MYANMAR – As Myanmar’s struggle to end military rule turns into a war of attrition, the armed resistance movement continues to inflict losses in the enemy and advance with the struggle to establish democracy. However, doe to the difficulties encountered to finance the Revolution and being constantly attack by the army, members of donor-funded groups fighting on the frontlines say that they have been reduced to selling off their own property just to have something to fight with.
“Some of us have had to sell our cars, our houses, or even our parents’ land. After we buy weapons, we are left with barely enough to eat,” said one resistance fighter from Kani Township in Sagaing Region.
Although a decline in donations due to Myanmar’s worsening economic situation is a problem affecting all of the many armed groups that have emerged over the past year, some have been harder hit than others. Groups that operate on a small scale and that are only loosely associated with the People’s Defence Force (PDF) established by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) find it especially difficult to finance their activities.
“Although we are not directly under the command of the NUG, we will follow the revolutionary path that they have established,” he said.
High prices
Weapons are the single greatest expense facing Myanmar’s resistance forces, and sourcing them has only gotten more difficult since the fighting began. Most weapons are purchased on the black market, and smuggling them into conflict zones is now more of a challenge than ever. But as with most things, they are still available to those willing to pay the price. An AK-47 assault rifle that cost around 2m kyat (just over $1,000) a year ago now sells for four times that amount, according to sources familiar with the situation.In some areas, such as Yinmabin Township in southern Sagaing Region, the same guns can fetch as much as 12m kyat, the sources said. Driving this steep rise in prices is high demand, which has been fuelled by the spread of conflict to areas beyond those controlled by ethnic armed organizations (EAOs).
“In the past, only the EAOs used to buy weapons, but now there are groups all over the country that want them, and the arms brokers are taking advantage of this situation,” said a member of a group based in Mandala.
For those who can’t afford to pay ever-rising prices for weapons, handmade rifles are the only real alternative, and using them sometimes comes at an even higher cost. However this only demonstrate the great determination of this young people that decided to resist and fight against tirany.
“People occasionally get injured by guns that weren’t made in a proper factory. Some have even had to pay with their lives,” said Thaw Zin, the vice-chair of a Sagaing-based group.
People’s support
But it is still the support of the general public that matters most to keeping the armed struggle against military rule alive. And here, too, there are signs that the current situation may not be sustainable. While economic pressures are a very real factor in deciding how much people are willing to give, there is also a growing sense that some donors are simply no longer convinced that all the sacrifices are worth it.
“I would say that the majority of the urban population don’t have our backs anymore,” said one Mandalay-based activist.
The greatest loss of support appears to be among those who have the most to give, but who also feel that they have too much to lose if they are caught financing anti-junta “terrorist” groups.
“The big business owners don’t dare to donate as they don’t want to harm their own businesses,” the Mandalay activist said, adding that he still gives 300,000 kyat ($160) a month to help finance resistance activities.
“Fear is slowly soaking into the minds of the public, 80% of whom would hesitate to donate if they thought it would harm their business,” said another individual who has continued to make monthly donations. While smaller groups are seeing the greatest impact from waning support, the NUG has not been entirely spared.
JUNTA ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS
Since the beginning of the People’s resistance Myanmar’s regime launched airstrikes and raids on civilians locations, specially on the country side. Recently the regime attacked and torched 10 villages in five townships in Sagaing Region over the weekend, displacing thousands of civilians. UN accused Myanmar army of war crimes, torture and killings. The UN report said it was based on interviews with many victims of abuse, as well as witnesses, whose accounts were corroborated with satellite imagery, verified multimedia files and open-source information.
Airstrikes targeted Myaung Township on Sunday after people’s defense forces (PDFs) attacked junta troops at Ta Ma Say village. Ko Nway Oo, the head of the Civil Defense Security Organization Myaung, said a helicopter arrived after 10 regime soldiers were killed.
“The helicopter hovered above the village three times then soldiers shot where they thought people were hiding,” he said.
A resistance fighter was killed during the clash and four were lightly wounded.
Regime troops then set over 100 houses on fire in Za Yet Gone village, which had over 1,000 houses, and burned homes in Ma Kyee Kan village. At least five villages in Ayadaw Township and one in Tabayin (also known as Depayin) Township were torched by soldiers over the weekend, residents said. Civilians from northern Ayadaw fled their homes to avoid raids by more than 100 soldiers.
Around 200 houses in Lae Ngauk village, Yinmabin Township, were burned down by regime soldiers on Saturday. Buddhist monk Shwe Sanpin Sayardaw Ashin Wai Pon La from Yinmabin asked the regime to stop burning civilian houses as more than 2,000 houses had been burned down in Yinmabin and Pale townships.
Myanmar Resistance Groups get Creative to Manufacture Weapons
Struggling to get arms, PDFs started making their own weapons, an unprecedented move in the country’s recent history. Ko Kyaw Htin, an IT engineer graduate who formed the Yinmabin People’s Defense Army (PDA) with friends in Sagaing Region’s Yinmabin Township, is among them. Formed in late March last year, the Yinmabin PDA were armed initially only with homemade rifles with which to counter the brutal junta troops raiding their villages. The regime forces are armed with assault rifles, machine guns, artillery, helicopters and jets. So the outgunned PDFs started making improvised explosive devices (IED).
“When we began, homemade percussion lock firearms were the best we had,” said Ko Phoenix, a member of the Yoma Fighter resistance force in Sagaing’s Yinmabin Township. Phoenix is a former teacher who left his job to take part in the peaceful Civil Disobedience Movement and to join anti-coup protests. However, the junta’s brutal killings led him to join the armed struggle.
Producing explosive devices
Using YouTube and sharing knowledge between themselves, the revolutionary groups went from making rudimentary rifles to producing bombs and mines to ambush junta convoys, said Ko Phoenix. Using iron pipes, lead and gunpowder, the groups employ any raw materials available to produce weapons, ammunition and IEDs, he added.
Since last December, the junta has imposed restrictions on the transportation of iron and even the tools used to dig wells, said Ko Phoenix. Despite that, the revolutionary fighters have found other ways to obtain raw materials, and one of those is toppling military-owned Mytel telecom masts and reusing the metal in them.
“Mines are the most effective weapons because we have only homemade guns that make it difficult to compete with regime forces”, said Phoenix.
Resistance forces in others parts of the country also depend on IEDs in their guerrilla warfare against junta convoys and bases, and they have inflicted heavy losses on regime forces.
Ko Kyaw Htin’s Yinmabin PDA invented a long-range artillery system that has a range of around nine miles. The group used the weapon in fighting in Sagaing’s Kani Township on May 12.
Drone attacks
Resistance forces have also adapted drones made for cameras to carry bombs that can target junta bases. A video went viral on social media showing the Federal Wings resistance group, which operates in an undisclosed area, testing high-explosive bombs attached to large drones. The project took a couple of months to develop, according to Federal Wings. However, drones are expensive and so production remains limited. Each drone costs from three million kyats [around US$1,600] to 30 million kyats [US$16,000], while the bombs they carry cost around 100,000 kyats.
Currently, PDFs rely on donations from within their communities and money made from selling their own property to fund the manufacture of weapons. All the groups say a lack of finance is their biggest problem.
“We have the technology. If we had a bigger budget, we could produce enough weapons,” said resistance fighter Ko Phoenix, whose Yoma Fighter group is also making mortars. But due to their limited funds, Ko Phoenix said they can only arm around 20 per cent of their fighters. Yinmabin PDA has only equipped around half of its fighters.
“It is hard when we don’t have the financial backing. I want the National Unity Government (NUG) and donors to know that groups active on the ground require support. But now we are mostly excluded from that,” said Ko Kyaw Htin.
The NUG’s defence ministry said it has between 80,000 and 100,000 PDF troops under its command and spends 80 per cent of its budget on supporting them but “can’t fully cover them all”.
