Irrawaddy-Nov 11
One of the many adverse impacts of the 2021 military coup has been the return of Big Brother to Myanmar. The state security apparatus is once again persecuting all opponents of the junta and bullying the general public in order to entrench military rule and reassert the generals’ status as “superiors” lording it over the whole society.
Since the coup, the regime’s spy network, generally known as “Military Intelligence”, or MI, has been arresting and brutally torturing—often to death—anyone suspected of being directly involved in, supporting or having connections with any anti-regime movement, in an effort to extract information on its perceived enemies. The Southeast Asian nation has been in revolt since the takeover as the vast majority of the people reject the coup. Many young people have taken up arms to fight against the junta. Officially known as the Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs (OCMSA), the agency is behind the “overnight detentions” in which alleged dissidents are arrested in night raids, and their bodies returned the following day. Dissidents are subject to various forms of torture, sometimes fatal, at hellish interrogation camps where MI members use rape as a weapon against not only female activists but also males. The office is the successor to the MI, which was dissolved in 2004 following the purge of powerful spy chief General Khin Nyunt. Its purpose is much the same: to keep the activities of democracy activists and anyone deemed to undermine the interests of the Myanmar military under surveillance, Big Brother-style. Since the coup, its primary responsibility has been clear: to jail or kill anyone involved in the popular revolt against the regime. It is not wrong to say that this has been the MI’s primary duty under successive governments. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/with-return-of-military-rule-myanmar-again-living-under-big-brother.html
