The Diplomat: It’s Good to Be the Tatmadaw

The 2015 general election in Myanmar marked a critical transition to democracy from military rule, when the people elected Aung San Suu Kyi in the first openly-contested election in a quarter-century. However, the military, known as the Tatmadaw in Burmese, still controls much of the country’s economy and political discourse. The Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief helms three key security ministries, and Min Aung Hlaing is unlike previous military rulers who “enjoy[ed] warmer relations with Pyongyang than with Washington,” writes Ben Dunant for the Diplomat. He is instead cultivating “his image as a Burmese statesman abroad,” making military purchases from Israel and giving speeches to the European Union. Despite Myanmar’s human rights violations, especially with regards to the Rohingya Muslim minority, Western governments such as Germany and the United Kingdom, and the United States, to a lesser extent, are willing to interact with the Tatmadaw as a means to push for further democratization. - YaleGlobal