Min Aung Hlaing one ‘statement of concern’ away from resigning

This article is satire.

Burma Tha Din sources in the military claim that Min Aung Hlaing, the vertically challenged leader of the State Assassination Council (SAC) is so shaken by statements of concern by the international community that he is considering resigning and handing himself in to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

One senior military officer told Burma Tha Din: “When we planned the coup we expected around 10 statements of concern, maybe even 15, and a worst case scenario was 20, which we thought we could just about handle. Instead there have been upwards of 60 statements of concern and they just keep coming. We even had to buy a new filing cabinet to store them all in. It’s fair to say there is a sense of panic in Naypyidaw.”

Another officer with knowledge of the inner workings of SAC told Burma Tha Din: “You have to remember we are experienced battle-hardened soldiers, used to fighting terrorists disguised as unarmed villagers and children. We have no defences for statements of concern. We haven’t shut down the internet to stop news of us killing protesters getting out to the world. We are trying to stop their statements of concern getting in.”

Burma Tha Din has seen a scenario plan drawn up in advance of the coup which envisaged the international response including visa ban designations, a resumption of sanctions on MEC and UMEH, and possible western sanctions on timber and gems. Statements of concern were only referred to in one short paragraph.

Min Aung Hlaing is apparently using the two unsanctioned military owned banks, Myawaddy Bank and Innwa Bank, which are members of the EU based SWIFT international financial transfer network, to transfer funds abroad to pay for lawyers for a potential trial at The Hague. He is hoping that Aung San Suu Kyi’s legal team at the International Court of Justice, who were prepared to defend genocide, will have no qualms about representing him.

The senior military officer told us: “We thought if we switched from rubber bullets to live rounds, countries would stop making statements of concern and switch to the economic sanctions we expected, but it backfired and only led to even more statements of concern. It seems that after 70 years the international community has finally realised that statements of concern are our Achilles Heal. We are in deep trouble. If we had known there would be this many statements of concern, we would never have gone ahead with the coup.”