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Video shows rebel group sentencing own fighters to death for ‘abuse of power’

April 25, 2024/in News

Footage of public spectacle provides a rare look at how the ethnic army metes out justice to its own. The video opens with an overhead shot of 10 individuals wearing blue jumpsuits on a stage adorned with banners in Chinese and large loudspeakers before slowly pulling back to reveal hundreds of spectators – several of […]

Junta wields fear as a weapon with killing of civilians in Myanmar’s Sagaing

April 24, 2024/in News

New data shows the military killed nearly 90 people in the region in the first quarter of 2024. Junta troops arrested and killed nearly 90 civilians in northern Myanmar’s Sagaing region during the first quarter of 2024, according to data compiled by RFA Burmese, including several elderly villagers and others who were unable to flee […]

Video shows rebel group sentencing own fighters to death for ‘abuse of power’

April 25, 2024/in News

Junta wields fear as a weapon with killing of civilians in Myanmar’s Sagaing

April 24, 2024/in News

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Video shows rebel group sentencing own fighters to death for ‘abuse of power’

April 25, 2024/in News

Footage of public spectacle provides a rare look at how the ethnic army metes out justice to its own.

The video opens with an overhead shot of 10 individuals wearing blue jumpsuits on a stage adorned with banners in Chinese and large loudspeakers before slowly pulling back to reveal hundreds of spectators – several of them clutching brightly colored umbrellas to keep the sun off their faces.

But this is not a performance. The images captured in northeastern Myanmar’s Kokang region, in Shan state near China, show a public trial in the capital Laukkai by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, of members of their own ethnic army accused of “abuse of power.”

Among them is a 36-year-old district commander and two other guerrillas who the ethnic army said in a statement on Thursday it had executed following the trial on April 24. The remaining seven fighters received prison sentences, the MNDAA said.

The highly produced three-minute video provides a rare look at how the rebel army metes out justice to its own in the Kokang region after it captured Laukkai on Jan. 4.

The group is one of three ethnic militias making up the Three Brotherhood Alliance – along with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army – that has dealt the junta’s military forces a series of defeats since late last October. Their offensive has turned the tide in the civil war that broke out after the military overthrew a democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup d’etat.

In the video, which features a rousing, militaristic soundtrack, onlookers snap photos with their cellphones while officials in fatigues read out the alleged crimes of the 10 soldiers and their punishments. Within the crowd are families with young children, as well as groups of students with their instructors.

EU condemns executions

At the conclusion of the trial, the soldiers are led away in arm and leg shackles with signs hung around their necks identifying them as criminals in bold Chinese characters.

Three of the signs sport red Xs on them, marking those condemned to death. These men are made to stand in vehicles as they are driven through Laukkai to a field on the outskirts of the capital.

Screen capture from video of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army sentencing former Kokang rebels, April 2024. (Kokang Information Network via Facebook)

The next segment shows the three being led into the field before the picture fades to black. An order is heard and shots ring out, although no execution is shown.

In a statement on Thursday, the European Union condemned the executions “in the strongest terms,” calling them “an inhuman and degrading punishment that represents an ultimate denial of human dignity.”

The EU added that upholding the rule of law in accordance with international standards is an “effort integral to the aspirations for federal democracy.”

Attempts by RFA to contact MNDAA spokesperson Lee Kyar Win for additional information went unanswered.

Kokang has long been in China’s orbit, and many of its residents are ethnically Chinese. In the mid-20th century, Kokang served as a base for Myanmar communists, before the Communist Party of Burma collapsed in 1989.

In recent months, China had expressed increasing frustration with organized crime rings that had been allowed to operate in Kokang by junta-aligned forces. An estimated 120,000 people are being held in Myanmar against their will. Chinese nationals have both been trafficked by these groups and fleeced by them.

In its statement, the MNDAA said that the district commander who was sentenced to death had been involved in the kidnapping of two Burmese drivers, more than 10 Chinese nationals and six Vietnamese nationals between July and September of 2023. He also took part in the murder of two Chinese nationals, it said.

The other two fighters sentenced to death had served in the Logistics Department of Brigade 311 and were convicted of the theft and sale of weapons, as well as their involvement in “deadly kidnappings.”

Of the remaining seven soldiers, a deputy battalion commander of an MNDAA-aligned militia force and the deputy commander of Battalion 191 were sentenced to 15 and 20 years in prison, respectively. The other five were sentenced to terms ranging from two to five years in prison.

The MNDAA publicly executed four people on May 2, 2023, after convicting them of kidnapping and murdering Chinese nationals in Shan state’s largest town, Lashio.

RFA News

Junta wields fear as a weapon with killing of civilians in Myanmar’s Sagaing

April 24, 2024/in News

New data shows the military killed nearly 90 people in the region in the first quarter of 2024.

Junta troops arrested and killed nearly 90 civilians in northern Myanmar’s Sagaing region during the first quarter of 2024, according to data compiled by RFA Burmese, including several elderly villagers and others who were unable to flee military raids.

A stronghold of the rebellion, the Sagaing region has put up some of the stiffest resistance to junta rule since the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat, and has also endured some of the military’s most brutal atrocities during the country’s three years of ensuing civil war.

Observers told RFA that the military is attempting to create public animosity towards rebel forces in Sagaing, where its troops have suffered heavy losses in recent months.

Now, new data compiled by RFA shows that junta troops arrested and killed at least 86 civilians in nine Sagaing townships on the 101 days between Jan. 1 and April 10, or nearly one a day.

ENG_BUR_SagaingCivilians_04242024.2.jpg — The bodies of the victims killed by airstrikes are shrouded in blankets at a building in Kanan village, Khampat town in Sagaing region on Sunday, Jan.7, 2024. (AP)

The townships of Kawlin, Shwebo and Taze suffered the highest number of casualties over the period, according to the data, which does not include civilians killed by fighting, airstrikes and heavy artillery.

In one of the latest incidents, a combined force of junta troops and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militiamen raided Shwebo’s Shar Taw village on the evening of April 6, arresting and executing nine civilians, residents told RFA.

‘They killed indiscriminately’

A woman from Shar Taw said she was irreparably traumatized by the capture and killing of the villagers as they fled indiscriminate shooting by junta forces.

“I was going crazy that day, darting through gunfire and shells with the children,” said the woman who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “At times, I’ve contemplated ending my own life. It feels like there’s no escape.”

The victims from Shar Taw included seven villagers aged between 50 and 90, and two people between the ages of 20 and 30, she said.

ENG_BUR_SagaingCivilians_04242024.3.jpg — Charred homes sit in piles of ash in Mwe Tone village of Pale township, in the Sagaing region, Myanmar, on Feb. 1, 2022. (AP)

Two of the victims – both in their 80s – were burned to death in their homes and four others were shot dead in the village. The junta convoy detained a father and son, and a third man, and executed them after leaving Shar Taw.

The woman told RFA that the junta attacked her village entirely without prompting.

“Without doing anything to them, they make problems with us, killing people,” she said. “They killed indiscriminately, even those who have never seen a gun in their lives, those struggling to make ends meet, the mentally ill, and those who rely on their neighbors for support.”

Fear as a weapon

According to the list compiled by RFA of civilians arrested and killed in the first quarter of 2024, 22 people died in Kawlin, 19 in Shwebo, 14 in Taze, 10 in Monywa, seven in Khin-U, six in Kanbalu, five in Tabayin, two in Ye-U, and one in Kani. Three of the victims were women and the rest were men.

A member of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF, in Shwebo told RFA that the junta is intentionally killing civilians in a bid to stir up public animosity towards the rebellion.

“We [rebels] are constantly on the move, mirroring their mobility, which leads to regular confrontations,” said the PDF member, who also declined to be named. “When the junta forces face defeat, they unleash their fury on civilian areas like villages, resorting to arson and destruction.”

ENG_BUR_SagaingCivilians_04242024.4.jpg — The bodies of two individuals lie on a field in Nyaung Yin village, Myinmu township in the Sagaing region, central Myanmar on Thursday, March 2, 2023. (UGC via AP)

Kyaw Win, executive director of Burma Human Rights Network, said he believes the military is also using fear as a weapon to fight back against an increasing number of rebel attacks on its forces – particularly in Sagaing and Magway regions.

“Sagaing and Magway are at the forefront of the resistance against the junta’s army,” he said, adding that the military’s “manpower is dwindling” after suffering “significant losses” in the two regions. “While setbacks have occurred elsewhere, these regions appear to be under intensified targeting. The brutality serves to instill fear and dissuade people from challenging their authority.”

Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun and Nyunt Win Aung, the junta’s minister of social affairs and spokesperson for Sagaing region, regarding the arrest and killing of civilians, went unanswered Wednesday.

Legal experts and human rights activists have noted that the arrest and killing of civilians in conflict areas constitutes a grave offense punishable by death, as stipulated in both the Myanmar Armed Forces Act of 1959 and the Geneva Convention.

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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