Myanmar’s junta is attacking pro-democracy militias to take back lost territory.
By RFA Burmese
Myanmar’s military is fighting to retake territory lost to anti-junta fighters and killed 11 villagers in its latest assaults, a pro-democracy militia member said on Thursday, after two ethnic minority forces agreed to ceasefires, leaving their pro-democracy allies on their own.
Ethnic minority groups fighting for autonomy have linked up over the past year with pro-democracy militias to seize large parts of Myanmar, including in the Mandalay region, on the approaches to Myanmar’s second-largest city.
But two minority rebel groups based in Shan state – the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA – have recently agreed, under Chinese pressure, to ceasefires and talks with the junta.
Now the junta appears to be focusing its fire on the pro-democracy militias known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, who have not been included in the ceasefires.
“The military is trying hard to capture their lost territories,” said a representative of a pro-democracy militia known as the Myin Chan District PDF, in the Mandalay region.
The PDF tried to consolidate its position in Natogyi township, about 75 kilometers (46 miles) southwest of Mandalay, with an attack on a police station in Pyin Si village this week but the military responded with force on surrounding villages killing 11 civilians.
“They want revenge,” the PDF representative said.
One resident told of a pre-dawn air attack on Aung Pan Kone village
“The plane opened fire because it saw light from the fires as people were cooking their rice,” said the witness, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “In one family the son, mother and father were all killed.”
A 70-year-old man was killed in Let Wea village while four people were killed in airstrikes on Na Be Myit and Kun Ohn villages, residents said.
An airstrike on a monastery in Tha Man Taw village on Wednesday killed three children, another resident told RFA.
RFA attempted to reach Mandalay region’s junta spokesperson Thein Htay for information on the offensive but he did not respond.
Residents of the area told Radio Free Asia the attacks on five villages starting on Monday had displaced nearly 3,000 people.
“They’re terrified and in hiding,” one resident said.
While the ethnic minority forces like the TNLA and the MNDAA are fighting for self-determination in the regions in which their people live, the PDFs are loyal to the shadow National Unity Government in exile, made up of supporters of the elected government ousted in an early 2021 coup.
The NUG is seeking an end to military rule and for the building of a democratic, federal Myanmar.
Talks with the two groups that have agreed to ceasefire have yet to start.
China, which has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, has been putting pressure on the Shan state minority insurgents to make peace with the junta it backs by closing the border to rebel zones, cutting off essential supplies to the groups and the civilians under their control.
From January to November, nearly 600 people have been killed by airstrikes throughout the country, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners human rights monitoring group.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
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