Myanmar: New Blows against the Military Regime
Featured image: Me-ei bridge (left) and Kyaukkyi bridge (right) after being blown up by the military regime’s army. Source: CJ
The crisis of the military regime in Myanmar, who is accelerating the recruitment of civilians to try to prevent their inevitable fall, is sharpening. The regime’s armed forces nowadays suffer a very low moral and great defections of troops. In this occasion it is reported that 177 soldiers have fled from Rakhine to Bangladesh. Recently the regime has started the gathering of information on the population that can be recruited, which has led to an increase in migration to bordering countries to prevent being recruited. In turn, many families negotiate with the military so that their relatives are not sent to the front. Especially there is a huge number of Burmes who are fleeing to Thailand. In some of the largest cities, such as Yangon and Naypyitaw, the recruitment has begun.
This acceleration of recruitment occurs in a very complicated context for the Myanmar’s military regime, in which they see how they suffer a defeat after another at several points of their territory. The situation especially continues to worsen in the state of Rakhine and its surroundings, also in the south of the state of Chin. In Rakhine, in the last four months of offensive of the Arakan Army, nine towns and 16 military bases of the military regime have been taken, in addition to hundreds of military and police outposts. In total it is estimated that 1,200 regime soldiers have fled to India and Bangladesh, nine military ships have been destroyed, seven high rank officers have been eliminated and another six have been captured, and a helicopter has been taken down. The military regime applies the scorched land tactic and blows up the bridges of the territories that it knows that it will lose in Rakhine during its withdrawal. We have already reported on the blows that the military regime is suffering in Rakhine.
To the serious crisis suffered by the military regime in Rakhine, it is added an escalation of the conflict in the state of Kachin, bordering with China. There the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has simultaneously attacked more than 10 military positions along the border with China. The attack includes the seizing of one battalion’s headquarters in Momauk, Bhamo’s district.
The regime tries to respond to these constant blows as a dying beast and continues portraying attacks against the people and committing crimes such as the indiscriminate murder of civilians. It also tries to cuts communications in dozens of villages throughout the Burmese territory, as in the states of Shan, Chin, Kachin, Mon, and in the regions of Tanintharyi, Magwe, Bago and Ayeyarwady. But everything it is trying has been in vain, since the resistance against the military regime has only grown since the beginning of its offensives, and each attack carried out by the old State is another spark that makes the fire grow in the prairie.
