March 27 ‘Myanmar Army Day’ was established to commemorate the day that armed resistance began in 1945 against the Japanese. Coincidentally, on this day a year ago, the worst bloodshed since the military coup took place. As the military indiscriminately suppressed civilians on the streets for anti-coup d’etat protests, the daily death toll has risen to close to 100. The citizens of Myanmar called March 27 the ‘Day of Resistance’.
One year has passed since then. The situation in Myanmar is still in extreme chaos. While surprise demonstrations continue in the city, another intensifying resistance movement is the armed struggle of the Citizens’ Defense Force (PDF). In particular, in the border areas where there are armed minority groups such as Chinju, Kayaju, and Kachinju, the civil defense forces and the military are fighting fiercely. Already, civilians have been killed or injured in Myanmar’s military air strikes, bombing and arson, and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. However, due to what happened at the border, the facts were not recorded in detail or well known abroad.
What is happening at the Myanmar border? After the coup, some journalists in Myanmar followed the Civil Defense Forces to the border area to escape the oppression of the military. He sleeps and eats with the Citizens’ Guard Army, and works to inform on social media of the horrors of their training, fighting, and the military’s bloody oppression. Mr. Asein, a freelance journalist, is one of them. “Hiding in the jungle is not easy. There is a shortage of food and relief supplies. It’s been a long time since I left home, so I miss my family.” From the end of 2021 to March of this year, the story of the Civil Defense Force he recorded in Kaya Province, southern Myanmar, will be translated and published.
In Myanmar, Giza is called the ‘fourth pillar’ of the state. It means that the role of the media to monitor the state powers such as legislation, the judiciary, and the administration is the foundation that supports democracy. But press freedom in Myanmar faced serious threats with the military coup. Reporters covering major cities such as Yangon, Mandalay and Bago suffered arrests and death threats from the military. Despite this crisis, reporters in Myanmar tried to report the truth with a sense of mission. ‘The current atrocities of the military must be accurately informed to the citizens.’ Journalists, including myself, have been like this for the past year. In order to document the truth of the civil revolution that will go down in history, Myanmar reporters did not hesitate to enter the scene of the armed struggle.
Before the coup, he was a student majoring in mathematics at the university. After February 1 of last year, he started working as a citizen reporter (CJ) to resist the military coup d’etat. The reason why Myanmar’s MZ generation has entered the path of armed struggle is simple. This is because the Myanmar military has committed inhumane and merciless violence against the people who continued anti-coup protests. Neither the peaceful Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) nor the appeal of the international community showed any sign of resolving the problem. This is the reason why I went to Kayaju, an area of armed minority groups, to tell about the clash between the Civil Defense Force and the military in the border area.
The Kaya State Civil Defense Forces, which are mainly men in their teens and 30s, are voluntarily participating in military training together with an armed minority group. Most of them were students or workers from the city. All of them left their homes and hid here to protest the injustice of military violence. It is difficult to estimate the exact size, but local media reported that thousands of people are active in the Civil Defense Forces in various parts of Myanmar. Currently, minority armed groups are helping the militia, mainly in Kaya, Karen and northern Kachin. In my case, the length of my stay was different each time, but sometimes I spent the night with them at the forefront of Kayaju. The front line where the fighting takes place is within 6 km of where I live.
The village passed by the military in a battle
Kayaju is one of the areas where fighting and air raids continue for a month from February 16th. Early in the morning, the military mobilized more than 200 soldiers and two tanks to invade Movie, on the border between Shan and Kaya provinces. A civilian woman was seriously injured in her leg in a military attack with heavy weapons (firearms such as high-powered mortars). At 8 p.m. that night, the Civil Defense Forces counterattacked with homemade hunting guns and rifles, killing four soldiers on the military side. The military again mobilized heavy weapons and combat helicopters to attack the area until the next day. As a result, 12 civilians were killed and six were wounded in Movie.
The fighting between the militia and the military took place mainly at night. The casualties on both sides increased, but the most problem was that the villages passed by were almost devastated as the military engaged in battle. On February 18, the military set fire to the village of Warisuplying, Kaya Province, home to about 200 houses. More than 1,000 villagers became displaced. On the evening of February 23, seven civilian houses including a kindergarten and a school and two motorcycles were burned down. On March 9, towards the end of the battle, the military set fire to ten civilian homes.
One of the guidelines for the engagement of the Civil Defense Forces, which is engaged in armed struggle, is ‘do no harm to civilians’. The National Unity Government (NUG), a provisional government of the rebel camp, established the principle of armed struggle that there should be no harm to women or children in any case, except for religious facilities, schools, and hospitals as targets of attack. However, the Myanmar military is suspected of justifying violence against civilians on the grounds that it ‘cooperated with the Civil Defense Force’ and of setting fire to destroy evidence. According to a survey, the Myanmar military has burned more than 6,000 civilian homes across Myanmar in the 13 months since February last year. According to the local media , about 1,000 private houses in Chinju, 900 in Magwe, and about 300 in Kaya, were burned. In the Sagaing region, about 3,700 private houses were burned, accounting for about 60% of the total.
Many of the bodies found in the area include medical personnel who were conducting militia rescue operations. The body of a doctor found during the fighting in Movier on February 17 was badly damaged. It was a circumstance that could lead to suspicion of a military attack on civilians. At the end of last year, something similar happened in a village in Kaya Province. On December 24, at least 35 civilians were found burnt to death. After the coup d’état, it was the largest number of civilian massacres in Kaya Province, and it had a huge impact on the international community as well as domestically. What was found as evidence at the site of the fire was the license of an employee of the relief organization ‘Save the Children’. When medical staff participating in the civil disobedience movement performed an autopsy on the bodies, they found that they were elderly, women, and children, and there were gunshot wounds to the head and a knife stab wound to the chest. The Kayaju Police said the tragedy was caused by merciless beatings and killings, shootings, and arson by the police and police toward ethnic minority residents.
Until the coup d’état military retreats
On March 16, the Myanmar National Unity Government held a press conference under the name of ‘Report on Serious and Cruelty Crimes of the Military Commission’. Human Rights Minister Aung Myo Min said he was collecting evidence to bring the military commission to trial in an Australian court on the ‘Pruso Muso Genocide’ (the genocide of civilians by the military on 24 December last year). In addition, domestic and foreign human rights groups are in the preparation stage to cooperate to sue the military. In relation to the incident, the military insists that the incident occurred between the Civil Defense Force and the citizens. However, a report on human rights violations by the Myanmar military released by the United Nations on March 15 mentioned this incident and said, “This is only a part of the damage suffered by the Myanmarese.” We need to uncover the truth about how the people of Kaya Province were slaughtered that day.
It has been three months since the Pruso Musso incident, but indiscriminate airstrikes and killings of civilians continue across Myanmar. On March 2nd, three burned bodies were found in the village of Demoso, Kaya Province. The Kareny National Guard Force (KNDF), a civilian resistance force in the Demoso region, announced that it was the work of the military. On March 8, around 12:30 pm, the military fired a heavy weapon and four children and their father were injured. Three children, aged 7, 10 and 12, died instantly, while a 15-year-old girl and her father were seriously injured.
The border with Myanmar is currently in a state of civil war. On March 27, just one year after Myanmar Day of Resistance, Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing said, “The military will not negotiate with terrorist groups. I will annihilate them to the end.” He also described the minority armed groups and the Civil Defense Forces as “terrorist groups.” Looking at what has been happening in Kayaju over the past month, I can’t help but ask who is actually committing the terrorism. The situation of the militia is dire. The hard-earned food, weapons and bullets are also running out. Displaced people who have lost their homes desperately need daily necessities such as medical supplies and food. Above all, as the fighting continues for a long time, the casualties of Myanmar soldiers, civilians, and civilians alike are increasing.
All I can do is tell you about the horrors that are happening at the border. The Civil Defense Forces I met were ordinary people who protested injustice. They say they will resist the coup until the military withdraws. I will continue to do this as well.
© EPN