Fiery Dragons - Best Laid Plans - do not always turn well by Sean Turnell

Daniel Street

Australia’s least likely convicted spy walks into a Sydney cafe with a book in his hand and a smile on his face.

Australia’s least likely spy on tipping the balance in a brutal civil war

Sean Turnell, an Australian economist and former economic advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi, may be safely back in Australia after 650 days’ incarceration in Myanmar jails but the junta’s legal team are nipping at his heels.

In an interview with Mizzima, Turnell reveals the upset Myanmar junta and crony bankers are threatening him with litigation as he boldly steps forward with a new book in the wake of his best-seller “An Unlikely Prisoner” – detailing his arrest, interrogation, and sentencing in Myanmar on trumped up spying charges.

Sean Turnell is Honorary Professor of Economics at Macquarie University. In 2009 he published an influential book on Myanmar's financial system, Fiery Fiery Dragons, which made him an internationally recognised expert on the subject and one of Aung San Suu Kyi's most trusted advisers. He was arrested in Myanmar in 2021 following a military coup and imprisoned for 650 days.Sean lives in Sydney with his wife, Ha Vu, who campaigned tirelessly for his release

Turnell’s book is a captivating account of his role in Myanmar’s ill-fated reform era prior to the 2021 coup.

Sean Turnell on Myanmar, Civil War, and Economic Reform

Myanmar Junta, Crony Bankers Trying to Silence Economist Sean Turnell

In his darkest hour hope became his closest companion.

‘Australia’s most unlikely political prisoner . . . is known as a person of deep optimism, bubbling enthusiasm and infectious warmth.’
Melissa Crouch, Sydney Morning Herald

For 650 days Sean Turnell was held in Myanmar’s terrifying Insein Prison on the trumped-up charge of being a spy. In An Unlikely Prisoner he recounts how an impossibly cheerful professor of economics, whose idea of an uncomfortable confrontation was having to tell a student that their essay was ‘not really that good’, ended up in one of the most notorious prisons in South-East Asia. And how he not only survived his lengthy incarceration, but left with his sense of humour intact, his spirit unbroken and love in his heart.

'What [Sean Turnell] endured in his 650 days of incarceration is something that no human being should have to endure, yet he has done it with grace and, even in inhumane conditions, with profound humanity.'
~ Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

Sean read 127 books 📚  he reread cultural amnesia several times … Clive James Interviewed by Bill Moyers on "Cultural Amnesia"

PS: Kevin Rudd has recruited another wunderkind to his staff. Daniel Street, 29, a former television journalist, has become an adviser on Australia's multibillion-dollar foreign aid budget.

Mr Street recently completed a master's degree in development studies at Cambridge University but had not worked professionally in foreign aid.

He was awarded for volunteer charity work with homeless people in Kings Cross in 2008 while a political reporter for the Nine Network and professes a long interest in poverty challenges, including HIV/AIDS.

Labor has scrapped the position of parliamentary secretary for foreign aid to assist Mr Rudd and has not matched a Coalition election promise to transform the aid portfolio into a ministerial-level position.

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Instead Mr Rudd will oversee the $4.3 billion aid program administered by AusAID with help from ministerial advisers.

In Pakistan last month for a tour of flood-afflicted regions, he said: ''I am the Australian government - when it comes to AusAID.''

When prime minister, Mr Rudd relied on a coterie of close advisers in their early 30s, including Alistair Jordan as chief of staff, and Andrew Charlton, an economics adviser. As a former prime minister he has two extra staff.

A spokeswoman said appointments to Mr Rudd's new staff were still developing.