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Category: Myanmar

  • In viral video, besieged Myanmar troops bemoan lack of support from junta chief

    Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

    A video of disheveled Myanmar troops at a besieged border post is drawing anger toward junta chief Min Aung Hlaing who has lost control of the nation’s entire 270-kilometer (170-mile) border with Bangladesh for the first time.

    The video shows dozens of junta troops sitting on the floor in a dark, cramped building, looking weatherbeaten and anxious. Windows and doors are barricaded with furniture and pieces of lumber, and sporadic gunfire is heard.

    Now viral in Myanmar, the video was filmed Nov. 8, exactly one month before the anti-junta Arakan Army, or AA, overran the unit, known as the No. 5 Border Guard Police Battalion, which was stationed near Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township.

    In doing so, the rebels seized the junta’s last post on Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh and arrested one of the highest ranking junta commanders in the state, No. 15 Military Operation Command leader Brig-Gen Thurein Tun, along with other prisoners of war. The rebels have claimed hundreds of junta troops were killed in the fighting.

    The loss marks one of the biggest setbacks for the junta since the military assumed power in a February 2021 coup d’etat, and video of its troops holed up in a building pleading for reinforcements has enraged many of its supporters.

    Trapped for 3 months

    The troops appear varied in age — some with weathered looks and others fresh-faced, as if they might otherwise be in school. A few seem to be trying to sleep amid the chaos.

    At one point, a soldier motions for the camera to be brought to him.

    He expresses disgust over a lack of support from the junta leadership, noting that his unit — the No. 5 Border Guard Police Battalion — has been trapped in the building for three months, defending its outpost near Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township against an offensive by the anti-junta Arakan Army, or AA.

    “We’ve been trapped since Aug. 4 and now it is Nov. 8,” he says. “We’ve heard nothing about a rescue plan for us. Intense fighting is going on daily, but no one has come out to help.”

    The soldier says his battalion has “fallen into disarray” and that those trapped in the building are “all that remain of our forces.”

    Another version of the video shows an overlay of Zaw Phone Hein, a member of the pro-junta People Militia Force — locally known as “Pyithusit” and by anti-junta activists as the pro-junta “Pyusawhti” — similarly expressing anger over the junta failing to help the battalion.

    “What will you do for the rights of the fatherless and motherless children of the military personnel who lost their lives fighting your battles?” he asks.

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    The video has prompted a rare outpouring of frustration with Min Aung Hlaing’s leadership from junta supporters on the social media platform Telegram, with some raising questions about his management and administration, and others demanding his resignation.

    Border post seized

    The AA, which is fighting for self-determination, controls about 80% of Rakhine state – 10 of its 17 townships and one in neighboring Chin state.

    In townships it does not control, it has pinned junta forces into pockets of territory, such as the state capital, Sittwe, a military headquarters in the town of Ann and the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast where China has energy facilities and wants to build a deep-sea port.

    On Tuesday, the AA announced that it had overrun the No. 5 Border Guard Police Battalion after its defenders, including pro-junta militiamen from the mostly Muslim Rohingya community, abandoned the post and fled.

    The AA said that it had killed “more than 450″ of an estimated 700 junta troops in battalion during the fighting for Maungdaw.

    Weapons seized by the Arakan Army after the final capture of the No. 5 Border Guard Police Force in Maungdaw, Myanmar, Dec. 8, 2024.
    Weapons seized by the Arakan Army after the final capture of the No. 5 Border Guard Police Force in Maungdaw, Myanmar, Dec. 8, 2024.

    Speaking to RFA Burmese on Wednesday, AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha said that the dead “may include junta soldiers who were seen in a recent video pleading for help,” referring to the viral video.

    He added that those captured are being “detained in accordance with laws governing the treatment of prisoners of war.”

    “We have properly held all prisoners of war who voluntarily surrendered by raising a white flag, in accordance with the Geneva Convention and the AA’s rules and regulations,” he said. “But for those who committed war crimes [in Rakhine state], we will ensure fair justice based on the severity of the crimes that they committed.”

    How will junta respond?

    Observers told RFA that the video of the beleaguered soldiers and the response it generated from junta supporters could impact military strategy and lead to changes in the regime’s leadership.

    Thein Htun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank formed by former military officers, said it was important to watch how the junta will respond.

    “The military’s supporters and those on the ground … [will respond] based on their own belief and objectives, so we can say that there will be some impacts,” he said. “But [the junta leaders’] decision to address ongoing problems will depend on future plans.”

    He said he intends to “closely monitor” the junta for signs that indicate how it will proceed.

    Political commentator Than Soe Naing said the fallen No. 5 Border Guard Police Battalion could become “an example” for supporters of the military junta, noting that when the junta’s own backers are raising concerns, it could mean that “the last days of Min Aung Hlaing are approaching.”

    “The recent incidents provide lessons for pro-junta forces and soldiers,” he said. “They will make them consider whether they should continue to support such a leader or remove him from power.”

    With the AA focusing its attention on the military’s Western Command headquarters in Rakhine’s Ann township, experts say the entire state could fall under rebel control.

    The junta has yet to issue a statement on the fall of Maungdaw, and attempts by RFA to contact its spokesman, Major General Zaw Min Htun, went unanswered by the time of publishing.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar border with China in northern rebel zone to reopen – group says

    Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

    The border between Myanmar and China in an area controlled on the Myanmar side by ethnic minority guerrillas is to reopen, the rebel group said on Friday, allowing for a resumption of trade including the export to China or rare earth minerals.

    Myanmar’s Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, and authorities in China have both closed the border in Myanmar’s northern-most state in recent weeks, as the insurgents have seized crossing points from the Myanmar military and Chinese authorities have banned cross-border movements in the hope of stopping the fighting.

    Representatives of the ethnic Kachin insurgent force, one of the most powerful groups fighting the Myanmar junta that seized power in 2021, met officials in the Chinese city of Kunming on Thursday to discuss the border, said a KIA spokesman.

    “It’s true that the border gates are being opened,” KIA Information Officer Naw Bu told Radio Free Asia, adding that he did not have details of the talks in Kunming.

    Residents on the border said that while gates on both sides had been opened, vehicles had yet to resume crossing and it was not clear when they would.

    The Chinese embassy in Myanmar did not respond to inquiries from RFA.

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    The KIA seized five major crossing points from junta forces in recent weeks, taking full control of the border with China in its areas of operations after capturing important rare-earth and jade-mining centers, which export their output to China.

    Residents of Kachin state, on the other hand, import a wide range of consumer goods and essentials from China, including fuel, and border closures have brought hardships.

    China is pressing insurgent groups in northern and northeastern Myanmar to make peace with the military and it has closed its border in places controlled by insurgents on the Myanmar side to press them into talks.

    In October, China refused to let civilians fleeing fighting take refuge on its side of the border.

    The KIA responded with its own border closure, stopping the export of rare earths. Hla Kyaw Zaw, a Myanmar political analyst based in China, later told RFA that businessmen with interests in Kachin state’s mines had appealed to Chinese authorities to get the border open again.

    Two insurgent forces in Shan state, to the southeast of Kachin state, have agreed to ceasefires and negotiations with the junta in recent days but the KIA is locked in fierce fighting to capture the major Kachin state town of Bhamo from junta forces.

    A resident of the Kachin state border town of Pang War said the crossing with China was open but vehicle traffic had yet to resume.

    “The gates on both sides have been opened,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “But so far today they haven’t let cars pass. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.”

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In divided Myanmar, graduates of a parallel education system struggle for recognition

    MAE SOT, Thailand – A 2021 coup d’etat drove a wedge through Myanmar, setting the military and its opponents at bloody odds and dividing society in many walks of life, including education.

    University students have been at the forefront of opposition to rule by the generals for generations and young people were out on the streets again after the military overthrew a government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.

    After the military largely crushed a civil disobedience movement, many angry young people have refused education under its auspices. Instead, they look to independent institutions including ones run by a parallel government in exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG.

    The NUG supports numerous independent institutions in cities under junta control, teaching subjects such as nursing and medicine, teacher training and technology to thousands of students. It also provides online courses.

    In addition, social organizations, often those supporting ethnic minority causes, have set up colleges independent of both the junta and the NUG.

    But the independent schools are not recognized by Myanmar’s junta and young people graduating from them lack recognized certificates, posing problems when they pursue further studies abroad in places like Thailand.

    “It’s very difficult for them to study in Thailand,” said Ponnya Mon, the chancellor of Mon National College in southern Myanmar, referring to some students who have studied in colleges affiliated with the NUG.

    “It’s not because they’re not qualified, it’s because of politics,” he said.

    Keen to maintain relations with Myanmar’s military rulers, Thailand does not recognize the NUG and Thai educational institutions are mandated to work only with accredited institutions. So they usually decline to recognize qualifications issued by independent Myanmar colleges.

    “The Thai government has to make a very difficult choice. Even though they would like to accept it, sometimes it’s the politics, right? If you accept a student from the NUG, that means you recognize the NUG,” said Ponnya Mon.

    But change is afoot.

    Thailand’s Payap University has set up a partnership with the Mon National College to offer a joint bachelor’s degree, said Michael Meallem, director of the International Relations Office at the Thai university.

    “What we did differently, maybe to other universities, is now the Thai government is actually a little more lenient in terms of the recognition that universities can offer to prior learning,” Meallem said.

    Students taking a class at Mon National College in Ye Township, Mon state, Myanmar.
    Students taking a class at Mon National College in Ye Township, Mon state, Myanmar.

    Kaung Khant, a student representative at an NUG-affiliated medical school, said he knew of one person who was accepted by Thailand’s prestigious Chulalongkorn University with credentials issued by the NUG. But the person in question had graduated before the coup, though he had not been issued with a degree so had to rely on an NUG-issued certificate.

    “He explained to the university the current situation and how he finished his studies. He hasn’t received a graduation certificate but he was accepted,”

    he said.

    ‘Fake and illegal’

    But others have landed in trouble.

    Chulalongkorn University contacted Myanmar authorities in November to check on degrees issued by an NUG-affiliated university to two students applying to study there, alerting military authorities to their bid.

    The junta’s Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services said in a statement the students’ degrees were fake and illegal and their applications had been rejected.

    The two students “will be blacklisted, identified and arrested,” the military office said, adding that the notaries and translators who helped them with their applications had been arrested.

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    The NUG said the students’ degrees were valid and it denounced the junta for its attempt to block education for those who reject military rule.

    “They are trying to destroy the future of young people who are free of their control,” said Kyaw Zaw, spokesperson for the NUG’s Office of the President, adding that the students had been able to continue their studies at the Thai university.

    Chulalongkorn University did not respond to calls from Radio Free Asia seeking comment.

    A Myanmar student studying at Chulalongkorn, asking to be identified as Lincoln, said the affair could put off some students from independent colleges thinking of studying abroad.

    “The security risk has been raised. Students will be worried about applying for master’s or Ph.D.s abroad this way because of what happened, if the same thing might happen to them,” he said, adding that students should be prepared to handle the application process diplomatically.

    “Not every university, not every country, is very well aware of our situation,” Lincoln said, referring to Myanmar’s turmoil since the 2021 coup.

    “So whether or not they accept our degree certificates or academic transcripts depends on a case by case basis.”

    Edited by Taejun Kang.

    RFA Burmese contributed to this report.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar’s economy to contract by 1% this year on conflict, floods: World Bank

    Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

    Myanmar’s economy is expected to shrink by 1% this year as war and disastrous flooding compound an already dire financial crisis, the World Bank said on Wednesday, as it downgraded its outlook for growth from a previous 1% increase in gross domestic product (GDP).

    Myanmar’s economy has been in freefall since the military seized power in 2021, toppling an elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, squandering progress made over a decade of tentative reforms and scaring off many investors and tourists.

    Opponents of the junta have taken up arms around the country and disastrous floods triggered by a typhoon hit several regions this year.

    “The recent natural disasters and ongoing conflict have severely impacted Myanmar’s economy, with households bearing the brunt of rising prices and labor market weakness,” said Melinda Good, World Bank country director for Thailand and Myanmar.

    More than half of Myanmar’s 330 townships are in active conflict and the U.N. estimates that 1.5 million people have been displaced since October 2023, increasing the total number of internally displaced people to 3.5 million, or about 6% of the population.

    In just one example of the impact of the war, Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries suspended operations at its Myingyan Independent Power Plant in Mandalay in August because of nearby fighting.

    “Conflict-related disruptions to trade and logistics, sharp kyat depreciation, and the stepped-up enforcement of import licensing rules have led to increasingly severe shortages and higher prices,” the World Bank said.

    “Persistent power restrictions have created further challenges for businesses and households,” it said.

    Natural disasters had also hit agriculture with output expected to fall over the next financial year, the World Bank said.

    “Estimates .. indicate that crop production is likely to decline in the FY 2024/25, with flooding directly damaging rice paddies, pulses, and oilseeds, while triggering additional shortages of key inputs including fertilizer and seeds,” it said.

    Households were bearing the brunt with 14.3 million people, or 25% of the population, experiencing acute food insecurity as of October, up from 10.7 million people a year earlier, driven mainly by food price inflation and supply shortages, the bank said.

    People line up to buy cooking oil at junta-set prices on Sept. 15, 2023, in Thingangyun township, Yangon.
    People line up to buy cooking oil at junta-set prices on Sept. 15, 2023, in Thingangyun township, Yangon.

    Overwhelming challenges

    In the strife-torn central region, a resident said the war and poverty made things very tough.

    “There’s danger from both the military and life in general,” said the resident of Ye-U town who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “There are no jobs anymore but it’s not just hunger that can kill us.”

    “We can’t raise animals or grow things well … challenges for farmers are overwhelming.”

    In the Dagon Industrial Zone in the main city of Yangon, which once carried the hopes for a booming garment sector, factory operations are more often suspended because of power shortages.

    “We don’t have electricity, so workplaces generally aren’t doing very well,” said one manufacturer who also declined to be identified for security reasons.

    “When we do get electricity, it’s very little … two days a week we can run the factory but the other three we have to take off.”

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    The World Bank said the risks to an already bleak outlook “are tilted to the downside” after the expected 1% contraction in GDP in the year ending in March.

    “A further escalation in conflict, including in the run up to possible elections in 2025, or another severe natural disaster could depress output across a range of sectors,” said.

    “Even assuming no further escalation in conflict, growth is expected to remain subdued.”

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Arakan Army takes fight to Myanmar’s western command in bid to control Rakhine state

    Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

    Arakan rebels are fighting within the borders of the junta’s Western Military Command headquarters in Myanmar’s Rakhine state after having taken control of nearby Ann township last week, residents said Tuesday.

    The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state and has made unprecedented progress over the past year, pushing forces loyal to the junta that seized power in 2021 into a few pockets of territory.

    On Nov. 30, the AA seized the junta’s last military posts in Ann’s Myo Thit, Lay Yin Kwin, Aut Ywar and Ah Hta Ka neighborhoods, taking complete control of the town, which lies 220 kilometers (135 miles) west of Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw.

    By Tuesday, AA fighters had penetrated the headquarters of the junta in Rakhine state and the military has responded with aerial strikes and troop reinforcements, a resident of Ann told RFA Burmese.

    “The AA is now able to break into the western command headquarters and is calling on the remaining troops in the junta’s western command to surrender,” said the resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

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    Another resident, who is familiar with the ongoing conflict and also declined to be named, told RFA that junta troops were advancing to the headquarters along the 150-kilometer (93-mile) road connecting Ann northeast to Minbu township “in large numbers,” and had taken up defensive positions along Chinese infrastructure projects.

    On Nov. 20, the AA captured the town of Toungup in the center of the state, which is on a road hub including a link to the the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China is funding a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China.

    Beijing threw its support behind the junta shortly after the 2021 coup and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s regime has vowed to protect Chinese interests in Myanmar amid the country’s nearly four-year civil war.

    Reinforcements en route

    Meanwhile, residents said that a junta column of about 200 troops is advancing west towards Ann along the road that links it to neighboring Magway region’s Padan township.

    All the while, the military has been resupplying its troops in the Western Command headquarters with weapons and other supplies by air, they said.

    Last week, when the AA took control of Ann, sources told RFA that only a few residents had remained in the township and the AA had taken them to safety, leaving the town empty.

    Attempts by RFA to contact Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general for Rakhine state, about the fighting in Ann township went unanswered Tuesday, as did efforts to reach AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha.

    The AA, which largely draws its support from Rakhine’s Buddhist majority, has made steady advances over the past year, from the state’s far north on the border with Bangladesh, through central areas to its far south, and it now controls about 80% of it.

    On Dec. 6, the AA announced that it had taken control of all of the junta’s more than 30 camps in Rakhine, except for the Western Military Command headquarters.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Junta’s push to retake towns in Myanmar heartland prompts fierce fighting

    An effort by Myanmar’s military to retake towns it lost to a rebel offensive in the heartland has prompted fierce fighting, sending thousands of civilians scrambling for shelter, residents said Monday.

    In their renewed push, junta forces are increasingly using Chinese-made surveillance and combat drones, rebels say, several of which have fallen into the hands of guerrilla groups.

    The renewed fighting in the central Mandalay region comes almost a year after the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies launched their Operation 1027 offensive — named for its Oct. 27, 2023, start date — which pushed back the military from territory in northern Shan state and other regions following its 2021 coup d’etat.

    Pro-democracy militias, known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs — formed by civilians after the coup to fight the military — also launched offensives, capturing central areas, including around Myanmar’s second-biggest city of Mandalay.

    For months, it seemed like the military was pushed back on its heels.

    But two of the three “Brotherhood” armies — the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA — recently agreed to ceasefires after pressure from neighboring China for them to talk peace.

    That may have given junta forces renewed impetus to re-take territory it lost over the past year.

    Over the past month, junta troops have attacked the towns of Po Wa, Sine Kone and surrounding villages “multiple times,” said a resident of Madaya, 48 kilometers (30 miles) north of Mandalay.

    In recent days, junta troops have attacked several towns and villages in Mandalay region, sending residents fleeing, they told RFA Burmese.

    On Sunday, junta troops set fire to houses in Po Wa (North) and Sin Kone villages, in western Madaya township, destroying about 300 homes.

    “Nearly the entire western region has been destroyed in the military raids,” said a Madaya resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “There are no residents left in the western part of Madaya — everyone has fled.”

    According to the resident “around 10,000 residents from five villages” have been displaced due to the military’s advance.

    Retaking villages

    Meanwhile, on Dec. 4, junta forces regained control of Twin Nge village, with more than 1,000 houses and 4,000 residents, in Thabeikkyin district, bordering Madaya, residents said. The village is on a road connection from Thabeikkyin to the townships of Shwegu and Bhamo in Kachin state, as well as Mongmit in northern Shan state.

    Maung Maung Swe, the deputy secretary of the Ministry of Defense for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, told RFA that the military’s deployment of large forces in concentrated offensives had forced the PDF to cede certain areas.

    “[The military] deployed additional troops by air and launched offensives with air support,” he said. “As a result, we had to withdraw from some of the camps we had been holding due to the size of their advancing forces.”

    In Myingyan district, areas abandoned by the military have been taken over by the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia, which has launched its own campaign of arson and attacks, according to residents and the PDF.

    Myanmar's second largest city, Mandalay, is seen, Oct. 24, 2024.
    Myanmar’s second largest city, Mandalay, is seen, Oct. 24, 2024.

    An official from the Myingyan PDF told RFA that the junta’s offensive in areas it previously abandoned is aimed at regaining control and facilitating the holding of elections there.

    The junta chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has vowed to complete a census by the end of the year and then hold “free and fair elections,” but opponents and rebel leaders have dismissed the ballot as a sham, and a way for the military to legitimize its grip on power.

    The census, aimed at tallying voters ahead of the 2025 elections, has met strong opposition from ethnic minority insurgent groups who say preparations for a nationwide vote are impossible while they battle a regime that continues to arrest and kill its critics.

    Attempts by RFA to reach the junta’s spokesperson for the Mandalay region for comment on the situation went unanswered on Monday.

    Chinese drones

    In the first year or two of the conflict, rebel groups used drones as a low-cost method to level the playing field against the better-equipped military.

    But at the end of 2023, the junta began buying Chinese drones and conducting training for its troops, according to former military officials.

    Now, the military is using Chinese drones to fight its enemies across the country, said an anti-junta fighter who asked to be identified as Nyein, who runs the Cloud Wings drone unit based in Kayin state.

    “The military junta has extensively used drones in almost all their battles,” he said. “They widely use Chinese drones, along with Chinese technology and hardware.”

    Reports of widespread use of Chinese drones by the military follow a Sept. 26 announcement by the junta’s deputy minister for home affairs, Lt. Gen. Ni Lin Aung, that the regime had sought China’s assistance to “curb the flow of unmanned aerial vehicles” to the armed opposition.

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    Htoo Khant Zaw, a press officer for the People’s Defense Comrade, which monitors airstrikes, told RFA that the junta has been using Chinese-made attack drones more frequently in townships in central Myanmar’s Sagaing region.

    Other PDF officials told RFA that junta forces have been deploying Chinese drones “day and night” in Magway region to drop bombs and surveil rebel fighters.

    RFA received no response from China’s embassy to inquiries regarding the junta’s use of Chinese drones. Attempts to reach junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for a response to reports of civilian casualties caused by Chinese drones also went unanswered.

    Women walk past security barricades on a road in Mandalay, Oct. 24, 2024.
    Women walk past security barricades on a road in Mandalay, Oct. 24, 2024.

    According to figures compiled by RFA, military drone attacks in October and November killed 13 civilians, including women and children, and injured 43.

    Kachin rebels in talks with China

    Meanwhile, battlefield successes by rebel groups have alarmed China, which has extensive economic interests in its neighbor to the south, including energy pipelines running up from the Indian Ocean and mining projects.

    China has thrown its support behind the junta and its plans for an election next year, putting pressure on insurgent groups to respond positively to recent junta offers of talks.

    General N’Ban La, the leader of one of the groups — the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, in Kachin state — has been holding talks with Chinese officials in China since Sunday, according to KIO spokesperson Major General Naw Bu, amid heavy fighting between Kachin rebels and the junta in Bamaw and Mansi townships.

    “China and the KIO usually meet once a month or once every couple of months,” he said. “We were not made aware of the topic of discussion.”

    Naw Bu said that the names of those in attendance from the China side and the venue for the talks had not been made public.

    After the KIO’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, attacked and captured all border posts along Kachin state’s border with China in November, Beijing responded by closing its border gates, halting all trade.

    Kachin political commentator Sha Bat said the meeting could be aimed at stabilizing the border region, reopening gates to trade, and preempting closer ties between rebels and Western governments.

    Despite Chinese pressure since early October, the KIA has been attacking Bamaw township after seizing the rare earth mining towns of Chipwi and Sawt Lau, as well as the border towns of Panwa and Kan Paik Ti.

    The KIA controls 13 towns in Kachin state and neighboring northern Shan state.

    Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

  • Chinese aid cannot overcome Myanmar junta’s declining finances and morale

    Despite being bolstered by an unprecedented degree of Chinese diplomatic and material support, Myanmar’s military has had mixed results in the past few weeks, in the face of mounting economic and fiscal challenges.

    The State Administrative Council (SAC) – as the junta is officially called – has continued to suffer military setbacks that have economic implications of their own.

    With the capture of Kan Paik Ti, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has consolidated control of the entire border with China and stepped up their offensive in the mineral rich regions.

    The KIA announced that it would allow the resumption of rare-earth mining in the Pangwa-Chipwi region, now under its control.

    In Rakhine, the Arakan Army captured Toungup, which prevents overland supply to Kyaukphyu from the south.

    The Arakan Army have captured the military’s last posts in Ann town, home of the headquarters of the Western Military Command and a major pumping station for the oil and gas pipelines to China.

    Over 800 soldiers – mainly hastily trained conscripts – have surrendered in the recent campaign. The Arakan Army now controls 11 of 17 towns in Rakhine.

    Arakan Army fighters pose outside a Myanmar junta military headquarters near Ann town after capturing it in this image released Nov. 13, 2024.
    Arakan Army fighters pose outside a Myanmar junta military headquarters near Ann town after capturing it in this image released Nov. 13, 2024.

    While there has been considerable tension between the Arakan Army and the fractious Chin opposition forces in the past, there’s been an unprecedented degree of cooperation now.

    Local Chin Defense Forces and the Arakan Army have interrupted resupply convoys from Magwe into Ann, capturing at least 14 soldiers.

    Ceasefires in Shan state

    In northeastern Myanmar near the border with China, the Chinese stepped up their pressure on the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA.

    On Dec. 4, the MNDAA, which has been fighting for years for autonomy for the Kokang region, declared a ceasefire in its war against the military, the second insurgent force in days to cite pressure from China for its willingness to talk peace.

    The move followed the TNLA’s announcement that they would agree to talks with the junta.

    Soldiers march during a parade commemorating Myanmar's Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw on March 27, 2023.
    Soldiers march during a parade commemorating Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw on March 27, 2023.

    The regime’s counter offensive in northern Shan state continues to make little headway, and the battles have been pitched and casualties high. The regime continues to intentionally target civilians with air power.

    The opposition has suffered some setbacks in Karenni and in Magwe and Sagaing, where logistics troubles continue to impede their gains. Karen forces continue to opportunistically ambush junta forces.

    But the junta is facing its own resource challenges, and is desperate to reverse its losses ahead of Chinese-supported elections that are scheduled for 2025.

    But with only 40% of Myanmar’s territory under its full control, it’s hard to see how elections could serve as anything but a shambolic off-ramp for the generals.

    Despite the overall 12% contraction of the economy since the February 2021 coup d’etat, the junta’s defense expenditure has surged by 222%, from 1.746 trillion kyats in 2021 to 3.703 trillion kyats in 2022 to 5.635 trillion kyats (over US$2.7 billion) in 2023.

    The regime has not disclosed its defense budget for 2024 or 2025.

    Tight finances ahead

    At a recent meeting of the SAC’s Financial Commission, Gen. Soe Win acknowledged that Min Aung Hlaing had directed spending on security to take precedence over all other public spending, despite the fact that the military’s provision of these public goods and social services has withered in the past three years.

    Vendors wait for customers at their roadside food stall during an electricity blackout in Yangon on April 26, 2024.
    Vendors wait for customers at their roadside food stall during an electricity blackout in Yangon on April 26, 2024.

    A recent Radio Free Asia report found that the country is producing only 300MWs of electricity, a 25% decline since the coup, with many power generating facilities inoperable, or beyond the junta’s control. The country requires 540MW.

    Where the money for increased defense spending will come from, is anyone’s guess. Finances are tight for the junta, with foreign exchange in perpetually short supply.

    The regime’s currency controls remain in place, which has devastated the business community, forcing them to sell their foreign exchange at artificially low rates, prompting more companies to try to hide their assets abroad.

    The opposition’s control of four of the five official crossings with China has added to the financial pain, as border trade can be conducted in yuan and kyats, not dollars.

    That is the crux of the regime’s lobbying of China to pressure the TNLA and MNDAA, two members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance that had led offensives against the junta since October 2023, to stop their offensives.

    Foreign investment has fallen each year since the coup, from $1.64 billion in FY2022-23 to $661 million in FY2023-24. Now, more than three years in, investors have lost all confidence.

    Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing looks at pearls at the Myanmar Gems Emporium, Nov. 18, 2024.
    Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing looks at pearls at the Myanmar Gems Emporium, Nov. 18, 2024.

    The military government’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA), revealed that foreign investment in the first seven months of FY 2024-25 totaled only $226 million.

    DICA’s data, as reported in Myanmar-Now, shows that most of that investment went to existing projects and operations; only four of 33 this year are greenfield investors.

    Scaring up revenue

    The junta has been searching for new sources of revenue.

    The regime’s Minister of Energy, Ko Ko Lwin, held talks with the chairman of China National Petroleum Corporation in Beijing, where they discussed additional sales of oil and gas, and improbably increasing the capacity of Myanmar-China oil and gas pipelines.

    Min Aug Hlaing made a show of attending the Myanmar Gems Emporium in Naypyidaw on Nov. 18, 2024, which remains one of the few reliable income streams for the junta.

    The Irrawaddy noted that each year since the coup, the offered lots of jade have increased – from 1,955 in 2021, to 2,150 in 2022 and 4,025 in 2023.

    The TNLA has worked to deprive the junta of proceeds from the ruby trade in Mogoke.

    While it has allowed individual miners to continue, the TNLA has blocked all large-scale mechanized mining, which has been dominated by the military-owned Myanma Economic Holdings Limited.

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    Short on manpower, the junta is doing everything it can to force overseas workers home to be conscripted.

    A new regulation puts the onus on manpower agencies to recall workers who have been conscripted. They have lobbied the Thai government to send the 2 million legal residents and upwards of 3 million undocumented Myanmar nationals home.

    Those that continue to work abroad are a cash cow for the junta.

    In September the SAC enacted a rule to force the expatriate workers to transfer 25% of their remittances through formal bank channels, where they must use the official exchange rate of 2,100 kyats to the dollar and 56 kyats to the baht. The black market rate is 3,400 kyats to the dollar and around 100 kyats per baht.

    Economic warfare

    The junta, however, is also waging its own economic warfare on the opposition.

    While the junta has not been able to retake Mogoke or Lashio, it is actively bombing the towns to disrupt economic activity.

    Damage from airstrikes by Myanmar junta forces is seen in Mogok, Mandalay region, on Nov. 12, 2024.
    Damage from airstrikes by Myanmar junta forces is seen in Mogok, Mandalay region, on Nov. 12, 2024.

    China’s border closures and internet and electricity outages of opposition-controlled crossings have put considerable financial pressure on the citizens in territories near the frontier controlled by ethnic armies.

    Now the junta has blocked the sale of petroleum to opposition-controlled regions.

    Fuel distribution is now legally banned to the entire Rakhine state, northern Shan State, Kachin with the exception of the state capital Myitkyina. Some 26 townships in Sagaing region, a township in Magwe, and two in Mandalay have suffered the same bans.

    As short on resources as the junta is, they still have advantages over the opposition.

    But saddled with corruption and plummeting morale, will it be enough?

    Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zachary Abuza.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Lao teen says she’s been released from Chinese scam center in Myanmar

    A young woman who was forced to work at a Chinese-run scam center in Myanmar for two years is now in Thailand and expects to return to Laos soon.

    Last week, Radio Free Asia reported that the woman, who withheld her name out of fear of reprisals, was one of several Laotians trafficked to work as scammers at a place called “Casino Kosai” in an isolated development near the town of Myawaddy in Kayin state.

    Casino Kosai is in an area near the Thai border where ethnic Karen rebels have been engaged in intense fighting with military junta troops in recent months.

    It was unclear exactly how the young woman, who just turned 19, had gained her release, but her mother said that scam center operators had agreed to let her go.

    “It is the happiest moment in my life as soon as I heard from my daughter that the Chinese bosses would release her,” her mother said. “She was preparing to pack her belongings and the car would come to pick her up.”

    The woman told Radio Free Asia that she faced beatings whenever she failed to scam potential victims.

    “The Chinese bosses hit me and torture me every day,” she said in a text message. “Why isn’t anybody coming to help me?”

    The woman’s mother said her daughter was initially promised a factory job in Thailand, but was later sold to the Chinese scam gang and brought to Myanmar.

    She said her daughter told her about the abuse at the scam center and about working up to 19 hours a day.

    “I have no idea what to do to bring my daughter back home,” said the mother. “The Chinese bosses use cattle prods to torture her if she doesn’t do her job well.”

    The young woman told RFA Lao in a voice message that she arrived in Mae Sot on Wednesday, adding that she was unsure when she would continue on to Laos.

    On Friday, the woman told RFA that she was staying at a police station in Thailand’s Mae Sot district.

    RFA Lao spoke about the woman’s case with an official from the Lao Ministry of Public Security, who said that rescuing people from scam centers in areas in Myanmar that are not under junta control “is very difficult,” adding that there was little the Lao government could do about the situation.

    RFA was unable to reach Thai police in Mae Sot to ask for more information.

    Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kokang rebels execute 6 after public trials in Myanmar’s Shan state

    Ethnic Kokang rebels in northern Myanmar have executed six people following a public trial in front of hundreds of people that was filmed and posted on social media, including murder, the group confirmed Friday.

    The six were among 14 individuals tried on Thursday by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, which had been fighting the junta since a military coup in early 2021, until agreeing to a ceasefire earlier this week.

    In the video, which appeared to be professionally produced — including a militaristic soundtrack and drone shots — the convicted individuals in blue jumpsuits are held by guards as authorities in uniforms read out their crimes in Mandarin Chinese, the Kokang’s main language.

    As the crimes are read out, MNDAA soldiers draw red X’s over signs displaying their names and that they were convicted criminals.

    One of the accused, a woman, was convicted of murdering her husband, sources close to the MNDAA said via their social media accounts.

    The other male suspects were charged with the murder of a female driver, the killing of a friend, and plotting to kill the owners of a construction and natural gas company.

    Eight other individuals, accused of other crimes, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years.

    The event took place Thursday in northern Shan state’s Laukkai township.

    On Friday, the MNDAA’s Kokang Information Network confirmed that the group had executed the six in a post to its social media page.

    People sentenced by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army are put on stage in front of a crowd in Laukkai town, northern Shan State, Dec. 5, 2024.
    People sentenced by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army are put on stage in front of a crowd in Laukkai town, northern Shan State, Dec. 5, 2024.

    The video concludes with the six being paraded around the township in the back of pickup trucks as they are driven to what appears to be an execution site, before being led off by soldiers.

    “After the public trial, police officers from the judicial branch escorted the criminals, who had been sentenced according to the law, through the streets for a public display,” the post said. “Then, the convicts were brought to the execution ground to be executed.”

    It was not immediately clear how the six were executed.

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    Attempts by RFA to contact MNDAA officials for comment on the sentences went unanswered Friday.

    The MNDAA has executed individuals it convicted of crimes in staged trials before. In April, another similar video showed several convicted people being publicly condemned for crimes, including three to death.

    On May 2, 2023, the MNDAA executed four individuals for their involvement in murders, robberies, and 25 kidnappings in northern Shan’s Lashio township.

    People sentenced by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army are put on stage in front of a crowd in Laukkai town, northern Shan State, Dec. 5, 2024.
    People sentenced by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army are put on stage in front of a crowd in Laukkai town, northern Shan State, Dec. 5, 2024.

    ‘No way consistent’

    Legal experts have expressed concerns over the MNDAA’s actions, noting that the practice of public executions, which occurred during Myanmar’s British colonial era, has long been abolished.

    RFA spoke with a lawyer who noted that the Kokang, who speak Mandarin Chinese and share ethnic characteristics with their northern neighbors, “follow the Chinese legal system, as they are subordinate to China and must adhere to its directives.”

    The lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous due to security concerns, said that denying the six an appeal of their conviction and publicly executing them, “is in no way consistent with or acceptable under Myanmar’s current legal system.”

    “In Myanmar, there are only two ways the death penalty can be carried out: if a civilian court issues a death sentence, the execution takes place in prison, while if a military court issues a death sentence, it is carried out by prison authorities within the prison, or by relevant military commanders,” he said. “There is no provision in our laws that mandates public executions.”

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar rebel group sentences six to death in public trial | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar rebel group sentences six to death in public trial | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Dissident US monk faces terrorism charge in Myanmar

    Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

    A Myanmar court has charged a dissident Buddhist monk, who is also a U.S. citizen, with terrorism, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison, as well as other charges used by the military to crush dissent, sources said on Friday.

    Pinnya Jawta, the 60-year-old abbot of a monastery in Buffalo, New York, returned to Myanmar in November on a religious visit. A former political prisoner, he took part in anti-military protests in 2007 known as the Saffron Revolution, and in earlier activism against military rule.

    Senior monks appointed by the authorities to oversee the Buddhist clergy had ordered him to disrobe, so he appeared in the Mingaladon court in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon in ordinary clothes on Thursday to hear the charges, a lawyer observing the case said.

    “Depending on the circumstances of the case, section 50-J is punishable by a minimum of 10 years up to a life sentence,” said the lawyer, referring to the most serious charge levelled, which is used against those suspected of funding, organizing or participating in terrorism or harboring terrorists.

    He was also charged under section 505-A of the Penal Code, which is an incitement charge used to punish anyone deemed to have encouraged members of the civil service or security forces to mutiny, said the lawyer, who declined to be identified in fear or reprisals by the authorities.

    It has been used against numerous opponents of military rule since the generals ousted an elected government in February 2021.

    The third charge was under section 66-D of the Communications Act, which covers defamation. Rights groups say the law is incompatible with international human rights law and standards and is used to limit freedom of speech.

    Since the monk did not have a lawyer, he was not able to defend himself at Thursday’s hearing, the lawyer said.

    The U.S. embassy in Myanmar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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    Myanmar has been in turmoil since the long-ruling military ended a decade of reform in 2021 and ousted an elected government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi.

    She and hundreds of political colleagues and supporters have been locked up while democracy activists have taken up arms and joined ethnic minority insurgent groups battling the military.

    U.N. experts said on Monday the world must pay more attention to Myanmar’s civil war and work harder to deny the military junta access to the weapons it has used to carry out a reign of violent terror against its civilian population.

    Military intelligence officers arrested Pinnya Jawta in Yangon on Nov. 13. He was later transferred to the city’s infamous Insein Prison, sources close to him told RFA.

    “I know he’s being detained in a cell block at Insein, not a big one,” one of the sources said. “He’s around 60 and he’s also suffering from diabetes.”

    He entered the country on a religious visa issued by the Myanmar embassy in the United States, they said.

    The Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, told RFA he did not know about the case.

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar releases four Thai fishermen detained after shooting incident

    BANGKOK – Myanmar has released four Thai fishermen nearly a week after a Myanmar navy boat opened fire on them and detained them for what Myanmar said was an intrusion into its waters in the Andaman Sea.

    One fisherman drowned after he jumped into the sea and two were injured when a Myanmar boat opened fire in waters near the neighbors’ border on Nov. 30.

    “The Myanmar side has released all four Thai nationals who were then taken to the immigration checkpoint at Kawthoung-Ranong for processing,” Thai foreign ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura said late on Thursday.

    Thailand and Myanmar have several areas of dispute on their long land border as well as on their maritime border in the Andaman Sea, off the southern tip of Myanmar and southwest Thailand, and disagreements occasionally flare up.

    Thailand summoned the Myanmar ambassador on Monday to protest against what it said was an excessive use of force against the fishermen and to demand the release of the four Thais. Myanmar nationals working on the Thai boat were also detained but their fate was not known.

    The detained fishermen were on one of three Thai boats that the Myanmar navy fired at in the early hours of Nov. 30. The other two boats escaped.

    The skipper of one of the boats that escaped said the Myanmar navy had fired at them “indiscriminately.”

    The four fishermen were released in the southern Myanmar town of Kawthoung and were due to cross over a border inlet there to Thailand’s Ranong, the Thai foreign ministry said.

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    Earlier, officials at the Third Naval Command reported that their Myanmar counterparts said the Thai boats had intruded up to 9 kilometers (5.7 miles) into Myanmar waters. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said the facts had to be determined.

    An injured fisherman on a stretcher at Ranong in Thailand near the Myanmar border, taken on Nov. 30 and released on Dec. 2, 2024.
    An injured fisherman on a stretcher at Ranong in Thailand near the Myanmar border, taken on Nov. 30 and released on Dec. 2, 2024.

    A spokesman for the Myanmar military, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, defended the navy’s action saying Myanmar forces were wary of insurgent infiltration.

    It was not immediately clear if Myanmar would also release the boat it seized, the Sor Charoenchai 8.

    It was not the first incident in the contested area in recent years.

    In 2020, Myanmar detained a Thai fishing boat carrying 20 Thai and Chinese tourists, saying it had entered Myanmar waters illegally. Myanmar held the tourists for a month before their release following negotiations.

    Edited by Taejun Kang.

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Nontarat Phaicharoen for BenarNews and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar’s Arakan Army captures Ann town, focus now on army HQ

    Insurgents in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have captured the military’s last posts in Ann town and have turned their attention to a nearby army headquarters, residents said on Tuesday, another major step in the rebels’ aim to control the entire state.

    The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state and has made unprecedented progress over the past year, pushing forces loyal to the junta that seized power in 2021 into a few pockets of territory.

    Residents of Ann, which is 220 km (135 miles) west of the capital, Naypyidaw, said the AA had seized the junta’s last posts in the Myo Thit, Lay Yin Kwin, Aut Ywar and Ah Hta Ka neighborhoods by Saturday, taking complete control of the town.

    “The Arakan Army has captured the entire town except the Western Command headquarters,‘’ one resident told Radio Free Asia.

    “Junta forces from their battalion areas captured by AA have gone to gather at the headquarters and are defending there,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons.

    The military had fired at the advancing insurgents, setting fires in some of the town’s neighborhoods but the extent of the damage was not known, said the resident, adding he had no information about casualties in the fighting.

    AA fighters were now trying to seize the military headquarters on the southern side of Ann, where the defenders were being supported by extensive airstrikes, residents said.

    “The junta is protecting the Western Command day and night with massive firing from the air,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons.

    Only a few civilians had remained in Ann and the AA had taken them to safety so the town was now empty, the resident said.

    “There are people staying in the forest in shelters they’ve made waiting to go home if the situation improves,” the resident said.

    RFA tried to telephone AA spokesperson Khing Thukha, as well as military council spokesman Hla Thein to ask about the situation but neither of them answered phone calls.

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    The AA, which largely draws its support from the state’s Buddhist majority, has made steady advances over the past year, from the state’s far north on the border with Bangladesh, through central areas to its far south, and it now controls about 80% of it.

    On Nov. 20, the insurgents captured the town of Toungup in the centre of the state, which is on a road hub including a link to the the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China is funding a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China.

    Residents said that AA was attacking the military’s Number 5 Operation Command headquarters, to the south of Toungup on the road to the town of Thandwe.

    In the far south of the state, fighting is getting closer to the junta-controlled town of Gwa township, residents there said.

    The AA has fully captured 10 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state.

    Edited by RFA Staff


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kachin, Shan residents face hardships as China and Myanmar block trade

    Read a version of this story in Burmese.

    Closures along Myanmar’s shared border with China have cut off residents of Kachin and Shan states from humanitarian aid and sent the prices of goods skyrocketing, sources from the regions said Monday.

    Myanmar’s civil war in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat prompted China to close all its border gates in Kachin state beginning on Oct. 19, and all border crossings in northern Shan state except for Muse township since July.

    Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta has imposed restrictions on the transportation of goods to Kachin state from the country’s heartland, as the rebel Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, now controls all 11 of the state’s border gates with China, including the major trade checkpoints of Kan Paik Ti and Lwegel townships.

    In Shan state, the junta has also restricted the transportation of goods from Muse to areas of the state under the control of ethnic armed groups.

    The restrictions have left residents of the two border areas, and especially civilians displaced by fighting, feeling the squeeze, sources told RFA Burmese.

    A civilian sheltering in the Jay Yang camp for the displaced near Kachin’s Laiza township, where the KIA’s headquarters is located, said that between the border closures and junta restrictions on goods transported from the Kachin town of Bhamo and the state capital Myitkyina, “the situation has become dire.”

    “Residents are enduring severe hardships,” he said. “We are facing an uncertain and bleak future.”

    The displaced civilian said that the price of food items in Kachin state has risen dramatically, making it difficult for camp residents to afford basic necessities.

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    Nearly all prices have doubled since the border closures, he said, with eggs at 1,000 kyats from 400; a viss (3.5 pounds) of pork at 50,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of fish at 30,000 kyats from 15,000; a viss of chicken at 40,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of beef at 60,000 kyats from 30,000; a viss of potatoes at 10,000 kyats from 6,000; and a cup of chili peppers at 3,000 kyats from 1,500.

    Meanwhile, a liter (.26 gallon) of cooking oil now costs 25,000 kyats, up from 10,000, and a liter of gasoline costs 15,000 kyats, up from 7,000.

    At the time of publishing, the official exchange rate was 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar, while the black market exchange rate was 4,300 kyats per dollar.

    Prior to the border closures, relief groups had been providing camps for the displaced with rice, oil, salt and chickpeas, but now can only distribute around 30,000 kyats per person, camp residents told RFA.

    Displaced suffer shortages

    Residents said that since the KIA seized the Kan Paik Ti border gate on Nov. 20 and Chinese authorities shut down the crossing, food prices had increased in Myitkyina, and the Kachin capital is now enduring a fuel shortage.

    A resident of the Sha Eit Yang camp for the displaced, located in a KIA-controlled area along the border, told RFA that the gate closures had made life extremely difficult.

    “There is no work to earn money in the area near our camp, so we can only find jobs far away from the camp,” he said. “With all the border gates closed, we can’t earn any income.”

    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar's Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.
    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar’s Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.

    In Kachin state, more than 100,000 civilians have sought shelter in 160 camps following the fighting that began in 2021. Since the coup, the total number of displaced persons has risen to more than 200,000, according to aid workers. Around 40,000 displaced persons are taking refuge in around 20 camps in Kachin state along the Chinese border.

    Sin Yaung, the deputy head of the Wai Kyaing camp for the displaced near Laiza, told RFA that the longer the border gates remain closed, the more hardships residents will face.

    “If the closures persist, it will be very difficult to access food,” he said. “The closure of the border gates and restrictions on the transportation of goods have caused severe difficulties for residents.”

    Attempts by RFA to contact the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, and KIA information officer Colonel Naw Bu for more information went unanswered Monday.

    Transportation restrictions in Shan

    The junta has also blocked the transportation of food from Muse, which is under the control of the military, to rebel-occupied towns on the Myanmar-China border in northern Shan state, according to residents.

    A resident of Nam Hkam, which is under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, told RFA that no goods have gotten through from Muse since Nov. 27.

    “Residents are not allowed to carry food items by motorcycle and even vendors from Muse no longer come here,” he said. “Commodity prices have sharply increased. Tomatoes are now being sold for 20,000 kyats per viss here, whereas in Muse, one viss of tomatoes costs only 8,000 kyats.”

    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.
    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.

    Residents said that the TNLA has also blocked the transportation of fuel and food from Nam Hkam to Muse since Sunday, although TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo insisted that her group had imposed no restrictions on the flow of goods.

    RFA also tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson and economic minister for Shan state, Khun Thein, for comments on the commodity blockades, but he did not respond.

    Residents reported that restrictions have caused the prices of goods to “more than double” in Muse and Nam Hkam. Additionally, traders and drivers are out of work due to the closure of trade routes, traders in Muse told RFA.

    The restrictions imposed by China and Myanmar’s junta have impacted most of the nearly two million people who live in northern Shan state’s 20 townships, residents said.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kachin, Shan residents face hardships as China and Myanmar block trade

    Read a version of this story in Burmese.

    Closures along Myanmar’s shared border with China have cut off residents of Kachin and Shan states from humanitarian aid and sent the prices of goods skyrocketing, sources from the regions said Monday.

    Myanmar’s civil war in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat prompted China to close all its border gates in Kachin state beginning on Oct. 19, and all border crossings in northern Shan state except for Muse township since July.

    Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta has imposed restrictions on the transportation of goods to Kachin state from the country’s heartland, as the rebel Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, now controls all 11 of the state’s border gates with China, including the major trade checkpoints of Kan Paik Ti and Lwegel townships.

    In Shan state, the junta has also restricted the transportation of goods from Muse to areas of the state under the control of ethnic armed groups.

    The restrictions have left residents of the two border areas, and especially civilians displaced by fighting, feeling the squeeze, sources told RFA Burmese.

    A civilian sheltering in the Jay Yang camp for the displaced near Kachin’s Laiza township, where the KIA’s headquarters is located, said that between the border closures and junta restrictions on goods transported from the Kachin town of Bhamo and the state capital Myitkyina, “the situation has become dire.”

    “Residents are enduring severe hardships,” he said. “We are facing an uncertain and bleak future.”

    The displaced civilian said that the price of food items in Kachin state has risen dramatically, making it difficult for camp residents to afford basic necessities.

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    Nearly all prices have doubled since the border closures, he said, with eggs at 1,000 kyats from 400; a viss (3.5 pounds) of pork at 50,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of fish at 30,000 kyats from 15,000; a viss of chicken at 40,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of beef at 60,000 kyats from 30,000; a viss of potatoes at 10,000 kyats from 6,000; and a cup of chili peppers at 3,000 kyats from 1,500.

    Meanwhile, a liter (.26 gallon) of cooking oil now costs 25,000 kyats, up from 10,000, and a liter of gasoline costs 15,000 kyats, up from 7,000.

    At the time of publishing, the official exchange rate was 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar, while the black market exchange rate was 4,300 kyats per dollar.

    Prior to the border closures, relief groups had been providing camps for the displaced with rice, oil, salt and chickpeas, but now can only distribute around 30,000 kyats per person, camp residents told RFA.

    Displaced suffer shortages

    Residents said that since the KIA seized the Kan Paik Ti border gate on Nov. 20 and Chinese authorities shut down the crossing, food prices had increased in Myitkyina, and the Kachin capital is now enduring a fuel shortage.

    A resident of the Sha Eit Yang camp for the displaced, located in a KIA-controlled area along the border, told RFA that the gate closures had made life extremely difficult.

    “There is no work to earn money in the area near our camp, so we can only find jobs far away from the camp,” he said. “With all the border gates closed, we can’t earn any income.”

    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar's Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.
    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar’s Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.

    In Kachin state, more than 100,000 civilians have sought shelter in 160 camps following the fighting that began in 2021. Since the coup, the total number of displaced persons has risen to more than 200,000, according to aid workers. Around 40,000 displaced persons are taking refuge in around 20 camps in Kachin state along the Chinese border.

    Sin Yaung, the deputy head of the Wai Kyaing camp for the displaced near Laiza, told RFA that the longer the border gates remain closed, the more hardships residents will face.

    “If the closures persist, it will be very difficult to access food,” he said. “The closure of the border gates and restrictions on the transportation of goods have caused severe difficulties for residents.”

    Attempts by RFA to contact the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, and KIA information officer Colonel Naw Bu for more information went unanswered Monday.

    Transportation restrictions in Shan

    The junta has also blocked the transportation of food from Muse, which is under the control of the military, to rebel-occupied towns on the Myanmar-China border in northern Shan state, according to residents.

    A resident of Nam Hkam, which is under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, told RFA that no goods have gotten through from Muse since Nov. 27.

    “Residents are not allowed to carry food items by motorcycle and even vendors from Muse no longer come here,” he said. “Commodity prices have sharply increased. Tomatoes are now being sold for 20,000 kyats per viss here, whereas in Muse, one viss of tomatoes costs only 8,000 kyats.”

    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.
    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.

    Residents said that the TNLA has also blocked the transportation of fuel and food from Nam Hkam to Muse since Sunday, although TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo insisted that her group had imposed no restrictions on the flow of goods.

    RFA also tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson and economic minister for Shan state, Khun Thein, for comments on the commodity blockades, but he did not respond.

    Residents reported that restrictions have caused the prices of goods to “more than double” in Muse and Nam Hkam. Additionally, traders and drivers are out of work due to the closure of trade routes, traders in Muse told RFA.

    The restrictions imposed by China and Myanmar’s junta have impacted most of the nearly two million people who live in northern Shan state’s 20 townships, residents said.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar exile tends elephants in Thailand | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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  • Myanmar exile tends elephants in Thailand | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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  • Insurgents in Myanmar’s Chin state capture four military camps, group says

    By RFA Burmese

    Ethnic minority insurgents battling Myanmar’s junta in Chin state have captured four camps from the military, killing 15 soldiers, said a spokesman for a rebel force in the northwestern state on the border with India.

    Conflict has consumed much of the remote Chin hills since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021, forcing many thousands of villagers over the border into the neighboring Indian state of Mizoram, complicating a tense communal situation there.

    Fighters from two ethnic Chin insurgent forces, the Chin National Army, or CNA, and the Chinland Defense Force, captured four military camps between the towns of Hakha and Thantlang on Saturday after 10 days of fighting, said Salai Htet Ni, a spokesman for the CNA told Radio Free Asia.

    “We were able to capture the military council camps above Hakha town, between Hakha and Thantlang towns. Two junta’s captains, including a battalion commander and a police major, were killed in the battle. In addition to that, 11 bodies of soldiers were found and 31 were arrested by our forces,” he said.

    He said Chin forces suffered no fatalities but six fighters were wounded. He identified the captured camps as Thi Myit, Umpu Puaknak, Nawn Thlawk Bo and Ruavazung.

    He said the camps were important for the military’s control of the area, which is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the east of the border with India.

    Radio Free Asia tried to contact the military’s main spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to ask about the situation but he did not answer phone calls.

    Salai Htet Ni said Chin forces were continuing to attack other military positions in the area.

    RELATED STORIES

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    Since the 2021 coup, anti-junta forces in Chin state have captured 11 towns, while the Arakan Army, which is based in Rakhine state to the south, has captured two Chin state towns near its border.

    According to civil society groups, about 200,000 people in the largely Christian state have been displaced by the fighting in Chin state, either to safer places within Myanmar or over the border into India’s Mizoram state.

    Some Hindu groups in India say the arrival of Christian refugees is exacerbating tensions between Hindus and Christians there.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

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  • Civilians forced to clear landmines in central Myanmar by junta: source

    Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

    Troops stationed at junta security checkpoints are forcing civilians passing through a major highway in central Myanmar to perform landmine clearance operations, residents told Radio Free Asia.

    Landmines have become an increasingly common and deadly problem since insurgents across the country took up arms to fight the military who took power in a 2021 coup. While deadly warfare with rocket launchers, explosives and guns has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians, both rebels and junta troops have denied responsibility for mines and their casualties.

    “They started doing it from the first week of November…They ask us to cross through fields they assume have landmines. If they ask us to do one check, it’s for about one hour,” said a resident in the Burmese city Monywa.

    “At their gates, they don’t stop and ask every car to do the inspections, some don’t have to,” the resident added, declining to be named as talking to the media.

    Travelers are being selected from three of the 11 junta security checkpoints that stretch across the Monywa-Mandalay Highway, connecting the capitals of Sagaing to Mandalay region, some 132 kilometers (82 miles).

    The practice is particularly rampant near Myay Ne, Mon Yway and Taw Pu villages, residents said, adding that they’re often told to go look for landmines after soldiers inspect their vehicle.

    Junta soldiers typically select middle-aged people, asking them to go to areas they’re suspicious of, said another resident who added that no casualties had been reported yet.

    “Until the 26th, they were still asking us to cross the field. I haven’t heard of anyone having their arms or legs cut off because of crossing the landmine fields yet,” they said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

    Travelers along the Monywa-Mandalay have decreased following forced clearance operations, residents said.

    Myanmar military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun has not responded to RFA’s inquiries.

    RELATED STORIES

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    As of 2023, Myanmar saw the highest record in landmine and heavy weapons-related deaths at 1,003, according to a report published on Nov. 20 by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

    It was also the first time that Myanmar had the most recorded landmine deaths out of any country worldwide.

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

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  • Myanmar’s junta leader issued arrest warrant from ICC | Radio Free Asia (RFA) #myanmar #icc


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  • Young Myanmar rubber farmers help their family make ends meet in tough economic times


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  • Young Myanmar rubber farmers help their family make ends meet in tough economic times


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  • EXPLAINED: Who are Myanmar’s Arakan Army?

    The Arakan Army insurgent group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has made rapid advances against the junta over the past year and controls more territory and people than any other rebel force in Myanmar.

    Rakhine state, or Arakan as it used to be known, was a separate kingdom until it was conquered by Burmese kings in 1784.

    Now the Arakan Army, or AA, could be on the brink of a major step towards fulfilling what it calls the “Arakan Dream”, of once again securing self-determination for the state of more than 3 million people, some 60% of whom are ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and about 35% Muslim Rohingya.

    As the AA advances towards its goal of driving out junta forces, scrutiny has turned to how it sees Rakhine state’s future in Myanmar, how it would handle the state’s Muslim minority, amid accusations of serious rights abuses, which the AA denies, and how it would accommodate China’s economic ambitions.

    Lightning progress

    The AA was founded in 2009 by members of the ethnic Rakhine community, led by former student activist Twan Mrat Naing, seeking shelter with the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, in northern Myanmar.

    The AA recruited some of its first fighters among Rakhine men working in jade mines in Kachin state. They gained experience fighting the military alongside the KIA and other insurgent forces in Shan state, before filtering back into Rakhine state from around 2014.

    The AA burst onto the scene in Rakhine state on Jan. 4, 2019, with Independence Day attacks on four police stations.

    Aung San Suu Kyi, who led a civilian government at the time, ordered the military to crush the “terrorist” force but the two sides later agreed to a ceasefire.

    The AA condemned the military’s February 2021 coup but did not immediately resort to arms. Over the next two years of on-again, off-again ceasefires, the AA built up its administrative capacity through its political wing, the United League of Arakan, including a COVID-19 vaccination drive.

    In November 2023, it launched a large-scale offensive in coordination with two Shan state insurgent forces, as part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance.

    The AA made lightning progress, initially in northern Rakhine state and a southern part of neighboring Chin state that it claims, seizing military outposts, bases and towns, as well as large amounts of arms and ammunition.

    Arakan Army soliders with captured arms and ammunition in a phto posted on the group's website on Feb. 13, 2024.
    Arakan Army soliders with captured arms and ammunition in a phto posted on the group’s website on Feb. 13, 2024.

    The AA claims to have more than 30,000 fighters though independent analysts suspect its strength is around 20,000.

    The AA controls about 80% of Rakhine state – 10 of its 17 townships and one in neighboring Chin state. In townships it does not control, it has pinned junta forces into pockets of territory, such as the state capital, Sittwe, the town of Ann, home of the military’s Western Command, and the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast where China has energy facilities.

    RELATED STORIES

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    Confederation

    While all of Myanmar’s insurgent forces want to throw off military rule, they differ when it comes to ultimate aims. Most ethnic minority forces and pro-democracy militias drawn from the majority Burman community aspire to a democratic, federal union but the AA has called for a vaguely defined “confederate status” for Rakhine state.

    “We will see whether a Federal Union of Myanmar will have the political space for the kind of confederation that our Arakanese people aspire for,” AA leader Twan Mrat Naing told the Asia Times newspaper in a 2022 interview.

    The prospect of the AA governing Rakhine state is bound to raise fears for the Rohingya. The AA’s position on the persecuted Muslim minority community has shifted over the years, from seemingly moderate and inclusive to accusations of mass killings this year.

    The catalyst for the hardening of the AA line on the Rohingya was a campaign by the junta to recruit, at times forcibly, Rohingya men into militias to fight the AA.

    U.N. investigators said they documented attacks on Rohingya by both the AA and the junta. On Aug. 5, scores of Rohingya trying to flee from the town of Maungdaw to Bangladesh, across a border river, were killed by drones and artillery fire that survivors and rights groups said was unleashed by the AA. The AA denied responsibility.

    As well as capturing large volumes of weapons from the military, the AA has been helped by its insurgent allies in the northeast, analysts say. For revenue, it says it relies on taxes and donations from Rakhine workers overseas. It denies any link to the flow of methamphetamines from producers in Myanmar to a booming black market in Bangladesh.

    The role of China is likely to be crucial as it seeks to bring peace to Myanmar. China has extensive economic interests in its southern neighbor including a hub for its Belt and Road energy and infrastructure network in Rakhine state at Kyaukpyu, where China wants to build a deep sea port.

    Natural gas and oil pipelines begin at Kyaukpyu and run across Myanmar to southern China. The AA, like other insurgents in Myanmar, has not attacked Chinese interests, though it has surrounded Kyaukpyu.

    Some analysts say the AA, with its northeastern Myanmar connections, has links to China. However, there has been no public indication that China is pressing the AA to make peace with the junta, as it has done with groups in northern and northeastern Myanmar.

    Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • International criminal court seeks arrest warrant Myanmar junta chief

    The International Criminal Court, or ICC, issued an application for an arrest warrant on Wednesday for Myanmar’s army chief who now heads its junta, in connection with violence against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017, its prosecutor said.

    Myanmar’s military conducted a sweeping crackdown on Rohingya communities in 2017 after Rohingya militants attacked police posts on the border with Bangladesh.

    Thousands of people were killed when the military cleared and burned Rohingya communities. The violent campaign forced more than 740,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.

    The United States and other counties said the attacks by Myanmar’s military against Rohingya civilians was genocide. U.N. investigators concluded that the military campaign had been executed with “genocidal intent”.

    “After an extensive, independent and impartial investigation, my office has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services, bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement.

    “My Office alleges that these crimes were committed between 25 August 2017 and 31 December 2017 by the armed forces of Myanmar, the Tatmadaw, supported by the national police, the border guard police, as well as non-Rohingya civilians.”

    Radio Free Asia was not immediately able to contact Myanmar’s military for comment.

    In 2022, the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, rejected all of Myanmar’s objections to a case brought against it by Gambia that accuses it of genocide against the Rohingya minority.

    Myanmar’s military regime had lodged four preliminary objections claiming the Hague-based court does not have jurisdiction and that the West African country of Gambia did not have the standing to bring the case over mass killing and forced expulsions of Rohingya in 2016 and 2017.

    The ICC seeks to establish individual criminal responsibility for international crimes. The ICJ is concerned with state responsibility.

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    Myanmar’s military and the then government, led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, defended the 2017 crackdown in Rakhine state as a legitimate response to attacks by insurgents on security forces.

    Suu Kyi and her government were ousted in a February 2021 coup by Min Aung Hlaing.

    She and hundreds of pro-democracy colleagues and supporters are in prison, while war between anti-junta forces and the military has spread across large parts of the country, including Rakhine state, where Rohingya have again been subjected to violent attacks.

    Edited by Taejun Kang and Kiana Duncan.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

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  • Myanmar’s worsening power woes leave factory workers in dangerous heat

    When temperatures soar in Myanmar, industry unions brace for a familiar wave of complaints from workers, many echoing the same problem: harsh conditions in factories because of the heat.

    “It began with the electricity,” said a member of the Myanmar Industry Craft Service trade union, or MICS, a prominent workers’ union.

    “When the season is very hot, the factory uses a generator. But they only use it for the machines used by workers, not for the air ventilation system. So workers are unable to work in appropriate conditions.”

    MICS is not alone. A third of firms surveyed by the World Bank in April reported power shortage issues as the biggest challenge for their company, an increase from 12% in September 2023.

    Large parts of the country of 60 million people are not even connected to the electricity grid and for those that are, power cuts are frequent and can last for hours.

    Data from the National Unity Government, or NUG, a shadow government in exile formed by members of the civilian administration ousted in a 2021 coup, shows that daily power usage dropped from nearly 4,000 megawatts in 2021 to about 3,000 megawatts by June 2024.

    The junta told media in November that Myanmar required 5,500 megawatts of generation capacity. Despite claiming its hydropower and gas plants could produce over 7,000 megawatts, the junta blamed shortages on Typhoon Yagi that hit hard in September, reduced natural gas supplies and damaged transmission lines.

    People eat at a roadside food stall during an electricity blackout in Yangon on April 26, 2024.
    People eat at a roadside food stall during an electricity blackout in Yangon on April 26, 2024.

    The NUG, however, attributes the crisis to the junta’s mismanagement, the prioritization of military spending over basic services and refusal to honor previous fuel agreements set up by the democratic government through Thaliwa Port in Yangon.

    The NLD government signed Power Purchase Agreements with CNTIC VPower for LNG-to-power projects, including a 350 megawatts plant at Thilawa port. LNG imports, Myanmar’s first, began in 2020 to meet rising electricity demand.

    “According to the contract, they have to pay for the monthly tariff. But they gave up in 2021, after six months, the vessels went back. Because of this, Yangon has insufficient power,” said the NUG’s energy minister Soe Thura Tun.

    “So we have to collect from other sites on the national grid, like hydropower, generators and the gas turbines.”

    The junta has not responded to Radio Free Asia’s request for comment by the time of this publication.

    Challenges

    Compounding the problem, of the 62 thermal, hydropower and solar plants whose functionality was surveyed by the NUG, nearly half are inoperable.

    Rebel-controlled border areas where hydropower is common, and oil-rich central regions with frequent anti-junta insurgent activity, have been particularly affected, significantly disrupting power production.

    The World Bank said in a late 2023 report that authorities reported the power grid has been attacked 229 times between February 2021 and April 2023. Fighting has surged since then.

    A loss of foreign investment due to the conflict and environmental problems have also caused huge losses in power sources for the country.

    In August, Singaporean energy giant Sembcorp Industries announced its suspension of operations in Myanmar due to “escalating civil unrest” after pro-democracy rebels launched an offensive against junta forces in the vicinity of its US$300 million Myingyan Independent Power Plant

    The plant, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Mandalay city, was one of the largest gas-fired power plants in the country, supplying some five million people with electricity.

    A vendor sells food to a customer from her stall during an electricity blackout in Yangon on April 26, 2024.
    A vendor sells food to a customer from her stall during an electricity blackout in Yangon on April 26, 2024.

    Worsening situation

    Both the junta and the NUG have proposed various solutions, including the military’s nearly 50 power plant projects focused on wind, natural gas and solar power, but for the time being, civilians are facing the brunt of the problem.

    A member of the MICS told RFA that the organization had received hundreds of complaints about extreme heat in factories, where workers have suffered symptoms of heatstroke, including disoriented, dizziness and even loss of consciousness.

    “It’s becoming worse and the weather is getting hotter year by year, but factories focus only on their productivity,” he said. “They don’t account for workers based on the minimum standard. For example, they put a lot of workers in a building but there’s no sufficient ventilation system.”

    RELATED STORIES

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    Others point to the loss of opportunity for youth and rising costs of electricity on rural families.

    While access to electricity has been a worsening problem since the coup, it became even less stable after insurgent forces captured a hydropower plant in Kayin state that Mon state depends on for power, said Aue Mon Nai, Human Rights Foundation of Monland program director.

    About 1.5 million students in Mon state are affected by the cuts, struggling to study after dark, attend after-school tutoring classes and access the internet.

    “In my experience, I only witnessed two-hour, three-hour-sessions per day,” he said, referring to when the power was on.

    “Sometimes they’re shut off for two or three days. The poor are impacted and affected, it’s like that for the students. Without electricity, they can’t study, do their homework, they have to struggle like that.”

    Edited by Taejun Kang.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar’s Wa rebels reject Thai demand to withdraw from bases along shared border

    Read more on this topic in Burmese.

    Ethnic rebels in eastern Myanmar’s Shan state on Tuesday dismissed calls by the Royal Thai Army to withdraw from nine military camps along a disputed portion of the border with Thailand, suggesting Bangkok take the issue up with the ruling junta.

    The United Wa State Army, which controls an autonomous region of Shan state, has designated the townships of Tachileik, Mongsat, Mongton, Hway Aw and Pong Par Kyin — near Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province — as part of its “171 Military Region.”

    Leaders of the Wa army, or UWSA, met with officers from the Thai Royal Army in Chiang Mai, Thailand from Nov. 18-19 to discuss tensions along the border, after which Thai authorities demanded that the rebels withdraw from the nine military outposts by Dec. 19, according to Thai media reports.

    On Tuesday, the UWSA responded to the demand, saying troops withdrawals must be decided as part of official bilateral talks.

    “This is a matter of negotiation for the two governments,” said UWSA liaison officer Nyi Rang, referring the issue to Myanmar’s ruling junta, which seized power in a February 2021 military coup d’etat.

    UWSA officials said tensions between its forces and the Thai military are highest along the border with Shan’s Mongton and Mong Hsat townships.

    RELATED STORIES

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    Beginning Monday, the Royal Thai Army has been reinforcing its troops in the area, further stoking the border spat, a resident named Aung Kyaw told RFA Burmese.

    “At present, no clashes have occurred, but troops on both sides remain in a standoff,” he said. “It is hoped that conflict can be avoided to prevent any loss of life or property. The situation should be resolved peacefully.”

    Members of UWSA patrol a field in Poung Par Khem, near the Thai and Myanmar border on June 26, 2017.
    Members of UWSA patrol a field in Poung Par Khem, near the Thai and Myanmar border on June 26, 2017.

    Aung Kyaw said that residents of the area are concerned by military preparations on both sides of the border.

    Long-running dispute

    The areas under dispute between Myanmar and Thailand were previously under the control of Myanmar’s ethnic Mong Tai Army. However, amid conflict between Myanmar’s army and the Mong Tai army, the former deployed allied Wa forces to the areas, according to observers of ethnic issues in Myanmar.

    Following a 1989 peace agreement between Myanmar’s military and the UWSA, more than 80,000 ethnic Wa people migrated to eastern Shan state, and the Wa forces established strong military bases along the Thai border, observers say.

    Than Soe Naing, a commentator on military and political affairs, told RFA that the UWSA will not leave these stronghold areas, with a population that now numbers more than 100,000 within its 171 Military Region.

    “The UWSA has established positions in this area with the approval of former Major General Khin Nyunt of the Myanmar military to block the Mong Tai Army from importing supplies from Thailand,” he said. “The UWSA is unlikely to relinquish these disputed areas quietly, despite Thailand’s demands for their withdrawal. If Thailand carries out military action, clashes between the two neighboring countries are inevitable.”

    Several Myanmar and Thailand governments have attempted to resolve the long-running dispute along the two countries’ shared border, with little success.

    Troops of the United Wa State Army march in a military parade on April 14, 2019.
    Troops of the United Wa State Army march in a military parade on April 14, 2019.

    Thailand made similar demands to the UWSA during a township-level meeting in Tachilek in June 2023, which the Wa army also dismissed. But the stakes are higher this time around, with Bangkok issuing a deadline and the Royal Thai Army deploying reinforcements to the border.

    Attempts by RFA to contact the Thai Embassy in Yangon via email received no response by the time of publishing.

    Thailand downplays tensions

    Despite the rising tensions, Col. Rungkhun Mahapanyawong, the Royal Thai Army’s 3rd Army Region spokesman, described the situation at the border as “normal.”

    “The situation along the borders of [Thailand‘s] Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son remains normal – people are living their lives as usual and the [parties] along the border have good relations with one another,” he said at a press conference at the Royal Thai Army’s 3rd Army headquarters in Phitsanulok province.

    “The reported areas are not yet demarcated,” he said. “Government-to-government negotiations are ongoing.”

    However, he warned that Thailand will protect its national sovereignty if necessary.

    “The 3rd Army Region is ready to do its best to defend the nation’s sovereignty and protect the Thai people,” he said.

    United Wa State Army solders march in parade in Pang Sang, Myanmar on April 17, 2019.
    United Wa State Army solders march in parade in Pang Sang, Myanmar on April 17, 2019.

    Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for a response to UWSA reports of territorial disputes went unanswered Tuesday.

    Junta unlikely to engage

    A former military officer turned political commentator told RFA that the junta has little interest in the disputes between the UWSA and the Thai government.

    “This border dispute is not even equal to one hundredth of the importance of friendly relations between the two countries,” said the former military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “The [junta] … is preoccupied with internal affairs, so they aren’t interested in this dispute and won’t address it.”

    Tensions with Thailand come as the UWSA faces pressure from Beijing to end hostilities with the junta amid conflict at the border China shares with northern Shan state.

    Other Myanmar political commentators told RFA they believe that in renewing its demands on the longstanding territorial disputes, the Thai government is taking advantage of a time when both the Myanmar military and the UWSA are dealing with internal conflict.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

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  • Family of Myanmar ‘replacement soldier’ prays for his safety | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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  • Myanmar insurgent group agrees to talks after Chinese pressure

    Read more on this topic in Burmese.

    An ethnic minority insurgent force in Myanmar has said it is ready to talk to the junta, while acknowledging China’s efforts to end hostilities, in what an analyst said was the latest sign that Chinese pressure on Myanmar’s rivals to end their war was paying off.

    China has extensive economic interests in its southern neighbour including energy pipelines and mining projects and is keen to see an end to the violent turmoil that has engulfed Myanmar since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021.

    China backs the military but also maintains contacts with rebel forces, particularly those based on its border. It has been calling on all sides to talk while pressuring the insurgents by closing the border and cutting off essential supplies such as fuel.

    The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, based in Shan state, announced in a statement on Monday that it was ready to engage in talks with the military.

    The group was positive about China’s mediation and said it was committed to cooperate until favorable conditions were achieved. It highlighted its belief in a federal union that ensures the right to self-determination for all ethnic groups.

    Radio Free Asia was awaiting further details from the TNLA’s spokesperson on the possibility of talks with the military.

    One analyst said Chinese pressure was working.

    “It appears that China is exerting pressure on both sides,” said Hla Kyaw Zaw, a China-based analyst on Myanmar affairs.

    “The TNLA is also taking into account the impact of the conflict on civilians in its region.”

    The TNLA is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance of rebel groups who went on the offensive on Oct. 27 last year, and made stunning gains, putting the military under the most pressure it has faced since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948.

    Offers of talks

    The junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has recently made several offers of talks to the insurgents, including once while in China this month, on his first visit there since the 2021 coup.

    In his latest call for peace, in a message for National Day on Monday, Min Aung Hlaing said political issues had to be resolved through political means not through armed struggle, and if not, Myanmar risked disintegration and the loss of solidarity and sovereignty. The military has long seen itself as the only institution capable of holding the diverse country together.

    While calling for talks, the junta has also been stepping up airstrikes on rebel zones, with a rising toll on civilians, U.N. rights officials say.

    Insurgents groups, including the TNLA, have asked China not just to press them to make peace but to also tell the junta to stop its airstrikes on civilians. They say China has not responded.

    The rebels dismissed Min Aung Hlaing’s first offer of talks as window-dressing for a foreign audience, made at China’s insistence.

    Then in September, a Shan-state-based ally of the TNLA in the three-party alliance, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, said it would stop attacking big towns and cities and would no longer cooperate with the National Unity Government, or NUG, which was set up by pro-democracy politicians after the 2021 coup.

    The MNDAA announcement came days after it said China had warned it to stop fighting and had closed off the border. China gave the TNLA the same warning in late August.

    Analysts say China regards the NUG as under the influence of Western governments and wants it isolated.

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    ‘Stop the money’

    For its part, the NUG, which commands the loyalty of militia forces set up by pro-democracy activists, has been skeptical of the junta’s calls for talks.

    It said in its National Day comments that the population was united in the effort to overthrow the military dictatorship and begin a new chapter.

    The NUG stresses the need for concerted international pressure on the junta, including cutting off supplies of jet fuel for the air force.

    “If regional countries stop the flow of money to the military regime, it will suffer,” said NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw. “Sanctions should target companies that supply jet fuel and shipping lines which transport jet fuel for the junta.”

    Political analyst Than Soe Naing was also not optimistic about the prospects for talks given the bad blood between the two sides.

    “Only when the people have some weapons and power in their hands can they begin to talk about peace,” he told RFA. “As long as the people are oppressed and killed, peace talks will be impossible.”

    Myanmar affairs analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said there was nothing any other powers could do about China’s intervention in Myanmar and its support for the junta: “Neither the U.N. nor the United States has the capacity to stop it. ASEAN has also failed to implement effective measures.”

    China’s intervention on behalf of a deeply unpopular junta looks bound to inflame public anger. A small bomb recently went off outside the Chinese consulate in Mandalay city.

    “China is actively interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs,” said a Myanmar citizen in the South Korean capital, among a couple of hundred people protesting outside the Chinese embassy.

    “We, as members of the diaspora, are opposing China for recognizing the military council.”

    Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

    Translated by Aung Naing, Kalyar Lwin.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.