US Businessman Detained in Myanmar After Promoting Coup Book
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Adam Castillo, former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar and a former US Marine, was stopped at a Myanmar airport on June 11 upon his return to the country, according to two people briefed on the matter.
- Castillo had been abroad promoting his book "Finding Our Voice," which chronicles living through the 2021 military coup and criticizes US sanctions as ineffective while advocating greater business engagement with Myanmar.
- The military's 2021 coup ended a brief democratic period under Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered an ongoing civil war between the army and pro-democracy resistance forces allied with ethnic minority armed groups.
- Former junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as Myanmar's president in early April following a widely criticized, military-engineered election that excluded the main opposition, including Suu Kyi's political party.
- Castillo last year visited the White House and proposed the US play a peace-broker role in Myanmar partly to access rare earth minerals, Reuters previously reported.
- A US State Department spokesperson confirmed awareness of the detention reports but declined further comment "due to privacy concerns," while Myanmar's military-backed government did not respond to requests for comment.
Why it matters: Castillo's detention silences a prominent American voice who was actively pitching Washington on a pragmatic, business-led approach to Myanmar that included rare earth mineral access — an angle that now becomes harder for US policymakers to pursue while a citizen is held. The State Department's 'no comment' leaves a stranded American with no disclosed diplomatic recourse, and Myanmar's new military-installed presidency under Min Aung Hlaing shows the junta is willing to detain foreign nationals who publicly document its rule.
Ask SkimNews
