Irrawaddy-Sept 28
When the world talks about the isolated Myanmar military regime, the discussion of its few allies tends to focus on Russia and China’s engagement with the junta and support for it on the UN Security Council (UNSC). One country that has been strangely absent from this conversation, however, is India. The world’s largest democracy, Myanmar’s huge neighbor to the northwest has tried its best not to antagonize the junta, which has killed more than 2,000 people for rejecting military rule. During the just-ended UN General Assembly, more distant regional neighbors like Malaysia and East Timor expressed sadness at the Security Council’s failure to take serious action on Myanmar, and warned that the conflict in the country was impacting the security and stability of its neighbors. Contrast this with the meek comments from the representative of India—a non-permanent member of the current UNSC and Myanmar’s neighbor—who said simply: “We supplied 10,000 metric tons of food aid and vaccine shipments to Myanmar.” Since the coup, India has maintained a relationship with the regime, one that continues to grow in the diplomatic, military, economic and electoral spheres. Last week, a delegation led by regime Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Minister Tin Htut Oo was in India to visit the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR), which is working in cooperation with the Indian state-owned National Seed Corporation (NSC). Myanmar state-run media said the purpose of the visit was to acquire seeds of a variety of beans and pulses, including green gram (mung beans), which regime leader Min Aung Hlaing seeks to export as a means of pulling Myanmar’s economy out of its nosedive. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/india-the-myanmar-juntas-off-the-radar-friend.html
