Alarming to revitalize effective intelligence in Myanmar for regional stability

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Tun Mon Thet (NP News) - Nov 12

Amidst hectic and volatile global circumstances with complex mechanisms of intruding aliens from countries to countries, there is a need to rejuvenate the intelligence body with sophisticated competency in Myanmar once again so as to protect not only the internal security as well as the borderline and regional stability.

It goes without saying that intelligence plays a backbone for national security, governments’ decision-making and preventing potential threats before they materialize into actual incidents. Intelligence bodies provide credible information to the government to protect their national interests, sometimes for the regional interests.

Intelligence service has to be in a timely manner so as to counter and mitigate the possible threats by monitoring the emerging risks that will challenge the security and interests of the nation.

Additionally, intelligence agencies can enhance and help for uplifting diplomatic actions by exchanging information about common enemies among each other. By this means, nations can develop to promote regional stability.

Myanmar has encountered huge historical experiences in both political and military arenas in the aspect of internal conflicts and disunity, especially after the 2021 political transition that were resulted as the consequences of the electoral fraud happening in the 2020 General Election by the leaders of the National League for Democracy. The electoral vote rigging actually turned into utter devastation by the opponents resulting in extrajudicial killings, military assaults, threatening the nation’s education, and the emergence of armed insurrections on a nationwide scale.

Thousands of civilians ranging from civil servants, schoolteachers, health workers, university professors, village and ward administrators, families of the military servicemen, to political partisan personnel and Buddhist monks were brutally murdered in the arbitrary killings by the members of People’s Defense Force (PDF terrorists) within over three years in Myanmar.

Likewise, in the military dilemma, the Northeast Command in Lashio City was defeated by the allied forces of ethnocentric armed terrorists such as Kokang MNDAA and Ta’ang TNLA. Other ethnocentric groups involved as the stakeholders in the aggressive military offenses launched in the northern Shan State are the Arakan Army, the Kachin Independence Army, and the United Wa State Army. All those groups are suspected to be directly or indirectly supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency or Taiwan intelligence’s manipulations. The purpose of those penetrations of the foreign muddling up in Myanmar was to break the unity among the neighbouring countries, which in turn, created dissension between Myanmar and its immediate neighbours.

In the southern part of the country, too many Kayin and Karenni armed groups such as KNU, KNDO, Kawthoolay Army, and the KNDF are committing military insurrections and assaults with the assistance of the American mercenary entity, the Free Burma Ranger.

It is crystal clear that those ethnocentric armed terrorists did not have the capacity to launch such versatile military strategies or tactics to win the Myanmar Tatmadaw only by themselves. There were alien intrusions, particularly by the Western hands, in the battlegrounds across the country to intimidate and distort the internal stability of Myanmar, and borderline stability to strangle the neighbouring countries.

Not only the friendly nations but also the infiltration of spies and informers of the alien nations to Myanmar triggered this crunch time and one view is that the episodes of such multi-faceted unprecedented occurrences raised a question of whether due to the failure of the intelligence services. Or whether the current intelligence units require upgrading or capacity building is another question.

Back in the years before 2004, former General Khin Nyunt led the Office of Strategic Studies and the Defence Service Military Intelligence, locally known as the MI: a short form for the Military Intelligence Services (MIS). The MIS was a powerful intelligence body in Myanmar under the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Even in the 1990s when information technology was not that advanced, the MIS’ capacity to scout and detect in covert operations and counter-terrorism was a bona fide splendid.

Because the MIS led by General Khin Nyunt could tackle effectively, efficiently, and very competently, the opposition parties and the international communities criticized the MIS and the MIS personnel under character assassinations in the global news headlines in the 1990s.

The MIS was officially dissolved by the SPDC on 18 October 2004. The leader General Khin Nyunt and many MIS officers were detained under house arrest. Later, Myanmar’s intelligence agency was re-structured and renamed.

Now, there are shreds of evidence of external penetrations in both soft power and hard power battlefields in Myanmar, sometimes in disguised appearances. It is alerting to call for reviving the intelligence agency in Myanmar with excellent capacity in the interest of Myanmar and the neighbouring countries.

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