It’s thus no surprise that the junta has hired a public relations outfit, Dickens & Madson, a firm headed by Israeli-Canadian lobbyist Ari Ben-Menashe, to polish its profile and sell its coup to the outside world. But if the military’s history is a guide, the regime’s self-promotion effort will fall flat in the West and beyond as the nation resumes its pariah status.
Dickens & Madson recently signed a US$2 million contract with Myanmar’s military leadership to promote “the real situation in the country” and to communicate with the United States and other nations which had “misunderstood them”, according to documents filed with the US Justice Department.
