry tissues in case Min Aung Hlaing cries over a Facebook post. We can’t let him go into meetings with tears running down his face. Sometimes he won’t even get out of bed, he just sits there on his laptop all day crying or shouting. We have people to run his Facebook Account but he still reads all the comments. On foreign trips we usually tell him the wifi is down, but something obviously went wrong this time.”

A spokesperson for the government of India refused to comment on the reports, but in an official statement they said: “Please Min Aung Hlaing, if we give you lots of guns will you be our friend instead of China’s?”