The exiled National Unity Government (NUG) said that it has anti-aircraft weapons ready to launch and that the final battle with the junta will be fought within a year.
The comment was made by the NUG Minister of Communications, Information and Technology Htin Lin Aung at a press conference last Friday, 7 October.
He said that though the NUG does not yet have enough air defence systems to protect all areas from airstrikes, they will be deployed in some areas and in those areas defence forces will shoot down junta fighter jets.
He also said that defence forces would launch more offensives and that another year of fighting would end the military dictatorship.
“Now we are in a position to protect the general public, we have to protect them”, he said.
He also said that the NUG has recorded the names and details of junta fighter pilots who have killed innocent people in airstrikes and they will be punished once the revolution succeeds.
According to the NUG it has now received technical assistance that should help it protect people from junta airstrikes and in some areas, it has an early warning system to notify people of an imminent airstrike and give them time to find cover.
Nay Phone Latt, an NUG official, said that in the next year the NUG will work with its allies to fight on six fronts and coordinate a one-year plan to increase the number of military offensives against the junta to faster bring about the final battle with them.
He added that people power will be very important for the NUG’s strategic aims to be achieved. Before that, people will soon have to face the most difficult of times, but if everyone works together to overcome those difficulties the people’s goals will be achieved.
The junta has designated 2022 as the year of peace and 2023 as the year of elections.
In a speech made in August 2022, on the one and half year anniversary of the coup, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said that free and fair elections would be held in 2023, though he said that armed conflict in the country would have to stop before elections could be held.
The junta annulled the 2020 election in which the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory.
