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Coup in Myanmar: How guerrillas in Thailand prepare for war

2021-12-05T13:46:19.153Z


In a Thai border town, a guerrilla is forming against the generals in Myanmar. They smuggle weapons, treat wounds, plan combat. And believe that only they can still bring freedom to their homeland.


Enlarge image

Street scene in Mae Sot, Thailand

Photo: Aung Naing Soe / DER SPIEGEL

The blood has found a path, from the label on the neck to the shirt collar to the front where the button placket begins.

Down the fabric over the right breast.

Three or four splashes, maybe from the last hard blow to the head that broke the skull bone.

The blood is dry.

The testimony of violence is forever.

Min Nyo has the shirt on his lap that he had on the morning of March 10, 2021

carried, in Pyay, a small town in Myanmar, in the Bago region.

He had filmed the protests against the military in the streets.

He is a TV journalist, had done his job.

Then they arrested him, put him in front of the wall of the police station with a plastic bag over his head, beat him, and locked him up.

The shirt is gray and short-sleeved, in some places blue and white striped, size S. Now, safe, here in a hotel room in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, Min Nyo can speak openly about the seven months he was in prison Myanmar.

When he does, he puts his hand on the back of his neck, once, twice, three times.

Almost like to shed the pain he remembers.

It is okay for Min Nyo to stand by his real name in this story, to show his face.

Meeting his family, the two sons, the daughter, the wife, the place where they now live, that is not possible.

"You don't hesitate to kill us," he says.

Min Nyo escaped the junta, but his fear is still there.

Myanmar, his home country, is just across the river.

He can see her.

And do not forget.

Mae Sot, in the north-west of Thailand, looks like an elongated village.

Three-story houses, shops, car repair shops and apartments line the dusty streets.

About 50,000 Thai citizens live here.

In addition, it is estimated that there are twice as many refugees and migrants from Myanmar.

The large market, which has papaya, poultry and fresh tilapia, is divided into two parts, a Thai and a Burmese area.

Thanaka, a yellowish paste made from crushed tree bark, with which women and men in Myanmar put cream on their faces to protect themselves from the sun, is in the shop windows of the Burmese shop assistants.

Mae Sot has always been a first point of contact for Burmese opponents of the regime, and for women and men from Myanmar who are looking for a better life in neighboring Thailand, for work in hotels, restaurants, kitchens, factories, as taxi drivers.

There are two border crossings, wide roads for trucks that bring goods from Thailand to Myanmar and from Myanmar to Thailand, building materials, crops, smuggled drugs, jade, wood.

And there is the river, which has never been a hard limit here;

Farmers and fishermen cross it every day in their small boats.

On February 1, 2021, the junta returned to power in Myanmar, the country fell back into the hands of the military after years of new beginnings, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of government, an icon for many, was arrested.

Since then, Mae Sot has become a place of refuge for refugees from Myanmar, persecuted people and those released from prison. On the Thai side they all meet again. In the safehouses, the teahouses. They drink milk tea, talk about broken dreams. Hope for asylum in the USA, Canada, in Europe. But above all, they are planning the resistance from here. Mae Sot is now a city of warriors.

The United Nations and other organizations maintain shelters, so-called safehouses, in Mae Sot, in which refugees from Myanmar can temporarily live. The small apartments are spread across the city, from here the Burmese submit their asylum applications. There are many families among them. During the day you can meet them in the cafés in the center, where Burmese tea is served, where fried roti with condensed milk and "lap thoke", a salad made from fermented tea leaves, are on the menu like silent memories of home.

Until February it looked as if Myanmar with its 55 million inhabitants was on the way to more openness and democracy after decades of changing military dictatorships, civil wars and displacement. After a long period of censorship, most people in the country had access to the Internet by the mid-2010s. The boys studied abroad for a semester, grew up with smartphones and social networks. They noticed that social, political lack of freedom is something that should not be tolerated.

Now the men are in charge again, who see no value in democracy and only understand the language of violence.

The junta has arrested ten thousand people since the coup, killing more than a thousand, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The military, that is, an army of 300,000 men, armed by China and Russia.

Initially, people in Yangon and other cities protested on their balconies, beating pots in the evenings and walking peacefully through the streets.

Then the military shot a 20-year-old protester in the head, and a little later a six-year-old girl who tried to flee into her father's arms in an attack.

Many say that was the moment when peaceful resistance turned into violent struggle.

Thinzar smuggles weapons into Myanmar

In another hotel room in a different location around Mae Sot, which has to remain unnamed, Thinzar, as she should now be called, is sitting at a little table and says: “We are fighting the junta.

We have no choice.

We fight until we win. "

Thinzar is in her mid-twenties, she studied business in Yangon and collected art.

She also paints herself sometimes.

An acrylic color palette and a small canvas lie on the shelf behind her, she has started a picture, black abstract figures with blood-red speckles on them.

Thinzar takes a drag on her e-cigarette.

Thinzar's parents were active underground during the political unrest in 1988 and 2007, mother and father were imprisoned several times, they never stopped defending themselves.

Now is Thinzar's time.

And so she smuggles weapons and ammunition from Thailand to Myanmar, to the underground fighters.

A former engineer who fled from Yangon is building the remote detonators on the Thai side that Thinzar has brought across the border to Myanmar.

The rebels use it to blow up military vehicles and junta soldiers.

"To kill the trash," "to get rid of the rubbish," she says.

Thinzar says it has become too dangerous for them in their homeland.

You are on a black list.

You have seen comrades die.

She carried her off the street.

You cannot abandon your country.

An army of guerrilla fighters has formed underground in Myanmar since the coup. According to the International Crisis Group, there are hundreds of armed People's Defense Forces (PDFs). In the jungles, in the areas of ethnic minorities in Myanmar, they train for the war against the army of their homeland. Students, young men and women, university professors from the cities are all crawling together over the muddy ground in the jungle, building huts, practicing with weapons, in Brigade A, Brigade B, Brigade C.

SPIEGEL was able to see pictures from the training camps.

Many there who now swear with narrow arms on the freedom of their country, no matter what the cost, were not previously political.

Now they are united by the belief that they are the last generation that can prevent Myanmar from sinking forever into a military dictatorship.

But what can amateurs of war do against an armada armed?

Military fighters?

The weapons Thinzar is smuggling are likely to kill people in Myanmar, maybe civilians.

Thinzar says: “If we want to destroy the system, we have to accept that.

We do what we have to do. "

Has this coup changed you?

“Of course this coup changed me.

A year ago I wanted to open an art gallery or a book club.

Now I'm helping murder. "

Is she scared?

"I am a human.

I am young

I'm scared of dying.

I may die.

Then someone else will get up and continue my work.

Myanmar must become free.

This time it has to work.

We will win."

Thinzar's family has received asylum in another country, far away.

She herself will stay in Thailand, within sight.

She has not been able to sleep for six months.

She takes two different sleeping pills to get her head off.

Min Nyo, the man who carries his bloody shirt with him as proof, says that if he had no family he would have stayed in Myanmar and would have continued to fight.

He left for his family.

Now he supports the people in Myanmar, his friends and work colleagues as best he can from a distance.

Pass on information to them, listen to them.

Asks what they need.

Thinzar and Min Nyo.

Two out of hundreds stranded in Mae Sot.

They are safe, they could go somewhere where they no longer have to see their country, Myanmar, every day.

You could try to start a new life somewhere else, to finally be free.

There has been almost no year of political calm in Myanmar since independence from the British more than seventy years ago.

Ethnic conflicts, struggles for semi-autonomous areas, military dictatorships.

Where did Thinzar and Min Nyo and the others come to believe that it would be different this time?

Thinzar says, “That's the wrong question.

I didn't choose that.

The military has stolen our future from us. "

Min Nyo says, “They treat us like animals.

They didn't expect us to fight back so hard.

That freedom would be worth so much to us.

But it is worth everything to us. "

And then, in different places around Mae Sot, they both say the same thing.

Namely that it will take a lot of time and a lot of strength.

But that the people of Myanmar will win in the end.

That they won't go away.

This contribution is part of the Global Society project

Expand areaWhat is the Global Society project?

Reporters from

Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe

report under the title “Global Society”

- on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development.

The reports, analyzes, photo series, videos and podcasts appear in a separate section in SPIEGEL's international department.

The project is long-term and is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

A detailed FAQ with questions and answers about the project can be found here.

AreaWhat does the funding look like in concrete terms?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has been supporting the project since 2019 for an initial three years with a total of around 2.3 million euros - around 760,000 euros per year.

In 2021, the project was extended by almost three and a half years until spring 2025 on the same terms.

Are the journalistic content independent of the foundation?

Yes.

The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.

Do other media have similar projects?

Yes.

Major European media outlets such as "The Guardian" and "El País" have set up similar sections on their news sites with "Global Development" and "Planeta Futuro" with the support of the Gates Foundation.

Have there already been similar projects at SPIEGEL?

In the past few years, SPIEGEL has already implemented two projects with the European Journalism Center (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: the “Expedition ÜberMorgen” on global sustainability goals and the journalistic refugee project “The New Arrivals” within the framework several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and displacement have been produced.

Where can I find all publications on global society?

The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL on the topic Global Society.

Source: spiegel

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