Local uprisings emerge to challenge Myanmar's army
20 April, 2021
Sleeping by their makeshift barricades, knots of teenagers at Tahan in the western Myanmar town of Kale hadn't expected an attack in the pre-dawn darkness.
Armed with a few hunting guns created by village blacksmiths, catapults, some airguns and Molotov cocktails, they were no match for forces hardened by decades of conflict and built with combat weapons.
The first barrage of shots and rocket-propelled grenades from Myanmar's army, referred to as the Tatmadaw, came around 5am on Apr 7, the protesters and residents of Kale said.
By evening, the one-sided battle was over, the sandbag barricades have been cleared and 13 persons were dead, three people mixed up in armed group told Reuters. Soldiers deployed on street corners and remain until now.
"So many persons on our side were wounded that we couldn't do anything and had to retreat," Aung Myat Thu, one 20-year-old protester in Kale, told Reuters from there by messaging app.
Although the resistance in Kale was quickly crushed, it points to a fresh phase of bloodshed in Myanmar after the Feb 1 coup, with some protesters now seeking to take up arms against the junta's forces.
The junta didn't respond to requests for comment.
The junta-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said 18 rioters were arrested in Kale after attacking security forces with homemade weapons. "A number of the members of the security forces were seriously injured," it said
Regardless of the early setbacks, disparate groups want to source better weapons, sharpen tactics, share intelligence and get training from a number of the two dozen or so existing ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, several opposition politicians said.
"Some small defence units have already been formed in the united states, locally, villages or wards," said Moe Saw Oo, a spokesman for the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a body representing ousted lawmakers which has set up a rival national unity government.
"Simultaneously, we are in coordination with ethnic armed organisations about the establishment of a proper defence force," he said.
More than 700 persons have already been killed and more than 3,000 have already been detained by security forces cracking down on the nationwide protests that contain raged since the military deposed the civilian government led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb 1.
Even while the fighters in Kale retreated, other groups have sprung up elsewhere. Acts of sabotage, like the burning of administrative buildings and attacks on businesses linked to the army have broken out the in the key city of Yangon and the next city of Mandalay.
"This is a sign of the determination and the extreme violence the military has been using against protesters instead of a strategic assessment they are able to take on the might of the military," said analyst Richard Horsey, who recently briefed the UN Security Council on the risk of national collapse.
Among the brand new groups, the Ayeyarwaddy Federal Army announced its arrival last week in the heartland of the Bamar majority, which forms the core of the armed forces together with Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
"Armed revolution may be the only way to come back the people's power," spokesman Mratt Thu Aung told Reuters via messaging app.
He didn't disclose the group's location or how big is its force and Reuters was struggling to do so independently.
"IF WE DON'T FIGHT..."
Pressure to organise an armed group in Kale began in mid-March as the army stepped up violence against protests sweeping the largely Buddhist country of 53 million.
On Mar 17, police opened fire on an anti-coup rally - killing four persons - after chasing protesters to Myohla on Kale's outskirts, said a 36-year-old activist who was simply there.
"From that time, the people, especially the youth, felt that we needed to take action to defend ourselves," he said, declining to give his name for reprisals against his family.
A few of Myanmar's protesters hope the country's various militias will unite to take up arms against the junta. (File photo: AFP/STR)
By late March, at least three barricades were create around the key market in Tahan, hundreds of individuals joining to accumulate sandbags. Young persons in the town banded together to create the Tahan Civil Defence Group, local activists said.
The group then raised funds and searched for weapons - mainly rudimentary hunting guns created by local blacksmiths, they said.
"At first we'd seven guns, which in turn increased to 15 within a short while," the 36-year-old activist said.
The group went for target practice session in a local forest on Mar 26. Two days later, the Tahan Civil Defence Group held off an assault by junta forces. Shortly after, it combined with other local groups to create the Kalay (Kale) Civil Army.
Such groups were consistently getting help from the (CRPH) in the united states, an official of the group said.
Several thousand young people had been given basic trained in arms and fighting by at least four ethnic armed organisations, mostly in Myanmar's border areas, he said.
"More are coming," he said, declining to be named. "If we don't fight, the continuing future of Myanmar is gone."
"HARDLY UNDERSTAND THE TATMADAW"
In Kale, the little-trained fighters were emboldened by early success.
The 19-year-old fighter said he was sleeping between barricades on the primary road through Tahan when gunfire woke him.
"I grabbed my hunting gun and two soldiers started shooting at me," he said. "I had one chance to shoot back, but my gun didn't work."
He sheltered behind a wall, then fled during a lull.
The Tatmadaw advanced systematically, blocking off escape routes, one resistance member in Tahan said.
"We don't understand the Tatmadaw mindset," the 43-year-old said from a safe house. "That's our mistake."
Several young fighters were among the 13 dead towards the end of a day of fighting, activists said.
Survivors had now gone underground, they said.
"We weren't safe in Kale anymore," the 19-year-old fighter said by phone from northeastern India, whose border is just over 100km away. Indian authorities declined to comment.
An area National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker involved with forming the Kalay Civil Army said fighters had been asked to lay low for the present time, while equipment and training were improved across Myanmar.
"Maybe the time should come to fight with the Tatmadaw," the lawmaker said, "For that, we will require good training."
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