Thousands of new recruits have joined Myanmar’s rebel army in the jungle after rejecting the military’s new conscription laws. Al Jazeera went inside Myanmar to film with volunteers who are risking their lives to fight the junta.
Published On 16 May 2024
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
United Nations says the number displaced has jumped by 50 percent in last six months as fighting has intensified.
The number of people in Myanmar forced from their homes by conflict now exceeds more than 3 million in what the United Nations has described as a “bleak milestone” for the country.
The UN said the number displaced had surged by 50 percent in the last six months as fighting escalated between the military and armed groups trying to remove the generals who seized power in a coup in February 2021.
“Myanmar has this week marked a bleak milestone with more than 3 million civilians now displaced nationwide amid intensifying conflict,” the office of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Myanmar said in a statement on Monday.
“Myanmar stands at the precipice in 2024 with a deepening humanitarian crisis that has spiraled since the military takeover in February 2021 and the consequent conflicts in many parts of the country, driving record numbers of people to abandon their homes seeking safety.”
Of the 3 million internally displaced people, more than 90 percent fled as a result of the conflict triggered by the coup, the UN added.
About half of the displaced are in the northwestern regions of Chin, Magway and Sagaing, with more than 900,000 in the southeast. About 356,000 people live in the western state of Rakhine where a brutal military crackdown in 2017 prompted more than 750,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh.
Myanmar was plunged into crisis when Senior General Min Aung Hlaing seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, which led to mass protests that evolved into an armed uprising when the military responded with brutal force.
Fighting has intensified since the end of October last year when ethnic armed groups allied with anti-coup fighters launched a major offensive in northern Shan and western Rakhine states overrunning dozens of military outposts and taking control of several key towns near the border with China.
In recent weeks, the military has also been battling with ethnic Karen groups for control of Myawaddy, a major trade hub on the border with Thailand.
The UN said the deepening conflict meant that some 18.6 million people in Myanmar were now in need of humanitarian assistance, 1 million more than in 2023.
But it said efforts to reach those in need were being hampered by “gross underfunding”. It said it had so far received less than 5 percent of the funds it needed for humanitarian operations.
“With cyclone season fast approaching, additional resources are needed now to protect the most vulnerable and save lives,” the statement said.
Last year, UN human rights chief Volker Turk accused the military of preventing life-saving humanitarian aid from reaching people in need by creating a web of legal, bureaucratic and financial hurdles.
The generals, who have been accused of launching air attacks on civilians and burning villages to the ground, have ignored a five-point peace plan that it agreed to with fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in April 2021, under which it was supposed to end the violence.
Nearly 5,000 people have been killed by the military since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has been tracking the situation. More than 20,000 people are in detention, while Aung San Suu Kyi is serving a combined 27-year sentence after a secret trial in a military court.
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Thai police say the latest violence was triggered when Karen groups launched an attack against Myanmar troops.
Fighting has broken out between the Myanmar military and armed ethnic groups near a vital trade hub near the Thai border, according to Thailand’s government and media reports.
Witnesses on the Thai and Myanmar sides of the border also reported that they heard explosions and heavy machine-gun fire near a strategic bridge from late Friday that continued into early Saturday.
Fighters from the Karen National Union (KNU), the ethnic armed group that has been leading the attack on Myawaddy, last week captured the last of the Myanmar army’s outposts in and around the border town that is connected to Thailand by two bridges across the Moei River.
The latest clashes were triggered on Saturday morning when Karen groups launched an attack against Myanmar troops who were hiding near the 2nd Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, a central crossing point for trade with Thailand, said police chief Pittayakorn Phetcharat in Thailand’s Mae Sot district.
He estimated that about 1,300 people fled into Thailand.
Pittayakorn said local authorities were searching those who had crossed over for weapons.
“We have given them food and moved them to the safer place,” he added.
Thai broadcaster NBT said in a post on X that the armed groups used 40mm machine guns and dropped 20 bombs from drones to target an estimated 200 soldiers who had retreated from a coordinated assault on Myawaddy and army posts since April 5.
On Saturday morning, a Thai army unit stationed on the border said clashes were ongoing with forces targeting the soldiers under the bridge.
“Currently in the middle of fighting, no losses known,” the Rajamnu Special Task Force posted on Facebook.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said he was closely monitoring the situation and his country was ready to provide humanitarian assistance if necessary.
“I do not desire to see any such clashes have any impact on the territorial integrity of Thailand and we are ready to protect our borders and the safety of our people,” he said on X.
Myanmar’s military, which seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, is facing a huge setback after losing the trading town of Myawaddy.
Since last October, the army has suffered a series of unprecedented defeats, losing large areas of territory, including border posts, to both ethnic fighters, who have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades, and pro-democracy units that took up arms after the military takeover.
Myawaddy is especially important to the military, with more than $1.1bn worth of trade passing through the town from 12 months to April.
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Foreign Minister Parnpree arrives in Mae Sot to review measures to deal with people fleeing fighting across frontier.
Thailand’s foreign minister is visiting a border town near Myanmar, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, after days of clashes in which the military government’s troops were expelled by ethnic minority armed groups that displaced hundreds of residents.
On Friday, Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara will also visit two “friendship bridges” that link the Thai town of Mae Sot and Myanmar’s Myawaddy, an important trading hub between the two nations.
Thailand’s Foreign Ministry said he would review preparations for a further influx of people fleeing the fighting in Myanmar.
Earlier this week Thailand said it was prepared to accept 100,000 people fleeing from Myanmar. But Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin warned on Thursday that the fighting should not spill into his country’s airspace.
Fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic minority armed groups has rocked Myawaddy this week, sending people rushing into Thailand, from where the boom of artillery shells and gunfire could be heard.
The conflict in Myanmar set off by the military’s 2021 coup regularly sends people fleeing across the two countries’ shared 2,400km (1,490-mile) border.
On Thursday, the Karen National Union (KNU) rebel group said it displaced troops loyal to the military-backed government, who were sheltering near one of the bridges on the Myanmar side.
As fighting intensified, the numbers crossing to Mae Sot from Myawaddy doubled this week to about 4,000 a day, according to the Reuters news agency.
Among those trying to cross into Thailand were Moe Moe Thet San and her son, residents of Myawaddy.
“I am afraid of air strikes. They caused very loud noises that shook my house,” she told Reuters. “That’s why I escaped here. They can’t bomb Thailand.”
The complete capture of Myawaddy would be seen as a humiliating defeat for the military government, which has suffered a string of battlefield losses in recent months that prompted rare criticism of its top brass by its supporters.
Myanmar military spokesman Zaw Min Tun confirmed to reporters late on Thursday that government soldiers “had to withdraw” from their base in Myawaddy, saying it was for their families’ safety.
He said the government and Thai authorities were in discussions about the soldiers, but did not give any details about how many were involved.
Thailand, which says it is keeping neutral in the Myanmar conflict has pursued engagement, including aid deliveries, with its neighbour since Srettha came to power last August.
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Bangkok, Thailand – Singapore has responded to United Nations pressure by cracking down on sales of weapons through its territory to Myanmar, delivering a serious blow to the embattled generals, who seized power in a coup more than three years ago.
Thomas Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, told Al Jazeera that the city state’s government “immediately responded” to his 2023 report that found Singapore-based entities had become the third largest source of weapons materials to the military and were “critical” to its weapons procurement.
“My subsequent report to the Human Rights Council found that exports of weapons materials from Singapore to Myanmar had dropped by 83 percent,” Andrews said. “This is a significant step forward and an example of how governments can make a difference for those who are in harm’s way in Myanmar.”
Singapore’s crackdown has raised costs for army chief Min Aung Hlaing and his forces at a time when they are facing unprecedented battlefield disasters – struggling to quell opposition against their rule in the country’s heartland, and failing to push back against a coalition of ethnic minority and majority Bamar resistance forces that have forced the military out of territory bordering Thailand, China and India.
In what analysts see as a sign of the generals’ increasing desperation, they have imposed a sweeping conscription law in a bid to boost their ranks.
Andrews’s 2023 report, The Billion Dollar Death Trade, provided details of more than $1bn of transfers of arms and related materials to Myanmar’s ruling generals, officially styled as the State Administration Council (SAC). The report revealed that 138 Singapore-based firms were involved in the transfer of $254m in weapons materials to the SAC from 2021 to 2022. It did not name the companies, unlike the sections on China, Russia and India.
In response, the spokesperson of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the government appreciated Andrews’s efforts “to provide information to aid Singapore’s investigations into whether any offences were committed under Singapore law”.
It added that the country had taken a “principled position against the Myanmar military’s use of lethal force against unarmed civilians and has worked to prevent the flow of arms into Myanmar”.
At least 4,882 civilians have been killed, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has been tracking the toll, and the military has been accused of war crimes in its use of air power and attacks on civilians.
“Singapore has been quietly tightening the screws on Myanmar,” said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, DC. “While there’s more they could do, Singapore deserves a lot of credit for quietly bringing the pressure on the military government in the past year.
“For decades, Singapore was the primary financial conduit for Myanmar. It is a much less permissive environment for the junta and their cronies today, forcing them to reroute their transactions through different jurisdictions. It doesn’t stop the financial flows, but it imposes new costs.”
In his recent follow-up report to the UN Human Rights Council, Andrews noted that there was no evidence that the Singaporean government had any knowledge of the transfers that were taking place.
He also described how, after the 2023 findings were published, and following diplomatic efforts, the Singapore government launched an investigation into the findings and welcomed Andrews to the city-state, where he provided further information to assist with the investigation.
After the US imposed sanctions on 21 June 2023 on Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and the Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore also gave the green light to UOB and other Singapore banks to stop servicing Myanmar-linked accounts.
Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), established by lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling National League for Democracy, who were overthrown in the coup, said Singapore’s intervention had significantly curtailed the generals’ procurement abilities.
“Singapore’s actions have highlighted the power that ASEAN members possess to disrupt the Myanmar military junta’s acts of terrorism against its own people by cutting off their access to weapons, finance, and legitimacy,” said NUG cabinet minister, Sasa.
“Every bullet and dollar provided to the junta translates into more death, destruction, pain and suffering for the people of Myanmar.”
Sasa called on other countries within the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to help end Myanmar’s “reign of terror” and stressed that removing the generals from power would benefit the stability and prosperity not only of the region but the world.
“The catastrophic crisis created by the junta in Myanmar has already spilled across international borders, impacting ASEAN and our neighbouring countries. If the junta proceeds with its forced conscription laws, it will only exacerbate the crisis, leading to further instability in the region,” the minister told Al Jazeera.
The military regime is currently under immense pressure following advances by anti-coup forces that have seen it lose hundreds of military outposts in northern states and several key towns along the Chinese border, as well as in western Rakhine state.
An alliance of ethnic Karen and anti-coup fighters has also forced the military into a retreat from the strategically important town of Myawaddy on the Thai border.
Russia and China continue to be the military’s main source of advanced weapons systems accounting for more than $400m and $260m, respectively, since the coup, according to Andrews’s 2023 report. During Armed Forces Day last month, Alexander Fomin, Russia’s deputy defence minister, was again guest of honour, as many countries chose to boycott the occasion.
To further crack down, Al Jazeera understands that Andrews is examining the ways in which the SAC accesses the global finance system to repatriate foreign revenues and procure weapons.
The humanitarian crisis triggered by the coup – more than 2.5 million people have fled conflict and insecurity since February 2021, according to UN estimates – has put growing pressure on Southeast Asian countries over their failure to effectively respond to the crisis or restrain Min Aung Hlaing.
ASEAN, which Myanmar joined in 1997, has been split between countries wanting to take a tougher line, including Singapore, and those calling for engagement, such as Cambodia.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin this week told the Reuters news agency that as the SAC was “losing strength”, it was a good time to open talks with Myanmar.
The Thai leader’s intervention came as it emerged that Thailand had allowed the military to fly home government officials, military officers and their families who had abandoned Myawaddy via Thailand.
Increasingly embattled and isolated, the SAC has begun mandatory military conscription amid battlefield casualties and reports of desertions.
Security analyst Anthony Davis wrote recently that the army “almost certainly numbers around 70,000 troops supported by militarised police and militia units organised under a unified command structure”.
Activist group Justice for Myanmar urged Singapore to speed up prosecutions to hold Myanmar military arms brokers to account for breaching export controls and to deter others seeking to profit from the trade, wherever they might be.
“We welcome the steps Singapore has taken to disrupt the junta’s arms brokers, but the government needs to do far more to block the junta’s access to funds, arms, equipment and jet fuel. It is unacceptable that there are notorious Myanmar cronies still operating and even living in Singapore and Singapore has still not imposed any sanctions on the junta and its businesses, in contrast with the sanctions imposed on Russia [over Ukraine],” the group’s spokesperson Yadanar Maung said.
But even as the Singapore route is squeezed, Maung worries dealers are finding alternative shipping routes.
One such country might be Thailand. Andrews’s report noted how entities operating there had already been involved in shipping spare parts for advanced weapons systems, raw materials and manufacturing equipment for the SAC’s weapons factories.
“There are signs that Thailand is an increasingly popular destination for cronies and arms brokers, which will no doubt continue in the absence of coordinated international action against the junta,” Maung told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera has contacted the Singapore embassy in Yangon for comment.
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Zokhawthar, Mizoram, India – For 61-year-old Vanlalchaka, the past few weeks have been filled with anxiety.
In the northeastern Indian border village of Zokhawthar, perched on a mountainside amid green hills, Vanlalchaka’s farm has been a safe haven for refugees fleeing the civil war in neighbouring Myanmar since 2021. Five refugees live there currently and Vanlalchaka has been leading efforts in the village, which sits on the banks of the Tiau River, to help others coming from across the border.
Like his ancestors, he said, he has never acknowledged the political borders that divide his ethnic tribe – known as the Chin in Myanmar, Mizo in India’s Mizoram state and Kuki in the Indian state of Manipur.
Vanlalchaka’s wife, BM Thangi, is from Myanmar’s Chin state. Vanlalchaka goes by a single name as is the custom in his community.
“The people of Zokhawthar and Khawmawi [the adjacent border village in Chin state] operate as a single village,” said Vanlalchaka, sitting with Thangi, 59. “When someone dies, we join the funeral process; when someone falls ill, we cross the border to visit patients and stay overnight if needed.”
That might not be possible any more.
As Mizoram prepares to vote on April 19 in the first of seven phases of India’s national election, its border communities are grappling with a deep rupture in their way of life.
For centuries, several Indigenous communities in India’s northeastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh have shared the same ethnicity and lived on both sides of the present 1,600km (1,000-mile) international border between India and Myanmar. Their coexistence as one community, in effect, continued even after India and Myanmar gained independence because of a largely porous border.
In 2018, the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi went one step further in its outreach to the country’s northeast and to the then-democratic government of Myanmar: it declared a free movement regime with Myanmar that allowed people on either side of the border to cross 16km (10 miles) into the other country without a visa. People needed a border permit, valid for a year, to stay on the other side of the border for about two weeks at a time.
But this February, weeks before the multi-phase elections begin, the Indian government scrapped the pact “to ensure the internal security” and “to maintain the demographic structure” of the regions bordering Myanmar, said Amit Shah, India’s home minister.
That decision came amid increasing clashes in Myanmar between a range of rebel groups and the military that grabbed power in 2021 through a coup. Those clashes have in turn sparked a refugee crisis, turning towns like Zokhawthar into safe havens for fleeing people. But many in India’s northeast see a deeper political reason behind the decision to seal the border: blaming migrants and refugees is a convenient escape from addressing deeper internal security failures that have led to the eruption of violence in the region in recent months.
For Vanlalchaka and others in his village, though, the politics is secondary — and the end of the free movement regime feels personal.
“The central government’s [decision of] border fencing and the end of the FMR will separate our families,” said Vanlalchaka. “It is just unfortunate,” his wife Thangi added.
From trade to farming, the lives of thousands of people have long been dependent on open borders: Zokhawthar’s favourite betel nuts and handmade cigarettes are bought from Myanmar; the beer cans have the country’s labels; and getting around Mizoram’s rugged border terrain is impractical without a Kenbo-125 motorbike — which also comes from Myanmar.
“We mainly rely on border trade. If the import of essential commodities for our livelihood stops, most of the residents of this village will have to migrate because they will be jobless,” said Vanlalchaka.
Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Mizoram has hosted thousands of refugees fleeing violence, despite opposition from the federal Indian government, which in September asked the state government to collect biometric details of Myanmar refugees. The state government refused.
Nearly 80,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar live in India, 53,000 of them since the 2021 coup. Mizoram alone hosts half of them — 40,000 refugees — according to 2023 data from the UNHCR, settled in makeshift camps in villages like Zokhawthar.
“Like other Mizoram residents, we have many close relatives in Myanmar,” said Thangi. Last month, she was joined by her elder sister, Marovi, and her family, who flew from Kalemyo, in Myanmar, amid worsening fighting. “Their house was bombed this morning,” she added, “we are fortunate it didn’t happen while they were at home.”
Their eldest sister, 73-year-old Lalchami ran away with her two children when the raging battles neared their home in 2022. Now, Lalchami and her children live on the farmland of Vanlalchaka, in a makeshift shanty made of wood and tin sheets. Lalchami’s 42-year-old daughter, Malsawmsangi, suffers from breast cancer.
“My daughter’s cancer has now spread to her lungs. If we remain in Myanmar, it will be very difficult for her to get treatment,” Lalchami told Al Jazeera. Their nearest medical facility is in Kalemyo, now a battleground, while medical facilities in Yangon and Mandalay remain inaccessible to them.
“What if we return and the fighting starts again? We are fortunate that she can receive medical treatment in Mizoram,” she said. “In our situation, the attempt to separate us [by the Indian government] is just sad and puts us in a vulnerable position.”
The Indian government’s move has led to pushback — not just from border communities but also from political leaders in two states, including allies of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Mizoram’s Home Minister K Sapdanga has described the India-Myanmar border as a colonial legacy driving ethnic divisions. In February, he said people “have been dreaming of reunification and cannot accept the India-Myanmar border imposed upon us”. Earlier, Sapdanga’s party, the Zoram People’s Movement, had made it clear that they would not join hands with either the BJP or the opposition Congress-led alliance to “maintain its identity as an independent regional party free from [New] Delhi’s control”.
In Nagaland, a party allied to the BJP moved a resolution in the state assembly on March 1 arguing New Delhi’s decision to scrap free movement would disrupt age-old ties.
Across the border, the National Unity Government (NUG) — Myanmar’s government-in-exile comprising lawmakers removed in the 2021 coup — too has concerns about India’s policy shift.
“Burma is at war and it is a resistance war; the country is not in a normal situation,” a senior official of the NUG’s foreign ministry said in a phone interview, speaking under condition of anonymity from an undisclosed location. “And we rely heavily on India in seeking humanitarian assistance because our people are running for their lives from the junta.”
The official said the NUG had articulated its concerns to India. “New Delhi needs to acknowledge that the FMR is a humanitarian requirement,” the official said. “A country of India’s stature should not impose that kind of humanitarian crisis on our people.”
Fencing the border and ending free movement is also risky in the long run for New Delhi, which for decades has had a tense relationship with India’s northeast — a region that saw major secessionist movements, some of which are still alive.
“Successive governments have realised that local ethnic communities hold the open border policy dear to their social and cultural existence,” said Angshuman Choudhary, an associate fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research (CPR), with a focus on Myanmar and northeast India. “If you tinker with that, you will create new cycles of discontent and violence. There are so many ethno-political differences, and border fencing is another front to oppose the central government.”
To be sure, India does have its own genuine security concerns.
The Tatmadaw, the Myanmar army, has suffered significant blows in recent months, with the rebel Arakan Army running over many military outposts and making territorial gains in western Myanmar.
The Indian government’s move to fence the border is in many ways “a reaction towards a rapidly escalating and worsening war in Myanmar that poses major border security concerns for India and Bangladesh”, said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson International Center, in Washington, DC.
“India wants to do everything it can to reduce the likelihood of spillover effects of the conflict in Myanmar into India,” he said.
But on the ground, managing the border is a complex affair.
The bridge over the Tiau River, connecting Zokhawthar and Khawmawi, was being controlled by the Indian Army’s Assam Rifles, along with the Mizoram Police, and rebels associated with Myanmar’s Chin National Defense Force (CNDF), when Al Jazeera visited in March.
The region just across in Myanmar “is in the people’s hands”, said Rodina, secretary of the CNDF, who — like Vanlalchaka — goes by a single name.
While the CNDF is trying to restart hospitals in the territory it controls, “we cannot admit serious patients due to lack of medical facilities”, Rodina said. “Many patients will still need to go to Mizoram for medical treatment.” It’s unclear how far that might be possible if the border is fenced.
Meanwhile, locals on the Indian side say the Assam Rifles has amped up the presence of armed personnel since the February announcement of the fencing plan.
And New Delhi finds itself in “unchartered territory”, said Choudhary of the CPR, because in the border state of Chin, the CNDF is not the only major rebel force. And the different rebel groups do not always agree. For the moment, he said, India appears to lack a coherent policy on how to deal with these multiple groups.
However, some analysts also question whether India’s new policy position is driven in part by another crisis — entirely within India — in the state of Manipur, to Mizoram’s north.
More than 200 people have been killed and thousands more displaced in ethnic violence that broke out in May 2023 and has raged ever since between the Meitei majority population of Manipur and the Kuki and Naga minorities. The state’s BJP government has been accused of fanning tensions to consolidate its Meitei support base — a charge the party has denied.
The BJP in turn has denied those charges and blamed “illegal migrants” from Myanmar for the violence. But critics say that position is aimed at drawing attention away from the government’s internal security failures.
“It is easy for them to point at the borders and say immigrants are responsible – it is just pure distraction,” said the CPR’s Choudhary.
In the past, Choudhary pointed out, Indian governments — including Modi’s — have refrained from moving ahead with border fencing even after deadly ambushes on Indian security personnel by armed fighters who crossed over from Myanmar.
If it goes ahead with fencing this time around, the Modi government risks further alienating already remote communities and “sparking a cycle of discontent, and of violence”, said Choudhary.
“It is all just going to be a mess eventually. And for what?”
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Deteriorating situation in Myawaddy adds to pressure on generals who seized power in a 2021 coup.
Some 200 Myanmar soldiers have withdrawn to the so-called Friendship Bridge connecting the border town of Myawaddy to Thailand amid a relentless assault by anticoup forces.
The retreat is another indication of the rising pressure facing the generals who seized power in a coup in February 2021, leading to an uprising against their rule.
In a statement on Facebook, the Karen National Union (KNU), the ethnic armed group that has been leading the attack on Myawaddy, said its forces had defeated the 275 battalion, the remaining major military force in the town, in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Saw Taw Nee, a KNU spokesperson, told the Reuters news agency, that about 200 soldiers had gathered at the bridge, while the Myanmar news outlet Khit Thit reported that Thai authorities were in talks with the soldiers to decide whether to grant them refuge.
Myawaddy is a strategically important town just across the border from Thailand’s Mae Sot. Television footage from the Thai side of the border showed plumes of black smoke rising into the air.
The generals have been under growing pressure since an October offensive by a powerful alliance of ethnic armed groups reinvigorated the opposition and led to large clashes across the country. The military has lost control of hundreds of military posts and several towns in border areas.
Over the weekend, about 600 Myanmar soldiers and their families fled Myawaddy amid reports the military had requested Thailand to allow them into the country to fly to safety.
At least 2,000 people have been displaced within Myanmar by the latest surge in fighting, according to the civil society group Karen Peace Support Network.
State-run media have not reported on the escalating conflict on the eastern border.
The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar published photos of new recruits starting their training after the military in February activated a long-dormant conscription law.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the military of forcibly recruiting more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslim men and boys from across Rakhine State since February.
“It’s appalling to see Myanmar’s military, which has committed atrocities against the Rohingya for decades while denying them citizenship, now forcing them to fight on its behalf,” Shayna Bauchner, the Asia researcher at HRW said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The junta should immediately end this forced recruitment and permit Rohingya unlawfully conscripted to return home.”
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Rebel groups have made several gains against military rulers in recent weeks.
Myanmar’s military government has suffered significant defeats at the hands of anti-coup opposition groups in recent weeks.
Karen fighters and other rebel movements have seized a vital town on the border with Thailand and tried to attack the capital, Naypyidaw, using drones laden with explosives.
So what’s next for the military government as it deals with these security challenges?
And do the recent gains rebel groups have made represent a turning point for Myanmar?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Khin Ohmar – award-winning human rights activist and founder of Progressive Voice, a policy research organisation that advocates for a democratic Myanmar
Kim Jolliffe – independent consultant who works towards peace, security and human rights in Myanmar and the wider region
Nicholas Bequelin – visiting fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and a specialist on human rights in Asia
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Coup leader told troops at annual parade that young people were being ‘tricked’ into joining resistance and claimed foreign interference.
Myanmar’s army chief Min Aung Hlaing has claimed young people are being tricked into supporting the resistance against the military, as anti-coup forces chalk up unprecedented advances.
Three years after seizing power in a coup, the military regime has suffered a series of major losses to an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups and anti-coup forces that launched a surprise offensive at the end of October last year.
Min Aung Hlaing was speaking to thousands of troops who had assembled for Armed Forces Day, the military’s annual show of force.
He said it was “disheartening to witness youths becoming scapegoats of insurgents, misled by false narrative propaganda through media sabotage” and accused unnamed ethnic armed groups of “destroying the path towards forming a union based on democratic values and federalism”.
Min Aung Hlaing claimed the military was “working to restore peace and stability” and there needed to be unity.
The parade, in the remote and purpose-built capital of Naypyidaw, took place at sunset for the first time since it started being held there in 2006. Officials blamed the hot weather associated with an El Nino weather pattern.
Military helicopters and fighter jets took part in aerial displays, and Min Aung Hlaing’s wife was seen placing garlands of flowers on soldiers.
Alexander Fomin, Russia’s deputy minister for defence was again guest of honour with the two countries deepening ties since the coup.
More than two dozen Russian military commanders and defence officials were also given honorary titles for their “excellent performances in international military cooperation measures in order to build a modern Tatmadaw” including Navy chief Nikolai Yevmenov, who was removed from his post this month, the Commander of the Pacific Fleet Viktor Liina, and those involved in shipbuilding and the supply of ammunition and artillery.
The Tatmadaw is the official name of the Myanmar military.
Min Aung Hlaing led a coup against the government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 claiming without evidence that there had been election fraud.
The power grab triggered mass protests and a nationwide civil disobedience movement, but the military’s brutal response fuelled armed resistance, as thousands of people formed People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) and others fled to jungles and mountains in remote border areas to make common cause with ethnic armed groups who had spent decades fighting for autonomy.
Since anti-coup forces launched Operation 1027 last year, they have made gains in northern Shan and eastern Kayah states and are also taking territory in western Rakhine state. Other regions have also seen renewed conflict.
More than 2 million people have been displaced by the conflict, according to the United Nations, while monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says 4,791 civilians have been confirmed dead.
The military last month announced that it would activate a long-dormant conscription law, which will require all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to undertake two years of military service.
Min Aung Hlaing said the draft was a “necessity”, but it prompted thousands of potential recruits to try and flee the country, with the Thai embassy in Yangon struggling to cope with the number of people applying for visas.
In a statement to mark Armed Forces Day, Britain’s Minister for the Indo-Pacific Anne-Marie Trevelyan said people were suffering “horrendous acts of violence at the military regime’s hands”, while Canada’s embassy said it condemned “in the strongest possible terms the ongoing atrocities” perpetrated by the military, and it called for an arms and aviation fuel embargo.
In his speech, Min Aung Hlaing said the military was being targeted with “fake news” from international journalists and social media users, and accused “some powerful nations,” of trying to interfere with Myanmar’s internal affairs by helping armed anti-coup groups. He did not cite evidence.
The army chief also touched on the often talked about but still unscheduled elections.
Without offering a timeline, he said efforts to conduct new elections were under way, but claimed ethnic armed groups and PDF fighters were “deliberately engaging in disruptive actions to sabotage and delay” the process.
A state of emergency, in place since the coup, was extended in February for a further six months.
Armed Forces Day marks the day in 1945 when the army of Myanmar, then known as Burma, began its fight against the Japanese who had taken control of the country after driving out the British, the former colonial rulers.
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
Latest report comes amid a surge in mostly Muslim Rohingya making dangerous sea journeys in search of safety.
Conflict, climate and the demand for low-paid labour in countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, with corruption as a “major enabler”, are driving the growth of the people smuggling trade in Southeast Asia, according to a new report from the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Tens of thousands of people from Myanmar as well as from other parts of Southeast Asia and from outside the region are smuggled to, through and from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand every year, the UNODC said in its report Migrant Smuggling in Southeast Asia, which was published on Tuesday.
The report identified three key trends in people smuggling: the demand for workers willing to take on low-wage jobs and the limited channels available for people to fill these jobs legally; the existence of “substantial populations” of people in need of international protection but also with few legal ways to reach safety; and the prevalence of corruption among some public officials.
The report noted that such corruption acted as a “driver and enabler of migrant smuggling, as well as contributing to impunity for perpetrators. Public officials share smuggling profits; are bribed to ensure compliance; and obstruct criminal investigations.”
The UNODC surveyed some 4,785 migrants and refugees in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand for the report, with 83 percent of them saying they were smuggled. An additional 60 migrants and refugees also took part in in-depth qualitative interviews, while 35 key informants were interviewed.
One in four of those smuggled said they had experienced corruption and been forced to bribe officials including immigration officers, police and the military. The UNODC noted that corruption also fed the smuggling trade, because those making the journey felt they needed the smugglers to deal with state authorities, because of the corruption.
Many of those fleeing conflict were from Myanmar, including the mostly Muslim Rohingya, hundreds of thousands of whom fled into neighbouring Bangladesh when the military began a brutal crackdown in 2017, which is now being investigated as genocide.
The report comes amid a surge in the number of Rohingya people risking dangerous sea journeys from Bangladesh and Myanmar in the hope of reaching safety in Southeast Asia.
On Monday, Indonesia ended the search for a boat thought to be carrying about 150 people that capsized off the coast of the northern province of Aceh, tossing dozens of people into the sea. Some 69 people were rescued and three bodies recovered.
The UNODC also found that abuse was rife, with three-quarters of those surveyed saying they had experienced some form of abuse during their journey from the smugglers themselves, the military and police, or criminal gangs. Physical violence was the most reported type of abuse.
In 2015, Thailand and Malaysia discovered mass graves at more than two dozen trafficking camps hidden in the jungle on the Malaysian side of the border at Wang Kelian. Police found 139 graves as well as signs that those held there had been tortured.
Thailand and Malaysia carried out a joint investigation into the camps and Thailand convicted 62 defendants, including nine government officials, over the deaths and trafficking of Rohingya and Bangladeshis to Malaysia via Thailand two years later.
Last June, Malaysia charged four Thai nationals over the camps after they were extradited from Bangkok.
An earlier inquiry found that no Malaysian enforcement officials, public servants or local citizens were involved in trafficking syndicates, but there was “gross negligence” on the part of border patrols who had failed to notice the camps.
As well as conflict and work, the UNODC said climate change had emerged as a factor in people smuggling to Southeast Asia.
The report said one in four of those surveyed had said they felt compelled to migrate because of more extreme weather events including heat waves and flooding, including three out of four Bangladeshis surveyed.
The report found the average price paid to be smuggled to Southeast Asia was $2,380 with men paying slightly more than women.
Afghans being smuggled to Malaysia and Indonesia paid the most – $6,004.
Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook
Original Source
