“This is Pyongyang.” In Naypyidaw, the ghost capital, the junta is orchestrating its revenge five years after the coup
- Jun 9
- 5 min read
On the deserted tarmac strip cutting through the tropical savannah, three olive-green armoured trucks are heading south, leaving Naypyidaw, Burma’s reclusive capital, behind. “There must be a skirmish in the area; sometimes the PDF set up a checkpoint on the road to show their presence,” explains the driver laconically, referring to the People’s Defence Force (PDF), the armed resistance that rose up against General Min Aung Hlaing’s coup on 1 February 2021.
Five years on, the guerrillas are still harassing the Tatamdaw, the Burmese army, even briefly capturing a checkpoint on this vital road linking Yangon to China on 17 November last year. Or launching a drone attack in 2024 on the ghost capital built by the junta, nestled between two mountains, at the heart of the Southeast Asian nation torn by civil war since the brutal arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.
But lethargy prevails over anxiety once you pass the final checkpoint guarding the “Seat of Kings”, the nickname of this mysterious “ideal city” with Orwellian overtones, which Le Figaro was able to visit.
After passing through a monumental gate, the road widens excessively to twelve lanes, winding around roundabouts topped with giant, tacky flowers. Like an asphalt naga, the road stretches across twenty lanes, used by the occasional motorbike. This is where tanks came to disperse the demonstrators, aided by snipers firing into the crowd in February 2021, who had come to defend the victory of the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, currently imprisoned in the capital’s central prison. “This is Pyongyang! The only time there are traffic jams is when they block the roads for the Commander-in-Chief’s convoy or the Belarusian president,” scoffs a driver.
A few solitary vehicles criss-cross these boulevards as wide as the horizon, lined with lush vegetation interspersed with crenellated hotel facades. A papier-mâché backdrop built over a decade by tycoons loyal to the junta, completed in 2012 in the heart of the arid central plain by a regime jealous of its secrets, dethroning colonial Yangon in the Irrawaddy Delta.
Nothing looks less like a city of nearly a million inhabitants than these expanses of guava, cactus and date palm forests stretching over an area four times the size of London. The vegetation conceals the villas of party officials, bungalows reserved for parliamentarians and barracks, punctuated by golden Buddhist chedis.
Including the residences of the Commander-in-Chief, his predecessor Than Shwe, and the tycoons. “Naypyidaw was founded for military and symbolic reasons, and to bury corruption within this enormous construction budget. The junta’s resilience stems from its discipline and the hoarding of natural resources. “We were building a meritocracy, but we have reverted to a plutocracy,” notes Myo Nyunt, a columnist in Yangon. Every year, the scene comes alive for the gemstone and jade fairs, lucrative resources, just like the drug trade or online scam factories for a regime targeted by international sanctions.
At 69, General Min Aung Hlaing is set to swap his uniform for the robes of President of the Republic, according to forecasts following the “multi-party” parliamentary elections that concluded on 25 January, unsurprisingly won by the pro-military party with the backing of China and Russia. The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the junta’s electoral front, claims to have won 90% of the seats in the lower house in an election shunned by a population drained of vitality.
The UN accuses this of being an electoral sleight of hand designed to provide a veneer of respectability and legitimise the coup. “The world must not accept ‘a military regime in civilian clothing’,” declared Tom Andrews, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, addressing capitals weary of a deadlocked conflict, from Washington to Bangkok.
“The army was forced to take back power because the NLD did not heed our demands, which placed a heavy burden on the people. We must redouble our efforts, with stability as our priority. And the international community must help us by lifting sanctions,” explains Tint Wai, a former colonel who has just been elected under the USDP banner.
Wearing a traditional white shirt over a green longyi, his face weathered by the years, this officer fought ethnic guerrillas in the jungle during his youth. “I never tire; I am a soldier,” declares the officer destined for a ministerial role. He stands as a symbol of the unyielding resilience of a regime under attack on all fronts by armed groups, controlling less than half the territory of 55 million people, yet one that has withstood the test of time since independence was wrested from the British. And he wants to believe that the next legislature will offer a new lease of life to his unchallenged rule over this strategic chokepoint between China and India.
The Tatmadaw regained the military initiative last year thanks to an “unprecedented monsoon offensive, backed by Chinese and Russian weapons and conscription”, according to Antony Davis, an expert at the defence magazine Jane’s, in Bangkok. Several hundred Russian military experts live in this capital, which has no embassy. Sufficient reinforcements to halt the downward spiral triggered by the lightning offensive of the “Alliance of Three Brotherhoods” in October 2023. Worried about destabilisation on its southern flank, Beijing has sought to dampen the rebels’ fervour, without, however, offering Min Aung Hlaing a blank cheque. “The junta is waging a war of attrition, just as it has done for decades. It doesn’t need to win, simply to divide the resistance,” says Myo Nyunt.
A labyrinth criss-crossed by military vehicles, Naypyidaw seems frozen in time since the coup, a brutal halt to the take-off of this frontier that had soared on the wings of globalisation.
In the hollow of a valley, the pointed roofs of the pharaonic parliament, plunged into silence, emerge. Workers are repainting the markings on the ground, preparing for the reopening of the dormant assembly in March, to turn the page on the “Lady of Rangoon” once and for all.
A few hundred metres from the gate, in a quiet lane, villa no. 833 is being renovated. It was here that the “Special Adviser” was detained at the dawn of that fateful 1st of February, just as she was preparing to open the new legislative session, a local resident whispers. Like a tropical Tarpeian Rock near a vanishing Capitol, shrouded in hopes of democracy and development. A state within a state, the junta “never intended to relinquish power for more than one term,” judges Nyunt.
The new “king” of Naypyidaw is planning for the long term, inaugurating the world’s largest marble Buddha statue, a pledge of posterity. Five thousand tonnes of white Mandalay stone, glistening in the night, destined to “repel all enemies”, is the message on a votive stele dedicated by the general.
A few kilometres away, another dimly lit sanctuary emerges from the tropical twilight. A chedi dedicated by “Daw Suu” to “justice, equality and freedom” for the Burmese people, surrounded by peacocks, the NLD’s talismanic animal. Above the impassive Buddha, a concrete ceiling hangs over the unfinished monument, like a horizon that has vanished.
Sebastien Falletti, in Naypyidaw
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Link to the orginal article in French:
