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On May 24 in the Kachin state of Myanmar, 13-year-old Awng Di went to her aunt’s house at noon to feed her chickens. Thirty minutes later, heavy artillery fell on the henhouse; Awng Di died before arriving at the nearby clinic.
“Our family has never been involved in politics … We are trying to survive,” Awng Di’s mother told Al Jazeera. “Now, I want to curse [the military soldiers] every time I see them “.
There have been clashes between Momauk municipality, which originated in Awng Di, since Tatmadaw, the Myanmar army and the Kachin Independence Army, the armed wing of an armed ethnic organization, since April. According to UN estimates, the rise in violence in Momau and other parts of Kachin State has displaced more than 11,000 people.
The riots in Momauk have exacerbated fighting across the country since the February 1 military coup, as decades of conflict have rekindled or accelerated conflicts between ethnic armed organizations in Tatmadaw and Myanmar’s border areas, and civilian defense forces are created in municipalities not seen before fighting.
In response to the rise in armed resistance, Tatmadaw has launched indiscriminate air and ground strikes in civilian areas, displacing 230,000 people since the coup. Security forces have also robbed and burned houses, blocked access to aid and the transport of relief items, reduced water supplies, cut off telecommunications networks, whitewashed shelter sites and killed and arrested volunteers seeking humanitarian assistance.
According to Naw Htoo Htoo, program director of the Karen Human Rights Group, Tatmadaw’s model of violence marked the continuation of a strategy known as the Four Restrictions since the coup, which the military began using in Karen State in the 1960s and has since expanded. civilian populations in other areas of ethnic minorities.
“[The Tatmadaw] it doesn’t use the words ‘four cuts’ more, but the strategy is certainly the same as the four cuts they used in ethnicities that have been around for more than 70 years, ”said Naw Htoo Htook.
Through means such as restricting access to food, funds, intelligence and recruitment, the strategy seeks to starve the support base of the armed resistance and turn civilians against resistance groups.
In addition to Karen State, the armed forces have also used the strategy in Kachin and Rakhine states, especially in 2017 in the northern state of Rakhine.cleaning operations‘Most of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims were sent by the Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh.
According to Kim Jolliffe, an independent researcher based on security and conflict in Myanmar, the strategy of the four cuts treats “civilians as“ side damage ”but treats them as a major resource on the battlefield.
“They are directly targeted by extreme violence and deliberately destroy their lives so that armed groups cannot find sanctuary and civilian aid,” he told Al Jazeera.
Nonviolent violence
Since the coup, Tatmadaw seems to have spread the use of the four cuts across the country, including in areas with a predominantly Bamar ethnic majority. In late March, after security forces robbed houses in the town of Gangaw in the Magway region, local people began fighting with hunting rifles. Four people were killed with heavy explosives and machine guns in response to Tatmadaw leaving more than 10,000 fleeing into the forest, a local media team in Myanmar Now reported.
The town of Pauk in the Magway region also witnessed indiscriminate violence on the night of June 15, when more than 200 houses in Kinma village were burned to the ground. killing an elderly couple trapped in his home. Two Kinma residents who spoke on condition of anonymity told Al Jazeera that they were unaware of the incidents that caused the fire, but according to Myanmar Now, the incident came after clashes between local resistance fighters and clothing-clad police and soldiers.
A resident told Al Jazeera around 11pm on June 15 that he had seen at least nine people dressed in clothes in the village, setting fire to houses and shooting cattle, pigs and buffaloes in the village.
Tatmadaw has blamed 40 “terrorists” for the incident, saying they are trying to discredit the media accused of burning the town.
The military spokesman did not respond to calls for comments on the incidents of repeated violence called Al Jazeera or the use of the “four restrictions” strategy.
Now, Kinma residents are scattered in nearby villages or sleeping in hopeful jungle shelters because they have little food and supplies, Than Tun Aung says is the nickname of one of two Kinma villages interviewed by Al Jazeera. . “Gathering support is difficult because there may be police or soldiers on the way,” he said. “We’re always alert and ready to run.”
‘All lives are threatened’
Kayah State and the neighboring southern Shan state, which were peaceful before the coup, have been the target of heavy attacks in Tatmadaw since May 23, when a group called the Karenni People’s Defense Force stormed a police station in the village of Shaneko Moebye. Pekon State municipality and fighting spread rapidly throughout the region. While civil defense fighters carried out direct ambushes with domestic weapons, Tatmadaw described them as “non-discriminatory attacks” by the UN, firing artillery and weapons into civilian areas and displacing 100,000 people, most of whom now live in nearby forests.
They have repeatedly attacked churches that have sought out several shelters, among others Church of the Sacred Heart In the Loikaw municipality of Kayah State, they were bombed on May 24 and four people were killed.
Giving help to Kayah and Shan is difficult and dangerous. Tatmadaw has blocked the flow of goods to municipalities affected by the conflict, killed and arrested aid volunteers, and killed two displaced people while they were trying to take rice from their homes.
A volunteer who preferred not to know his real name in Pekon Township for security reasons told Al Jazeera that his team initially used white flags in hopes of protecting them when it came to helping, but security forces fired them anyway.
His team stored food and relief at a school, but was initially unable to distribute the property because of the risk of being attacked. On the evening of June 8, when volunteers tried to carry sacks of rice to displaced people hiding in the mountains, security forces said they fired on the group’s vans, forcing them to retreat.
“That’s why they knew where to store food and food,” Joseph Rehe said. “They came to the school, took all our supplies to a field and burned them” in the evening. In all, more than 80 sacks of rice were destroyed, he said, as well as other dry food depots, medical supplies, an ambulance and a car.
“They didn’t destroy the things they were supposed to destroy and those that had nothing to do with the defense forces of the people they were fighting,” Joseph Rehe said. “The burnt food supplies were only for the displaced … The burnt ambulance had nothing to do with the fight. It said RESCUE and had a red cross logo.”
According to Joseph Rehen, security forces fired on the mountain over the next two days, limiting further aid.
In addition to food and supply shortages, displaced people do not have adequate shelter and medical care. In Chin State town of Mindat, where civil defense forces seized hunting rifles and homemade weapons in mid-May, Tatmadaw launched heavy gun attacks that displaced more than 20,000 people. Radio Free Asia reports that at least six displaced people have since died due to lack of access to health care.
“Everything is under military control and all lives are under threat,” said Salai Shane, the nickname for the head of a group in response to Mindat volunteer emergencies. He described the “extreme difficulties” in trying to reach displaced people.
Protesters in Mandalay are preparing to burn a simulated coffin against army chief Min Aung Hlaing on July 3. The use of extreme force by the military against protesters exacerbates anger at the regime [File: Time For Revolution via Reuters]
On June 13, one of his group’s vehicles was apprehended while transporting food and raincoats from Pakokku, Magway region, Mindate; Salai has lost contact with driver Shane ever since. Security forces arrested another member of the group on June 19 and confiscated his motorcycle and the material support he was transporting to the displaced people. When he was detained for a week, he was beaten and interrogated, according to Salai Shane’s account.
As aid workers in Kayah State were shot dead, Salai Shane says he is particularly afraid to provide aid on foot. “Sometimes, there are no motor routes and we only have to take several trips,” he said. “If we are in the woods or in the jungle, we can die and our bodies disappear.”
The military is furious
According to independent researcher Kim Jolliffe, Tatmadaw is willing to do “incomprehensible things” to people so they can stay in control. “He knows the only way to deal with the opposition and that is to present all the elements that are against the society with great force,” he said.
While the strategy of the four cuts may turn out to turn the public against armed resistance or weaken the decision, Naw Htoo Htoo of the Karen Human Rights Group says the approach will backfire.
“In the short term, armed resistance may have some effect due to food and water shortages and limited access to resources, but in the long run, [the Tatmadaw] he will not be able to rule anywhere, “he said.” The more people are oppressed, the more civilians are strengthened, because when they deliberately attack everyone, people hate them more. “
Victims of Tatmadaw violence have told Al Jazeera since the coup that the experience strengthened their hatred for security forces and they even decided to secure the fall.
Burned Kinma VIllage waste. Local residents say the military ran the houses. An elderly couple was unable to escape and died in the fire [File: Pauk Township News via AFP]
“It will never be possible for us to see the military in a positive way,” Than Tun Aung of Al Jazeera Kinma village said. “We just want to continue to live peacefully as farmers … We need to end this military regime or we will suffer for the rest of our lives.”
In Mindate, Salai Shane has come to a similar conclusion. “If the civil defense forces defeated the military and removed it from the area, we would be able to restore business and agricultural activities freely and have a better life,” he said. “We cannot separate the two: armed resistance groups are made up of civilians, because we all hate the military regime and aim to overthrow it. Restricting aid to civilians will only delay the movement of the armed resistance, but it cannot stop it. “
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