{"id":301149,"date":"2025-08-18T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=301149"},"modified":"2025-08-15T05:56:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T04:56:24","slug":"myanmar-anti-junta-opposition-plays-with-fire-dangling-rare-earth-materials-before-transactional-un-trustworthy-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/08\/myanmar-anti-junta-opposition-plays-with-fire-dangling-rare-earth-materials-before-transactional-un-trustworthy-washington\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar Anti-Junta Opposition Plays with Fire: Dangling Rare Earth Materials before Transactional & Un-Trustworthy Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Myanmar\u2019s anti-Junta opposition in the diaspora and their Western supporters are playing with fire when they reportedly dangle before Trump\u2019s transactional administration the prospects of a fire sale of the country\u2019s strategic natural resources for political support. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14 Aug 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0As a seasoned dissident in exile, I have been deeply troubled by the emerging news report<\/a> \u2013 and ensuing advocacy pieces \u2013 that Myanmar\u2019s anti-Junta opposition in the diaspora and their Western supporters are dangling before Trump\u2019s transactional administration the prospects of a fire sale of the country\u2019s strategic natural resources , namely rare earth materials, in exchange for political recognition, material assistance and so on for the so-called National Unity Government.<\/p>\n

Former US marine and ex-Chair<\/a> of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jim Webb has, for instance, made the case for such support to a country seen through the American eyes as \u201cAsia\u2019s prize\u201d.<\/p>\n

I was American-educated and had lived<\/a> and worked in the United States, including in \u201cWashington swamp\u201d, for 17 years (1988-2005). Then I \u201cself-deported<\/a>\u201d, to borrow the current White Nationalist language of Trumpian xenophobes \u2013from the USA for good, out of my profound disgust after the 2nd American invasion of Iraq and the resultant destruction of an entire society there.<\/p>\n

Having studied Washington\u2019s largely failed foreign policy missions \u2013 particularly militaristic adventures \u2013 since the start of the Cold War in the early 1950\u2019s, I have zero confidence or trust in the US foreign policy elite. They have never really been \u201cfriends of democracy\u201d, much less \u201callies in liberation struggles\u201d. Just ask the Hungarian democrats, Czechoslovakian dissidents, South Vietnamese, Cambodians, Afghanis and, as of this writing, Ukrainians.<\/p>\n

Washington barks or used to until Trump\u2019s second coming, human rights, democracy and freedom. But it is all bark and no bite. Worse still, the bipartisan United States is the co-perpetrator (along with its European poodles Germany and UK) in Israel\u2019s textbook ongoing genocide in Gaza and occupation of the West Bank. Washington weaponises law to punish any opposition against crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

The painful truth is the people of Myanmar have no real good option.<\/p>\n

The country is in the early stages of internal disintegration. Admittedly, the authoritarian and genocidal national military bears the lion\u2019s share of responsibility for this spectacular failure in state building over 60-years.<\/p>\n

But Myanmar\u2019s ethnic regions have zero chance of emerging as new republics ala post-Yugoslavia states. Painfully, no central or real organization is in a position, politically, geographically or militarily to speak for the entire 55 million peoples of diverse ethnicities, faiths, political creeds and material interests.<\/p>\n

For better or for worse, the junta is effectively treated by virtually all neighbouring regimes and national militaries \u2013 including India and China, as well as the Association of South East Asian Nations as the only reliable institutional partner in Myanmar. Four years after Myanmar Spring revolution rose organically in response to the military coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi government, there have emerged credible allegations that besides the junta as the usual violators of human rights and international criminal law, some of the most powerful anti-junta armed militias<\/a>, for instance, the Arakan Army<\/a>, have been committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even genocide against the country\u2019s Rohingya people.<\/p>\n