3rd April 2021
Regular readers of these pieces will know that I always try to give a balanced view and occasionally give space to items from The Global New Light of Myanmar, the state-approved English language newspaper, a rival to The Myanmar Times, which has not been published since February 21st, 2021. The following is from the GNLM.
People need to totally avoid acts on demand by crowds with chanting, undisciplined shouting, violent attacks, arresting, atrocity and killing wrongly identified as “public way” under the influence of unscrupulous persons. In fact, these acts are in a “naughty way” only.
Despite stably performing its tasks in accord with the law in the first week after assuming the State responsibility, the Tatmadaw has been facing riots and protests incited by NLD members and supporters since the second week. Currently, rioters break laws in acts of anarchic mobs by holding destructive weapons.
Riotous protests transform themselves into rebellions by committing acts of raiding residential buildings of innocent people, factories and industries in addition to State administrative buildings, police stations and judicial buildings. In addition, they set fire to factories and industries built with local and foreign investments and violently attack and kill security forces with arms. The Tatmadaw, therefore, unavoidably took effective measures of security, the rule of law, and community peace and tranquillity.
Although many riots are staged across the nation, martial law was imposed on six townships of Yangon Region facing deterioration. Security forces unavoidably crackdown on those who committed danger to security units and people wishing to live peacefully.
That is why people should peacefully live in the legal fold without wrongly applying the public way.
Given that the Junta controls the media how many reports have there been of fatalities incurred by the police or the military?
Source The Global New Light of Myanmar April 3rd 2021.
It would appear that these effective measures of security involve shooting unarmed people in the head and the back, slaughtering children (40+ at the last count), dragging bodies away and disposing of them and leaving wounded protesters in the street, then shooting the medics who went to their aid. How many people have been killed for the act of undisciplined shouting? We wait to be told.
Meanwhile, for the heinous crime of talking to Clarissa Ward of CNN, two young ladies were taken away to be severely spoken to and put on the naughty step. (See the first paragraph above from GNLM).
As resistance intensifies the EAOs are slowly building arms.
Reports keep coming in of stronger resistance.
In northern Kachin State, the KIA launched offensives against a military outpost in the jade-mining hub of Hpakant and another military outpost in Injangyang Township on March 15, days after the regime’s troops killed at least three young protesters in Myitkyina, the state capital. In the following days, the KIA launched more offensives and clashes continued between the KIA and the regime’s troops.
The KNU is among 10 ethnic armed groups that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the previous government, as well as the military itself. But the regime’s brutal killings have forced it officially to break the agreement. More clashes between the KIA and the KNU and the military are highly likely in Karen and Kachin states. And police stations and military outposts in the towns and cities in those areas are likely to continue to be targeted in the coming days, weeks and months.
And that’s not all.
In late March, the Brotherhood Alliance of three armed groups warned the military that it would collaborate with other ethnic armed organizations and pro-democracy supporters to defend the people from the regime’s brutal crackdowns if the violence continued. The Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) issued their condemnation of the regime amid daily increases in the civilian death toll.
These armed groups are active in their territories in western Rakhine State and in northern Shan State. Unlike the KNU, they have not signed the NCA.
All five of the above armed organizations have urged the coup leaders to stop their violent crackdowns, release all civilian leaders and detainees, restore democracy and accept the results of the 2020 general election, which the NLD won in a landslide.
More of the 20 armed organizations are likely to join the fight that erupted in response to the anti-coup movement in the cities if the military regime keeps killing innocent people and terrorizing the entire population. If that is their plan, however, they should act soon, as the military regime pays no heed not only to its own people but also to the international community. Over the past two months, the world has repeatedly made the same demands as those listed above. But the coup leaders have just ignored them, which shows they will not stop killing and violently oppressing their own people.
This time, the anti-military dictatorship movement sees no room for compromise at all. Civil war and urban conflict, therefore, seem unavoidable. Myanmar has already suffered a more than 70-year-long civil war since independence in 1948, though the fighting has mostly been confined to remote or border areas. But the war this time will be different. Not only will the civil war spread inland from the borders, but urban warfare will erupt from within our cities.
The war is coming!
Source the Irrawaddy 2nd April 2021.
The last sentence above is not a forecast, it’s a promise.
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