The Sunday Times, 12 April 2024

From the Thai side of the bridge, they are invisible, but everyone knows they are there: Myanmar junta soldiers, about 200 of them, skulking along the bank of the Moei River.

Until this week, they were part of the government forces defending Myawaddy, one of Myanmar’s most important trading towns. Now they are the fugitive remnant of a defeated battalion, humiliatingly trapped between their victorious enemies and the border of Thailand.

On Friday a convoy of Myanmar junta reinforcements was desperately and unsuccessfully trying to break through by road to retake Myawaddy, which since Thursday has been controlled by forces of the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic armed group supported by pro-democracy fighters opposed to the military government.

The fall of the town is the latest in a series of defeats for the junta and one of its worst setback since it seized power in a coup in 2021.

“[On Thursday] KNU-led joint resistance forces captured the remaining military base in Myawaddy,” said Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the National Unity Government, a cabinet-in-exile run by ousted politicians. “This is a crucial victory for our revolution since Myawaddy is an important border town for the junta, one of the main [sources of] income from border trade.”

Since the coup, the junta of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has been fighting People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) — resistance groups who mostly support the deposed democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, since last year its worst defeats have been inflicted by an alliance of ethnic armies seeking independence for their homelands, whose struggles against the central state go back decades.

The junta was forced to mobilise military reservists following the successes of Operation 1027, a carefully co-ordinated operation in October by three ethnic armies that took control of 150 junta outposts and several lucrative border towns in Myanmar’s north-east bordering China.

On the other side of the country, the junta forces have lost towns along the western border with India to the Chin resistance groups, which want self-determination. But the loss of Myawaddy, in the southeast, and a hub for cross border trade with Thailand, is among the worst defeats so far.

The battle for the town began on April 5, with the attack that included PDFs but was led by the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the military wing of the KNU. According to the organisation, 670 junta soldiers surrendered after the first wave of attacks, leaving a single infantry unit, Battalion 275, still fighting.

Having apparently given up hope of speedy reinforcements, they retreated to the bridge where they linger in an uneasy no-man’s land. The opposition forces in control are bracing for efforts to retake the town of 55,000 people.

Its proximity to the Thai border, across two “Friendship Bridges”, makes it all the more sensitive. Both sides will be anxious to avoid annoying the Thai government or compromise security along the border, hence the decision by the victorious KNU and PDF not to attack the soldiers on the bridge.

PDF sources and reports on independent Myanmar online media say that a regime convoy is attempting to break through to retake the town, but that it has been stopped by resistance forces before the town of Kawkareik, a town 20 miles away. 

A PDF commander told The Times: “The [military junta] convoy could not make it past Kawkareik … They’re trying other routes. There are four other routes, some rough and some sealed roads. But any route they pick, they will get cut off.”

The other possibility is retaliation from the air using helicopters or fighter jets, which the junta has deployed to devastating effect in other parts of the country.

A year ago last Thursday, the Myanmar junta used a thermobaric “vacuum bomb” in an attack on Pai Zi Gyi, a village in the Sagaing region, killing at least 168 people including children, according to Human Rights Watch, the campaign group.

“Aerial bombing can be carried out in civilian areas at any time, so the public is advised to be cautious and stay in safe places,” the KNU warned in a statement on Facebook.

Many civilians have left the town and crossed the bridges into Thailand, which has said it will accept 100,000 refugees. About 4,000 a day, according to Thai authorities, were crossing by the end of the week, compared to 1,900 in the early days of the battle.

It seems likely that they will eventually be joined by the trapped junta soldiers, although they no doubt face intense pressure from their own commanders in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, to stay where they are in anticipation of a rescue that seems unlikely to come.

“They [the remaining troops of 275th battalion] were hoping to flee to the Thai side,” says a KNU insider. “I think the Thais would receive them, but they have to surrender [their weapons] first. Naypyidaw asked them to stay put at the bridge and wait for reinforcements.”

On the Thai side of the bridge, curious people of Myanmar who have fled to Thailand are waiting for a glimpse of their oppressors.

‘Those who raise the white flag won’t be harmed’

Kaung Kaung, 30, who lost his leg while making a homemade bomb on the front line in battle with the Myanmar military after the coup, waited for hours on the Thai side of the river to confront the routed soldiers.

“They do what they want, not even surrendering but instead saving their own skin without caring for the lives of others,” he said. “It’s not fair.”

Kaung Kaung briefly served in the Myanmar military in 2020, but says he dropped out over its history of atrocities and its troops’ brutal mindset.

“I want to tell them [the fleeing troops] to surrender to the ethnic armed group,” he said. “We will follow the code of conduct for those who raise the white flag. We’ll make sure they won’t be harmed, physically or mentally.”

Remona, an activist from Yangon, said she wanted to tell the soldiers that they would never accept the coup. “The military is burning villages,” she said as she waited at the bridge. “So, I want to say, ‘Hey, losers.’”