BANGKOK (TIP): Six months into an offensive against Myanmar ’s military government, opposition forces have made massive gains, but civilian casualties are rising sharply as regime troops increasingly turn toward scorched-earth tactics in the Southeast Asian country’s bitter civil war. There is pressure on all fronts from powerful militias drawn from Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups and newer resistance forces. Troops are retaliating with air, naval and artillery strikes on hospitals and other facilities where the opposition could be sheltered or aided.
“When the mass of people rise up against them, I think it terrifies them,” said Dave Eubank, a former US Special Forces soldier who founded the Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian aid organization that has provided assistance to both combatants and civilians in Myanmar since the 1990s.
“They know that hospitals, churches, schools and monasteries are important places for human care, and gathering, and symbols — and they hammer them,” said Eubank. “That’s new.”
Military forces now control less than half the country, but are holding on tenaciously to much of central Myanmar including the capital, Naypyidaw — recently targeted by drone attacks — and largest city, Yangon, and is far better armed than the resistance forces, with support from Russia and China.
“People have been saying that the regime was on the brink of collapse since two weeks after the coup,” in February 2021, said Morgan Michaels, an analyst with the International Institute of Strategic Studies who runs its Myanmar Conflict Map project.
“On the other hand, obviously the regime is weaker than it’s ever been…. so there’s no doubt that it’s in serious, serious trouble,” he said.
Thet Swe, a spokesman for the military government, denied that troops were targeting buildings and areas where civilians were sheltering, blaming their destruction instead on the opposition forces, without citing evidence.
“The military never harmed hospitals, churches and civilians in our country,” he told The Associated Press in an email. “They did not use that strategy and are fighting the rebels only for the sovereignty of our country.”
As the fighting has moved into more populated areas, about 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes since the start of the offensive in October, contributing to the more than 3 million internally displaced people in the country of some 56 million, according to the UN’s humanitarian aid agency.
With the collapse of its health care system and food supplies dwindling, 18.6 million people are in need, up 1 million from a year ago, including 6 million children, the agency said.
Opposition in Myanmar, also known as Burma, had been growing since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, but it gained new momentum in October when major militias known collectively as the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched a joint offensive.
Together, the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army — among the most powerful militias formed by Myanmar’s ethnic minorities — made quick advances.
As they captured huge swaths of territory largely in the north and northeast, including economically important border crossings with China and several major military bases, other ethnic armed groups sensed momentum and joined the fighting. (AP)