An American consultant and author of a memoir on the 2021 coup has been detained.
Security consultancy founder Adam Castillo recently printed a book detailing his work in the business community through the military putsch, which saw much of the foreign community quit the country.
A police source said Castillo was detained as he returned to Myanmar on Thursday over a lawsuit brought by the current director of a business organisation he once headed.
A court remanded Castillo in custody for two weeks on Friday.
The 2021 military coup deposed and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sparked an uprising of pro-democracy protests and tipped the country into civil war.
Castillo’s book details his work on Myanmar including “confronting the White House on failed sanctions policy”, according to a sales blurb.
It is titled Finding Our Voice: A Story of Leadership in Crisis and the American Spirit Abroad.
“As diplomats fled, Castillo stayed, dodging bullets while evacuating employees and transforming a dying chamber of commerce into a thriving community,” says the sales blurb.
Myanmar was ruled by a military junta for five years following the coup.
Military-run elections concluding this year were tightly controlled, excluding Suu Kyi’s party and returning a walkover win for pro-military parliamentarians.
Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing was voted in as civilian president, in a transition which many democracy watchdogs dismissed as a civilian rebranding of military rule. — AFP
