Uprising against junta
SLEEPING by their makeshift barricades, knots of young men at Tahan in the western Myanmar town of Kale had not expected an attack in the predawn darkness.
Armed with a few hunting guns made by village blacksmiths, catapults, some airguns and Molotov cocktails, they were no match for forces hardened by decades of conflict and equipped with combat weapons.
The first barrage of shots and rocket propelled grenades from Myanmar’s army, known as the Tatmadaw, came at around 5am on April 7, the protesters and residents of Kale said.
By evening, the one-sided battle was over, and 13 people were dead, three people involved with the armed group said. “So many people on our side were wounded that we … had to retreat,” Aung Myat Thu, one 20-yearold protester in Kale, said.
Although the resistance in Kale was quickly crushed, it points to a new phase of bloodshed in Myanmar after the February 1 coup, with some protesters now seeking to take up arms against the junta’s forces. The junta did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite early setbacks, disparate groups were trying to source better weapons, sharpen tactics, share intelligence and get training from some of the two dozen or so ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, several opposition politicians said.
“Some small defence units have been formed across the country, in the community, villages or wards,” said Moe Saw Oo, a spokesperson for the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a body representing ousted lawmakers that has set up a rival national unity government. “At the same time, we are in co-ordination with ethnic armed organisations about the establishment of a proper defence force,” he said.
Over 700 people have been killed and more than 3 000 have been detained by security forces cracking down on the nationwide protests that have raged since the military deposed the civilian government led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Among the new groups, the Ayeyarwaddy Federal Army announced its arrival last week in the heartland of the Bamar ethnic majority, which forms the core of the armed forces as well as Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).
“Armed revolution is the only way to return the people’s power,” spokesperson Mratt Thu Aung said.
Pressure to organise an armed group in Kale began in mid-March as the army stepped up violence against protests sweeping the largely Buddhist country of 53 million. On March 17, police opened fire on an anti-coup rally in Kale, killing four people, said a 36-year-old activist who was there. By late March, young people in Tahan banded together to form the Tahan Civil Defence Group, local activists said. On March 28, the group held off an assault by junta forces. Shortly after, it combined with other local groups to form the Kalay (Kale) Civil Army. Such groups were getting help from the CRPH across the country, an official of the group said.
Several thousand young people had been given basic training in arms and fighting by at least four ethnic armed organisations, he said. “More are coming,” he said, declining to be named. “If we don’t fight, the future of Myanmar is gone.”
A local NLD MP involved in forming the Kalay Civil Army said fighters had been asked to lay low for now, while equipment and training were improved across Myanmar.