Although this group has “democratic” in their name, I would not consider them part of the modern PDF and there is zero percent likelihood they would bend the knee and act on NUG’s behalf. The Wikipedia read on MNDAA is awesome. It’s ironic that the acronym sounds like something out of a drug lab.
…The rebels soon became the first group to agree to a ceasefire with the government troops. Thus the Burmese government refers to the Kokang region controlled by the MNDAA as “Shan State Special Region 1”, indicating the MNDAA was the first group in the area of Shan State to sign a ceasefire agreement.[6] After the ceasefire, the area underwent an economic boom, with both the MNDAA and regional Myanmar Armed Forces (Tatmadaw) troops profiting from increased opium harvests and heroin-refining.[8] The area also produces methamphetamine.[9] The MNDAA and other paramilitary groups control the cultivation areas, making them an easy target for drug trafficking and organised crime groups.[9] The Peace Myanmar Group allegedly launders and reinvests MNDAA’s drug profits into the legal economy.[10]
In short, this is likely a drug war with both sides competing for control of the crop yield and the three major ethnic armies in that area taking as much advantage as possible to expand in this window of time in which the tatmadaw troops are spread like butter.
The British Museum’s exhibition Burma to Myanmar is now open and closes on 11th February.
There’s a huge uptick in violence in Rakhine State.
Meanwhile in Northwestern Myanmar, the regime attacked a refugee camp occupied by Christian Kachins. They’re facing criticism (for whatever good it will do).
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Good of The Diplomat to point out the vital roles played by non combatant women supporting the anti-coup. Clarifying this in the headline was correct - women are also taking up arms.
More context was provided on Shan State in the “big losses” BBC article posted by @vermes82. This both supports the “this is significant” contention other pieces and what I mentioned about territory expansion & narcotics interests. But now…scam centers.
What makes this attack even more significant is that it marks the first time that the well-armed insurgents operating in Shan State have explicitly aligned themselves and their military operations with the wider campaign to overthrow the junta and restore democratic rule.
However, there are other factors at play. These three insurgent groups have long-held ambitions to expand the territory they hold. And crucially China, which normally acts as a restraining influence on all the groups along its border with Myanmar, has not prevented this operation from going ahead.
That is probably because of its frustration over the military government’s inaction over the scam centres which have proliferated in Shan State. Thousands of Chinese citizens and other foreigners have been forced to work in these scam centres. The insurgents say one of their aims is to close them down.
The piece gets better. Re-shared link. Terrific read!
14 Nov
Edit: Something I hadn’t gotten wind of this summer is that a person charged in the plot to assassinate Kyaw Moe Tun (the UN Ambassador) was convicted in July after an 8 day trial. He faces up to 5 years in prison and will be sentenced in March 2024.
The sweaty shirtless drummers are giving off Laibach vibes.
https://twitter.com/Jake_Hanrahan/status/1730276568348422540
Absolute vibes amongst the Myanmar rebels.
Sadly the video doesn’t work on nitter…
Nice to see the excellent pieces above. Burmese are quick to master foreign musical genres btw. I really like the blending of styles in the Cobra Column video.
The regime does seem to be up against the ropes in some respects. A regime apologist went at it again in a garbage “think piece” and hopefully gets no traction. I always see the great analyst Anthony Davis pop up to trash those.
Kim Aris, DASSK’s son, has donated art before and it raised significant money [tl;dr: $1.7M]. This is as much a testament to the brilliant social media influencer Pencilo as it is to his art. Now he’s started a tattoo campaign for awareness - a water dragon - and from what I’m seeing in Burmese language posts, it is catching on with others taking on the same design.
BREAKING: KNLA/PDF forces have captured Mone, Bago region.
This is the first town to fall in Bago region and halfway btwn Yangon & NPT
https://nitter.net/nicholas6284/status/1731228032009199875
However, the battle is still fierce and it is not officially known whether town can be captured by Karen resistance forces.
I ran the CFR piece @GagHalfrunt linked on Dec 1 by a friend in govt who advises on policy. They agree this is a really important point: is the US ready for that scenario and, nope, we aren’t really readying for it. They also say the junta doesn’t realize yet how badly they are weakened.
In the past, nothing that was paraded as a “coup” was really a coup. The newly dressed regime may have “unseated” the general in power, but they continued to kiss the ring of the retired generals.
This time around, it was very much MAH’s coup. So their take is a coup against the coup is possible but more likely the military is under collapse. Having said all of this, the other message is, “anything can happen with Myanmar and the opposite of all of this is also possible.”
It occurs to me that the ethnic armed organisations that have truces with the Tatmadaw will switch sides if they think that the junta is going to collapse. They won’t want to be tainted by a reputation as collaborators, and they will want to have a seat at the table in post-junta politics.
Meanwhile:
7 Dec 2023
[updated]
Things seem to be moving quickly. I don’t know that collapse is imminent, but check the Irrawaddy.
More background from August on the scam centers.
I love how Sixth Tone drew the golden triangle and China’s borders:
