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Battle Towards the Junta
Resistance fighters Hein Htet, Raven (Kyee Kan) and Wild Boar.
By Khin Nadi 21 October 2022
Raven and the crew had been virtually completed affixing the bombs to the drones in preparation for an assault on junta forces in Myanmar’s southern jungle when the accident occurred. A devastating sequence of explosions decimated the squad, leaving many useless or with life-altering accidents within the worst such catastrophe to hit any of Myanmar’s armed resistance teams to this point this 12 months.
Raven (Kyee Kan in Burmese) was only a brief distance away when a shock was felt after which almost two dozen bombs exploded, simply 5 minutes earlier than the drones had been as a consequence of take off.
The primary blast was so loud it deafened him, leaving him unable to listen to the following explosions. An enormous orange ball of fireplace engulfed him and his younger brother Hein Htet, one other member of the crew, the blasts knocking them spread-eagled to the bottom.
Hein Htet was making a remaining verify on a drone and was nearest the bombs after they exploded. Raven tried to achieve to his brother however instantly collapsed to the bottom as one in every of his legs was shredded, earlier than shedding consciousness.
When he got here to, he discovered that his brother had been killed on the spot and that his leg must be amputated.
Six of the crew members had been killed and 5 injured within the explosions.
Frontline assault unit
The drone assault unit—which earlier than the accident consisted of 13 members, principally of their 20s—had all the time been on the entrance traces, bravely combating towards the highly effective regime with their drones in Karen State, the place clashes are reported virtually each day.
They used the plane to scout enemy positions, bomb and ambush junta bases and patrols, destroy regime forces’ heavy weapons, and assist resistance fighters discover advantageous positions and declare battlefield success towards closely armed junta troopers.
Raven, a 29-year-old resistance fighter, stated he had no regrets at all around the lack of his beloved brother and one in every of his legs, as he had ready himself for any eventuality when he took up arms. Along with having a leg amputated, he nonetheless has a chunk of shrapnel in his head, and has required stomach surgical procedure and therapy for a burned arm.
“We each knew that we might die any time, however determined to combat,” he stated.
After the navy seized energy in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, toppling the civilian authorities, 1000’s of younger folks from throughout the nation sought coaching from ethnic armed teams and took up arms to defeat the barbaric navy regime. They’re now identified collectively because the Folks’s Protection Pressure (PDF), the armed wing of the parallel civilian Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG).
The armed resistance remains to be going sturdy and may declare appreciable success after greater than a year-and-a-half of fight, however the PDFs, combating alongside allied ethnic teams in Myanmar’s numerous states and areas, are paying a heavy value for it. In response to information from the NUG’s Ministry of Protection, at the very least 1,500 resistance fighters have died within the clashes, and greater than a thousand have been left with severe accidents they’ll carry for the remainder of their lives.
Now, Raven and the opposite crew members wounded within the accident are sheltering in a safehouse, present process surgical procedure and receiving therapy for his or her accidents.
Whereas their our bodies are scarred and their motion has been affected by everlasting accidents, their willpower to uproot the navy dictatorship—the objective that their fallen comrades couldn’t attain—stays vividly obvious, and is matched by the sacrifices and willpower of resilient resistance fighters nationwide who’ve willingly given up all the pieces to combat for his or her nation and for democracy.
Revolutionary brothers
Till final 12 months, brothers Raven and Hein Htet, 25, had been skilled videographers with good-looking incomes and promising careers.
Their pursuits had been in videography, devices and manufacturing. And amongst these whom they captured on video are Myanmar’s now detained elected chief Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, different public figures, enterprise elites and celebrities. Each additionally dutifully solid their ballots for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nationwide League for Democracy (NLD) within the 2020 normal election, hoping for a greater future.
However their life story dramatically modified when the navy seized energy, overthrew the democratically elected civilian authorities and arrested State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint.
The 2 left behind the profession they liked and joined the resistance. At first, they took half in avenue protests, demonstrating peacefully. However after the navy ignored the folks’s voice—because it all the time has—and began cracking down on protesters with lethal power, they had been amongst these members of the protection groups who stood on the entrance of the columns to defend their fellow protesters in Yangon with makeshift barricades, smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails.
Later, the pair determined to take up arms because the junta’s killings of unarmed civilians and peaceable protesters mounted day-to-day.
Raven has a spouse and two younger daughters, whereas Hein Htet lived with and intently cared for his or her mom, who’s sick with the final phases of liver most cancers.
Vowing to topple the navy dictatorship, the 2 left their houses in April 2021 and joined the earliest batch of younger individuals who underwent navy coaching with the Karen Nationwide Union in a jungle. After coaching, they turned members of an city guerrilla power in Yangon.
Raven recalled one event on which, as guerrilla fighters, they got here near being caught. Each had been ready to assault the junta forces with all of the explosives they’d and blow themselves up, relatively than enable themselves to be arrested and killed. Solely round 50 out of 200 educated fighters from their batch stay now; the others have all been arrested or killed, or gone lacking.
In August 2021 the 2, each tech savvy, returned to a jungle camp with the concept of utilizing their information of civilian drone know-how in battle towards the better-equipped junta troops.
Drones designed to help cameras are more and more being tailored by PDFs amid reviews of profitable assaults on junta forces each inland and on water. However the testing and attaching of high-explosive bombs to drones carries nice dangers.
Raven stated that in relation to manufacturing weapons in addition to adapting drones for warfare, whereas the navy has established security protocols, in addition to analysis and manufacturing infrastructure, the PDFs haven’t any such capability, missing expertise, funds and supplies.
“Many [resistance fighters] are injured or killed by their very own weapons, as we now have to make them on our personal,” he added.
Their mom was knowledgeable of her sons’ destiny on the day of the accident. She responded by expressing satisfaction within the sacrifices made by her two courageous sons for the revolution. Her single want for them was: “Might the revolution succeed on the soonest.”
Raven created a remembrance video gathering reminiscences of occasions shared along with his fallen brother Hein Htet.
Six months for the reason that accident, the NUG has but to challenge a letter honoring the group’s fallen heroes, together with Hein Htet, though the crew reported the accident and casualties, in response to members.
In the meantime, unbowed, Raven continues the combat towards the junta in no matter method he can.
‘By no means quit your goals’
Since he’s nonetheless hospitalized, he has busied himself by doing work to assist different drone groups, equivalent to arranging to distribute tutorial supplies for tools, and serving to them to seek out funds.
He helps arrange drones and solves technical issues for fighters on the bottom in battle areas.
Working with Wild Boar, one other crew member who additionally misplaced a leg within the accident, he additionally creates content material together with a meals vlog and a line of meals merchandise underneath the title “Sar Bal Gyi” (“Mr. Glutton”) for Click on to Donate, a web based platform the place anybody can click on on hyperlinks posted by them and make donations in assist of the revolution.
Repurposing his videography abilities, Raven now shoots and edits the vlog “Sar Bal Gyi” hosted by Wild Boar during which the latter cooks, eats and talks with company, posting the packages on the platform.
Raven stated the goal of this system is to encourage folks struggling each day atrocities underneath the navy regime, displaying that even those that have misplaced limbs can proceed to pursue their goals, remaining sturdy and supporting the revolution.
Additionally they assist to promote the Sar Bal Gyi line of meals merchandise to lift funds for armed resistance teams. The proceeds are used to fund this system, cowl the rehabilitation prices of wounded fighters, and help resistance teams, he stated.
Making an attempt to help resistance fighters from behind the scenes doesn’t totally fulfill Raven, nevertheless; he’s desirous to get again to the entrance when he’s sturdy sufficient.
“I don’t need to bequeath this [military dictatorship] to my daughters; as a substitute I need to depart solely good for them,” he added.
Resistance fighter-turned-food blogger
The 27-year-old Wild Boar—the nickname was given to him by his comrades—suffered extreme accidents to his leg, arm and face through the explosions on April 6, along with his leg amputated on the hip.
He initially needed to die, so dangerous was the ache of his wounds. However after seeing a resistance fighter who misplaced each legs and an arm, however who refused to dwell on his losses and saved smiling, he determined he needed to transfer ahead.
Eschewing crutches and hopping round on one leg contained in the safehouse, which he shares with different wounded resistance fighters, Wild Boar now energetically cooks and hosts consuming reveals for the “Sar Bal Gyi” program, doing his half to help the frontline fighters.
Wild Boar talks about how he occurred to begin the ‘Sar Bal Gyi’ program.
However not like different meals vloggers, sitting for lengthy intervals is difficult for Wild Boar. He as soon as all of a sudden misplaced his stability and fell on the ground whereas filming an consuming section for the present.
He refuses to let the lack of a limb get him down, nevertheless.
“I take it as a badge of satisfaction and at any time when have a look at it [where his leg used to be], I need to stop folks from going through the identical destiny as me and develop extra decided that they [the dictators] should be uprooted.”
‘Our blood just isn’t pink, it’s pink…’
Earlier than the coup, freestyle rapper Tikyi, 21, was solely fascinated about rapping. American rapper J Cole is his idol. And within the 2020 normal election, he exercised his proper as a first-time voter, casting a poll for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s get together.
When the navy annulled the election outcomes following the coup, Tikyi felt it was unacceptable and joined the protests. In a crackdown on anti-coup protesters, he misplaced the one who was closest to him on this planet—his youthful brother—by the hands of junta troopers.
His brother, 18, who had simply completed highschool, was gunned down and killed by junta troops in Yangon in a brutal crackdown on an anti-coup protest shortly after the takeover.
They had been warned by their dad and mom of the hazard of being shot, and even killed, earlier than becoming a member of the protest, however Tikyi remembers his brother telling him that, whereas he was conscious of the dangers, “My brother, our blood just isn’t pink, it’s pink. We received’t quit.”
Tikyi’s brother was within the protection line on the entrance of the protest column chanting democracy slogans when junta forces began firing on the protesters. A bullet pierced the makeshift defend with which he was protecting his physique. He picked up his blood-soaked youthful brother and rushed him to an ambulance, however on the way in which to a hospital, the younger man died.
Tikyi later underwent navy coaching in Sagaing Area and have become a guerrilla fighter working underground for a number of months in Yangon and finishing up profitable missions towards junta targets. After a number of of his comrades had been arrested, he returned to the jungle camps.
“We don’t need the subsequent technology to endure like us. If we don’t win this time, they must reside via abuses and oppression for his or her complete lives,” Tikyi stated, explaining his motivation for becoming a member of the armed resistance.
Whereas on a mountainside present process coaching to develop into a commando, Tikyi fell and struck his waist on a rock. However it was solely the subsequent morning, when a superior struck him in the identical space with a picket rifle as punishment for having poor posture throughout drills, that he realized he was significantly injured.
Now receiving therapy in a secure place, he shared his willpower to return as soon as he recovers to combat towards the regime.
“I’ll proceed to combat them,” he added. However Tikyi identified that to ensure that the revolution to succeed, the NUG management must deliver the various totally different resistance teams collectively.
“We’ve got the folks. We’ve got spirit and perception. What we want is unity to overthrow them.”
In his free time the rapper-turned-freedom fighter nonetheless composes and raps in regards to the revolution and the sentiments and feelings shared by himself and his comrades.
Meals vendor-turned-determined fighter
“Provided that these demons are eradicated, will we be free,” insisted Ko Aung Gyi, an ethnic Karen from Ayeyarwady Area.
Earlier than the coup, he bought crispy fried pork lard in Yangon, making a superb residing out of it.
“We loved freedom and even obtained help from Amay Suu [Daw Aung San Suu Kyi]’s authorities through the pandemic. However it was all destroyed by the coup,” he stated.
“These guys are actually dangerous. Due to them, our persons are in serious trouble,” he continued.
Angered by the coup, which overthrew the civilian authorities for which he voted in order that it might proceed to rule for a second time period in 2020, he took half in peaceable protests following the navy takeover, and later joined the armed wrestle to uproot the navy dictatorship.
“After we win, I need the [ousted] civilian authorities to return to energy,” he stated.
On April 4 this 12 months, he was hit within the head by shrapnel from heavy artillery shells fired by junta forces as his column was trying to ambush a junta base in Karen State.
He went right into a coma and lay in mattress for almost two months. His mates stated he escaped loss of life by sheer luck. However the damage nonetheless impacts his nervous system, inflicting him difficulties with talking and shifting.
“I’ll by no means give up. I’ll combat them once more as soon as I get well,” the 33-year-old ethnic Karen stated, struggling to talk every phrase one after the other.
Bago resistance fighter
Nway Oo, who was a member of the identical crew as Raven, goals of being a chief minister in his native Bago Area and dealing for the folks. He was a campaigner for NLD candidates in Bago forward of the 2020 normal election.
If not for the coup, Nway Oo would by no means have had purpose to take up arms. He stated he needed to break up along with his long-time girlfriend, who disagreed along with his resolution to hitch the armed resistance.
An in depth good friend of fallen comrade Hein Htet, Nway Oo was amongst these injured within the April 6 accident. He was hit within the foot and decrease waist by shrapnel from the explosion. Earlier than the blast, he might stroll for the entire day within the jungle. Now, he can’t stroll for longer than one hour.
Nway Oo now volunteers for radio packages, reporting on the combating and the junta’s atrocities in resistance strongholds.
He shared his comrades’ confidence that the junta will certainly be defeated. “And will probably be fast if all play their roles dutifully,” he added.
He’s not alone in believing the revolution will prevail, and that, eventually, the Myanmar folks can have their stolen liberty, rights and on a regular basis lives restored to them.
“We’ll combat until we win and finish this [military dictatorship] in our technology,” Raven stated.
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