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Civilian deaths mount in Myanmar amid surge in junta airstrikes

May 8, 2023/in News

At least 452 civilian deaths in Myanmar’s Shan and Kayah states since coup. Civilian deaths are growing in Myanmar’s civil war amid a jump in airstrikes by the military junta, whose ground forces have faced stiff resistance from rebels and ordinary citizens who have taken up arms. The military has killed at least 452 civilians […]

Myanmar junta targets health, education facilities to undermine shadow government

May 7, 2023/in News

The military is unapologetic about using air power against National Unity Government clinics, schools and offices. In the past six months, in addition to their increased targeting of civilians as part of its “four-cuts” strategy–denying the opposition access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits–the Myanmar military has made a concerted effort to target the shadow National Unity Government’s […]

Civilian deaths mount in Myanmar amid surge in junta airstrikes

May 8, 2023/in News

Myanmar junta targets health, education facilities to undermine shadow government

May 7, 2023/in News

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Civilian deaths mount in Myanmar amid surge in junta airstrikes

May 8, 2023/in News

At least 452 civilian deaths in Myanmar’s Shan and Kayah states since coup.

Civilian deaths are growing in Myanmar’s civil war amid a jump in airstrikes by the military junta, whose ground forces have faced stiff resistance from rebels and ordinary citizens who have taken up arms.

The military has killed at least 452 civilians in southern Shan and Kayah states in the 26 months since the February 2021 coup, rebel groups said Monday.

The latest death toll sheds new light on the situation in southeast Myanmar, where decades-long conflict between the military and ethnic armies has worsened since the junta began an offensive targeting People’s Defense Force paramilitaries and the armed groups that harbor them.

The airstrikes often target villages where PDF fighters are believed to be, killing civilians in the process. While the military denies targeting civilians, members of the opposition say the deaths are no accident and instead are a tactic used by the regime to wear down popular support for the rebels.

A new focus by the military on suppressing its adversaries in the southern Shan and Kayah state townships of Pinlaung, Pekon and Mongpai – also known as Moebye – has driven up the number of casualties in recent months, the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, or PKPF – a local offshoot of the PDF – announced Monday.

Since the coup, civilian casualties have steadily risen. At least 172 people were killed in the region in 2021, 248 in 2022, and 33 in the first quarter of 2023, said an official with the group, who spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.

The official said that while the military has targeted civilians throughout the conflict as part of a bid to undermine support for the armed resistance, the number of casualties has risen dramatically with its pivot to airstrikes.

“We saw a lot of civilian deaths due to small arms fire, artillery shelling and landmines in 2021 and 2022,” the official said. “But in 2023, the major cause of civilian deaths is junta shelling and airstrikes. The junta has been attacking non-military targets where civilians reside with artillery shelling and airstrikes, which we consider a serious war crime.”

Casualties mounting

The PKPF said that clashes in the region mostly occur between the military and a joint force of fighters from the ethnic Karenni Army and the Karenni National Defense Force.

Casualties on both sides “are mounting,” it said.

The group said that 41 members of the defense forces were killed in the fighting in 2021 and170 in 2022. As of the end of April, 48 defense soldiers have been killed in fighting this year, bringing to 259 the total number killed by the military since its coup.

The funeral for two people killed by Myanmar military artillery, Feb. 28, 2023. Credit: KNDF/Baa

An information officer with the KNDF, who also declined to be named, confirmed that more resistance fighters and civilians are being killed by airstrikes, which the military has increasingly come to rely on this year as anti-junta forces enjoy greater success on the ground.

“Whenever there is a clash on the ground, it is certain that the junta planes will come to that area to attack us,” said the officer, noting that prior to 2023, the military mostly deployed troops without air support.

The junta carried out only two airstrikes in Kayah and southern Shan states in 2021 compared to 182 in 2022 and 179 in the first four months of 2023 alone, according to the PKPF. Since the coup, the group said, the region has seen 663 battles that claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 junta troops – 448 in 2021, 1,115 in 2022, and 432 in 2023, as of the end of April.

RFA was unable to independently verify the PKPF’s claims. Attempts by RFA to contact the junta’s spokespersons for Shan and Kayah states went unanswered Monday.

Junta ‘bluntly violating’ code of war

Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, dismissed the PKPF’s announcement as “propaganda.”

“It’s the nature of war that each side spreads propaganda,” he said. “For example, if an enemy soldier dies, they report three casualties for propaganda purposes … Since the other party is using this strategy a lot, we have to be very careful.”

However, the PKPF claimed that its data was collected “systematically” from the battleground.

In addition to the number of casualties since the coup, the PKPF also said that military airstrikes and shelling over the same period had destroyed 34 Christian and Buddhist religious buildings and 1,497 civilian buildings, including medical centers.

Banyar, director of the Karenni Human Rights Organization, said the number of destroyed buildings alone is proof of the junta’s war crimes.

“You are prohibited from attacking certain buildings, even during heated battles,” he said. “[Belligerents] need to minimize damage. There are codes that soldiers in battle must follow to avoid killing civilians and destroying their buildings, but the junta is bluntly violating all of them.”

Since the coup, conflict has forced some 200,000 people to flee their homes in Kayah and southern Shan states, most of whom endure brutal living conditions in the jungles of Demoso and Hpruso townships and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to aid workers.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

RFA News

Myanmar junta targets health, education facilities to undermine shadow government

May 7, 2023/in News

The military is unapologetic about using air power against National Unity Government clinics, schools and offices.

In the past six months, in addition to their increased targeting of civilians as part of its “four-cuts” strategy–denying the opposition access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits–the Myanmar military has made a concerted effort to target the shadow National Unity Government’s nascent civil administration and the provision of health and education.

The April 11 air strike on a gathering for the opening of a NUG government office in Sagaing’s Pa Zi Gyi village, which coincided with the distribution of food for the Lunar New Year’s celebration, led to the death of at least 186 people.

A single plane dropped two 500-pound (227-kilogram). bombs, followed by attacks by helicopter gunships. Almost all the casualties were civilians or civil administrators, and included 40 children; the youngest was six months old.

While most of the shadow government’s limited fundraising is going towards its military efforts, it’s providing basic social services in some liberated zones. Of the 330 townships in the country, 23 have a NUG prosecutor’s office and 118 judges have been appointed to date.

The shadow government claims to have established 154 “Pakafwe” township governments and to be providing some degree of education in 95 townships, and limited health services in 198.

The room of a hospital in Hsaung Phway village, Pekon township, Myanmar, is seen after an airstrike by junta forces on April 25, 2023. Credit: Mobye PDF, KNDF

The National Unity Government has long had popular legitimacy, evidenced in the daily flash mobs, acts of civil disobedience, or nationwide stay at home strikes, as seen during the anniversary of the coup or the Lunar New Year. The NUG has bolstered its legitimacy through the battlefield courage and tenacity of their People’s Defense Forces (PDFs).

But increasingly, the NUG will have to base their legitimacy on performance and the provision of social services. This is all the more important as the military’s government’s effective control is diminishing.

And for that reason the military has stepped up their attacks on the NUG’s and the various Ethnic Resistance Organizations’ (EROs) civil administration. Since the bombing of the NUG office in Pa Zi Gyi, the military has destroyed two NUG offices in Magway. It had only targeted one other NUG office in the past six months. Of the four, two were destroyed by air attacks.

Targeting health care and public services

The NUG’s provision of health care seems to be a case in point.

In the six-month period from November 2022 to April 2023, I have documented 35 separate attacks on health care facilities, either directly controlled by the NUG or EROs, or in areas under their influence. Health care providers were amongst the first and staunchest supporters of the civil disobedience movement.

These attacks have led to the death of four, with 13 people wounded. In 17 attacks, the health care facilities were completely destroyed, while eight suffered major damage; the remainder had minimal damage.

Fifteen of those attacks were from either air-dropped bombs, or rocket fire and machine gun attacks from helicopter gunships. Four health care facilities were damaged by artillery fire. The rest of the attacks on health care facilities were caused by ground forces or pro-regime militias.

A school bag lies next to dried blood stains on the floor of a school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Sept. 17, 2022, the day after a junta airstrike hit the school. Credit: Associated Press

Fourteen of the 35 attacks, or 40 percent, were in Sagaing, which has seen a disproportionate amount of violence, and four were in neighboring Magway. Four occurred in Kayin, while the remainder were spread in Shan, Kachin, Tanintharyi, Kachin, and Kayah.

In the latest attack, a helicopter dropped a 500-pound (227 kilogram) bomb on a health clinic in Shan State, though the bomb failed to detonate. Only three people were wounded.

The military has also routinely targeted both the NUG’s education system and rural schools that are technically part of the state system but which are actively supporting and staffed by members of the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Since November 2022, it has either bombed, struck by artillery or destroyed by ground forces some 20 schools. Six were destroyed in Kayin and Sagaing states, each, with two in Kachin and Kayah, and one each in Mandalay, Magway, Tanintharyi, and Chin.

Unapologetic military

The military has refused to concede that the targeting of health, educational and other social services represents a war crime. It often justifies the attacks by alleging that the PDFs were using the facilities for military purposes or that the militia members were receiving health care treatment. The military has been unapologetic in targeting those facilities.

The executive director of the the pro-military ThayNinGa Institute for Strategic Studies in Yangon, Thein Tun Oo, justified the attack on Pa Zi Gyi and others like it, calling it “ordinary … from an anti-terrorism standpoint” and said, “No government of a country can accept a declaration of autonomy within its sovereign territory.”

The attacks on the NUG’s civil administration also comes when the military has increased their own budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year by 51 percent, from $1.8 billion to $2.7 billion, to deal with the escalating war.

Although the economy is no longer in freefall, the two percent growth in 2022 and three percent growth predicted in 2023 has not made up for the 18 percent decline in 2021. Revenue collection remains down. Increased military spending is coming at the expense of public health and education, where enrollment and matriculation numbers are plummeting.

A young waste collector paddles a polystyrene boat looking for plastic and glass to sell in Pazundaung Creek in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 14, 2023. Dozens of Myanmar citizens are taking to the murky creek waters after being unable to find work amid the post-coup economic crisis. Credit: AFP

The NUG’s provision of health, education, and civil administration pose a threat as the regime acknowledges its own loss of control.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the State Administrative Council, as the junta is formally known, conceded in an event marking the second anniversary of the coup that only 198 of the 330 townships are “100 percent stable,” while the remainder required “security attention”. Leaked minutes of December 2022 Ministry of Interior meeting warned of losing control and predicted escalating attacks.

The military has admitted losing control in 132 of the 330 townships, or 42 percent. As a sign of their tenuous control, the military declared martial law in 47 townships, 14 percent of the total. It’s their only form of government administration that appears to be functioning.

The military government has gutted their own civil administration to wage war on its own population and an opposition government that is committed to serving the people.

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 RFA.

RFA News

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ND Burma

ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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