Burma Army plans to attack all of Restoration Council of Shan State’s (RCSS) camps along the Thai-Burma border, according to leaked news following a visit by Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing to eastern Shan State.
After the army chief and head of the junta’s State Administration Council (SAC) visited Kengtung on March 29, information leaked about an alleged letter the Burma Army sent to Thailand’s border committee in Mae Sai Township. It allegedly told the committee of animminent attack on RCSS’s southern bases.
Before this RCSS chair Gen Yawd Serk told Reuters and CNN the ethnic armed organization (EAO) strongly condemns SAC’s killing of unarmed civilians, vowing to stand with the people if it continues oppressing them.
“Burma Army is crazy just like a yaba addict,” an RCSS officer in Loi Kaw Wan camp told SHAN. They’re monitoring the situation and preparing for an attack, he said, adding they haven’t witnessed increased Burma Army troops in the area.
RCSS signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in 2015 and a bilateral ceasefire in 2012. After the military took over the country, the ten NCA signatories condemned the February 1 coup through its Peace Process Steering Committee.
The junta’s armed forces killed, beat up and arrested many people for protesting against the regime. During the last 58 days at least 520 people were killed, according to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In Kachin State, fighting resumed between Kachin Independence Army and Burma Army, and in northern Shan State it is escalating.
This week the Burma Army launched airstrikes against the Karen National Union in northern Karen State and Bago Region, killing at least nine people, injuring many others and displacing over 10,000 ethnic Karen.
With fighting breaking out in many of the country’s frontier areas, political analysts predicted that Burma Army attacks on RCSS would happen eventually. An official from RCSS’s Loi Tai Leng headquarters told SHAN they are closely monitoring the situation.
Thousands of villagers who fled Burma Attacks between 1996 to 1998 live in Loi Tai Leng, as well as other RCSS camps straddling the border between Burma and Thailand. During this time, Burma Army razed at least 1,400 villages in 11 townships in southern Shan State.
A report by the Shan Women’s Action Network and the Shan Human Rights Foundation documented 173 cases of rape and sexual violence committed by Burma Army soldiers against 625 girls and women from 1996 to 2001.
