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Myanmar ethnic divisions soften after coup 4 Hatred of military unites disparate factions and compels Bamar majority to do some soul-searching published : 1 May 2021 at 15:24 4 University students take part in a march against the military coup in Yangon on April 11. (New York Times Photo) The Myanmar military’s disinformation was crude but effective. Army propagandists claimed an ethnic group called the Rohingya was burning down its own villages and wanted to swamp Buddhist-majority Myanmar with Islamic hordes. The Rohingya were spinning tall tales, the military said in 2017, about soldiers committing mass rape and murder. The truth that troops were waging genocidal operations against Myanmar’s ethnic minorities was perhaps too shocking for some members of the country’s Bamar ethnic majority to contemplate. ....
The Myanmar military’s disinformation was crude but effective. Army propagandists claimed an ethnic group called the Rohingya was burning down its own villages and wanted to swamp Buddhist-majority Myanmar with Islamic hordes. The Rohingya were spinning tall tales, the military said in 2017, about soldiers committing mass rape and murder. The truth that troops were waging genocidal operations against Myanmar’s ethnic minorities was perhaps too shocking for some members of the country’s Bamar ethnic majority to contemplate. But as Myanmar’s military seized power this year and killed more than 750 civilians, Sandar Myo, an elementary school teacher, realized that the decades of persecution suffered by the Rohingya and other minorities was real after all. ....