Regime in Myanmar is angry with Berlin: Diplomatic scandal over political birthday greetings

It is unusual for a diplomat in his host country to record a critical video message in front of the house of the president who was overthrown and supposedly has since been released. This is what happened last Sunday in Yangon, the metropolis of Southeast Asian Myanmar, which has been ruled dictatorially by the military since 2021.

The charge d'affaires of the German embassy, ​​Mathias Licharz, emphasized in his almost two-minute video distributed on the embassy's Facebook page that Win Myint, who celebrated his 75th birthday that day, was still recognized by the UN as Myanmar's legitimate president. He complained that he was not allowed to meet Win Myint, even though he was supposedly released in April. “Win Myint is not a free man,” Licharz said.

The diplomat called on the regime to have “genuine and meaningful dialogue” with the opposition to end the civil war. And as the UN has demanded, all those arbitrarily detained should be released, including Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi.

Licharz’s post received more than 30,000 likes on Facebook, more than 1,200 mostly positive comments (“Thank you for standing up for us”) and was shared over 2,700 times. The regime reacted angrily. On Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry summoned Licharz to the capital, Naypyidaw, and handed him a note of protest.

He was accused of insulting Myanmar's head of state. This refers to Min Aung Hlaing, who was transformed from a coup general to president in manipulated elections in the spring and whom Licharz did not mention by name.

The German was also accused of fomenting unrest and interfering in Myanmar's internal affairs. The regime made a veiled threat of expulsion: It would “not prevent” him from leaving the country if he continued to recognize Win Myint as president and did not cooperate with the current government. A statement from the Foreign Office (AA) in Berlin was also requested as to whether Licharz's statements were authorized there.

“The demands for the release of political prisoners presented by the chargé d’affaires of the German Embassy correspond to the well-known political line of the federal government,” explains the AA in response to a taz query. The office did not want to answer other questions from the taz, such as why the action was apparently not coordinated with other EU embassies, how the regime's reaction was assessed and whether the AA saw the action as a success.

The German organization German Solidarity Myanmar reacted happily on Facebook: "We are very pleased with the word and deed statement from the German chargé d'affaires in Myanmar. Fantastic." Just two weeks ago, the organization criticized the embassy for supporting the impression of normality desired by the regime by supporting an Oktoberfest in Myanmar for the first time since the coup.