Myanmar’s junta trumpets white elephant as sign of right to rule
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NAYPYITAW - Though it is a pariah on the world stage and battling fierce domestic opposition to its rule, Myanmar’s junta has found grounds for optimism – the birth of a rare albino elephant.
Since seizing power, the junta has crushed democracy protests, jailed ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and been accused of committing war crimes in its bid to quell dissent.
But the birth of the elephant – more milky-grey than white – in western Rahkine state last year is being portrayed by junta-controlled media as fortuitous.
Ancient rulers regarded white elephants as extremely auspicious, and their appearance was taken as a symbol of righteous political power.
The pale pachyderm will feature on a special postage stamp released this week to mark the 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain, state media said on Tuesday.
A set of gold commemorative coins bearing the animal’s image is also already being cast for the occasion, another report said.
The tusker tot’s highest-profile engagement so far was a meeting with junta chief Min Aung Hlaing in October, when the senior general bestowed it a name at a televised ceremony.
“Rattha Nandaka” comes from the ancient Pali words for “country” and “happiness”.
To bolster the credentials of its newfound good omen, state media has insisted the beast has an almost impeccable pedigree.
According to the experts quoted, it possesses seven of the eight standard characteristics for an albino elephant, including “pearl-coloured eyes” and a “plantain branch-shaped back”.
In Myanmar, where astrological charts are drawn at birth and fortune-tellers consulted for both daily and political decisions – the craze for white elephants goes back hundreds of years.
Traditional chronicles tell of kings in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar – then known as Burma – warring to capture the beasts from rivals.
The ruinous cost of keeping them in appropriately lavish style gave rise to the modern expression in which a “white elephant” is a useless, if beautiful, possession.
One creature inherited by a 19th century Burmese king was waited on by thirty servants and dressed in a “fine red cloth plentifully studded” with rubies and diamonds, according to a visiting British official.
The king, who had usurped his brother, “would gladly hail the capture of a real white elephant in his own day as an assent from the Powers of Nature to his own legitimate royalty,” the envoy added.
But the fortunes of the creatures are tied up with the ruler under whom they were captured.
Two elephants, once feted by a former junta, are now confined to a damp, out-of-the-way compound in commercial hub Yangon where they receive few visitors.
“Rattha Nandaka” will spend its days in a special compound for white elephants in military-built capital NaypyiTaw.
But with swathes of the country still ravaged by fighting and the junta widely reviled, his birth has been met with public scepticism and scorn.
“It seems like they forgot to put suncream on,” one social media user wrote about the baby elephant’s more grey than albino appearance.
“Now it’s black.”
Black or white, another wrote, the baby was “now a prisoner”. AFP
Junta’s biggest threat at bay amid widespread domestic resistance to its rule.
Suu Kyi is being held in a jail in Naypyitaw in solitary confinement, and the military insists she has received due process in an independent court.
Authorities typically release some prisoners to mark the day when Myanmar declared independence from British rule. However, it was not immediately clear if the military would free any political detainees this time.
The United States, the European Union and countries such as Britain and Canada have imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military and individuals deemed to have helped the junta come to power.
In a further rebuke, the U.N. Security Council last month adopted its first resolution on Myanmar in 74 years, demanding an end to violence and for the junta to free all political detainees.
Referring to international pressure, Min Aung Hlaing hit out at what he said were “disruptions from countries and organizations who want to intervene in Myanmar’s internal affairs.”
Still, the junta has maintained some international support. The U.N. Security Council remains split over how to deal with the Myanmar crisis, with China and Russia arguing against strong action. They also both abstained from last month’s vote on the resolution, along with India.
Thailand also hosted regional talks last month to discuss the crisis, including rare international appearances by junta ministers, even as several key members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, vocal in their criticism of the junta, did not attend.
ASEAN is leading diplomatic peace efforts and Myanmar’s generals have been barred from the bloc’s high-profile gatherings for failing to honor promises to start talks with opponents linked to Suu Kyi’s ousted government.
Myanmar’s junta pardons more than 7,000 prisoners
2023.01.04
Myanmar’s military rulers ordered the release of 7,012 inmates, including some political prisoners, in an Independence Day amnesty Wednesday.
Detainees held in prisons and police stations across the country had their sentences reduced in accordance with Section 401 of the Penal Code, according to junta news releases received by RFA.
Wednesday marks the 75th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule.
Lawyers, who wished to remain anonymous, told RFA some political prisoners had already returned to their homes early Wednesday, while families of others were still waiting outside prisons.
Minister of Religious Affairs under the National League for Democracy-led government, Thura Aung Ko, was released from Yangon’s Insein Prison Tuesday night. He had been serving a 12-year sentence for alleged corruption. Police officers and soldiers took him to his home in Yangon, his daughter wrote on her Facebook page.
The National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in 2020 elections but the NLD-led government was overthrown in a February, 2021 coup. The junta has arrested many party members along with the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison, and President Win Myint who faces 12 years behind bars.
There was no indication that Suu Kyi or Win Myint were included in the amnesty.
Writers freed
Among those released from Yangon’s Insein prison were authors Than Myint Aung and Htin Lin Oo, a Yangon lawyer, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons, told RFA.
Than Myint Aung is a well-known fiction writer who also worked for many charities in Myanmar. She had been serving a three-year sentence for alleged incitement. Htin Lin Oo was also sentenced to three years in prison for sedition.
Poet Myo Tay Zar Maung, who had been sentenced to two years for sedition, was freed from Yamethin Prison north of Naypyidaw Wednesday.
Journalists Kyaw Zeya and Ah Hla Lay Thu Zar were also among those set to be freed as was Naing Ngan Lin, the social affairs minister for Yangon region under the NLD-led government.
In spite of the Independence Day amnesty, and one on National Day last November, the junta continues to target opposition politicians and real or alleged pro-democracy activists. More than 16,800 have arrested since the coup, according to Thailand-based monitoring group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Ahead of Wednesday’s amnesty, it said 13,375 political prisoners were still being held.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Written in English by Mike Firn.
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