A ‘political game’: Shanni and Kachin armed groups at loggerheads

The Shanni Nationalities Military has been accused of aiding the Myanmar army because the coup, whereas its supporters say the group is defending in opposition to persecution by the Kachin Independence Military.

By FRONTIER

Ko Zaw Naing* lay on his again, arms tied and eyes blindfolded, as slick heat blood unfold from a slash in his throat. 

“Hey! Be sure you end it. Are all of them lifeless?” shouted a person from excessive above, the place Zaw Naing had been struck within the head and thrown from a ledge earlier than having his throat slashed.

Nonetheless shocked to search out himself alive, it was solely after the troopers left that Zaw Naing found he wasn’t the one survivor.

“The primary 5 folks had been killed, however the remaining three of us escaped with our throats lower,” he advised Frontier. He alleged that the attackers had been members of the Shanni Nationalities Military, an ethnic armed group that has been accused of collaborating with the Myanmar army because the 2021 coup.

A health care provider, who stated he handled Zaw Naing and one other survivor, corroborated the story and confirmed Frontier footage of their wounds. He stated the 2 males got here to his clinic in Kachin State’s Mohnyin Township on January 20, the morning after Zaw Naing stated the bloodbath occurred in neighbouring Sagaing Area’s Homalin Township. He stated each males had lacerations on their backs and cuts on their necks, however Zaw Naing’s throat was way more severely wounded. 

“He was weakened, and his wound was deeper. His entire shirt was stained pink with blood,” the physician stated.

Initially from Yangon, the physician fled to Kachin round two years in the past, shortly after the army takeover. He joined the mass strike of civil servants referred to as the Civil Disobedience Motion to protest the coup, beginning his personal secret clinic moderately than working for a authorities hospital.

“They had been saved at our hospital for someday. It’s not secure for them to remain right here,” he stated, explaining he was anxious that the SNA may raid the clinic and put different sufferers at risk. “So, I despatched them again to their villages as soon as their situations had been steady.”

The opposite man he handled, Ko Htin Lin*, is a 23-year-old from Homalin who got here to Nam Pote village in Kachin’s Hpakant Township to scavenge for gold in March final 12 months.

However as a substitute of hanging it wealthy, he discovered himself plunged right into a brutal conflict.

The razing of Sezin

After the coup and subsequent violent crackdowns on peaceable protesters, dissidents took up arms in opposition to the army, forming militias referred to as Folks’s Defence Forces in cooperation with ethnic armed teams which were combating for political autonomy for many years.

In July final 12 months, PDFs and the Kachin Independence Military, one of many nation’s strongest armed teams, clashed with regime troopers close to the Nam Pote gold mining creek, prompting most scavengers and their households to flee.

Htin Lin fled to Sezin village, additionally in Hpakant, which held round 600 households with a inhabitants of round 3,000 on the time, till repeated clashes between joint KIA and PDF forces and allied troops from the Tatmadaw and SNA left the village nearly empty. In early January, the junta pressured some displaced civilians to return, lots of whom needed to dwell underneath tarpaulin shelters as a result of about 400 properties had been allegedly torched within the combating.

Htin Lin was among the many only a few who by no means left Sezin, though his spouse and son fled with the others. He recalled sheltering within the village monastery on the night of August 8 final 12 months, amid the sounds of gunfire and artillery shells. A couple of week later, he stated the Tatmadaw entered the village, detaining anyone who remained, together with Htin Lin and a buddy.

“I used to be detained and interrogated for six days, with out meals or water, as a result of they accused me of being a PDF fighter,” he advised Frontier. “Then, I spent greater than six months in a 10-foot-wide cell with 13 different folks within the Sezin police station.”

One in all his fellow prisoners, who was already there when he arrived, was Zaw Naing.

Htin Lin stated the oldest detainees had been of their 60s, and the youngest, a 14-year-old boy, was brutally tortured.

“The child’s legs had been hit with a cylindrical ruler, till you can see his shin bone. When his household got here to search for him, the police advised them he wasn’t there.”

Htin Lin stated the prisoners may clearly hear any time an outsider visited, however guards would threaten to kill them in the event that they made any noise. Regardless of being held in a police station, their captors had been largely troopers, commanded by a military officer.

He stated they got solely a small quantity of rice, curry and water every day, and he was solely in a position to bathe as soon as throughout your entire six months.

“Out of the 14 folks within the room, 4 of them died across the month of Tazaungmone [November]. One in all them dedicated suicide by hanging himself at evening,” he recalled, saying the opposite prisoners had been crushed when the suicide was found. Three others died of sickness.

On January 19, Zaw Naing stated the prisoners had their mouths taped shut and their eyes blindfolded, earlier than being handed over to the SNA at round 9:30pm. The Shanni troops took them by truck to woods close to Thae Zalaut village in Homalin the place the bloodbath unfolded.

The physician who handled the survivors railed in opposition to the SNA, saying it “doesn’t symbolize the Shanni folks”, and accused them of being funded by the Tatmadaw to battle in opposition to the KIA and PDFs. He in contrast the group to the Kayin State Border Guard Pressure, an ethnic Karen militia underneath the army’s command that often assaults the Karen Nationwide Union.

‘An ethnic group will need to have its personal military’

However the SNA didn’t all the time have this fame.

When the group first entered the fray in 2016, it seemed to be extra anti-military than earlier Shanni armed teams. Even in July 2021, 5 months after the coup, a Shanni youth advised Frontier that the SNA’s supporters had been largely against the Tatmadaw.

The Shanni (“Pink Shan”) folks, also referred to as the Tai Leng, primarily dwell in northern Sagaing and southern Kachin. They’ve lengthy alleged discrimination and oppression by the KIA, together with pressured recruitment and extortion. In 2015, the Tai-Leng Nationalities Improvement Social gathering accused the KIA of assassinating two of its candidates in Hpakant forward of the election that 12 months.

As with different inter-minority conflicts in Myanmar, this alleged persecution has at instances pushed Shanni communities to arm themselves and collaborate with the army, with one distinguished Shanni militia working straight underneath Tatmadaw command.

Nevertheless, the SNA’s demand for an autonomous Shanni state put it at odds with the army, which has lengthy sought to suppress new ethnic actions for self-determination, whereas overlapping territorial claims in Sagaing and Kachin additionally antagonised the KIA. “The Kachin say we’re a vassal of the Bamar, and Myanmar authorities troops say we’re the Kachin armed teams’ informants,” a brigade commander advised The Irrawaddy in 2019.

As Sagaing and Kachin grew to become hotbeds of resistance to army rule after the coup, tensions deepened. The KIA more and more armed and supported PDF teams working in Sagaing, together with in areas claimed by the SNA.

The SNA didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark by Frontier however launched two public statements final month. Within the first, the group accused the media of spreading conspiracy theories and claimed to be defending the pursuits of the Shanni folks whereas dealing with assaults “from all sides” to “cripple, weaken and fully destroy” it. One other assertion, addressed to human rights teams and worldwide organisations, warned that the KIA was “accelerating the genocide” of the Shanni folks with the assist of PDFs. It stated Shanni folks “have been subjected to inhumane killings, torture and compelled servitude”.

Sai Kyaw Oo, a former member of the TNDP, stated that the SNA traces its non secular roots to the Wuntho rebellion of 1891, when Shanni folks rebelled in opposition to British colonial rule.

“Below that affect, the SNA was born,” he stated. “A few of them [Shanni] might not assume that [the SNA] represents the Shanni folks. Nevertheless, a real Shanni would say the SNA represents 80 to 90 % of the ethnic group.”

Kyaw Oo was evasive when requested in regards to the coup and present political scenario. He stated Shanni folks have additionally suffered throughout this time and heaped blame on the KIA.

“The KIA adheres to tribalism. They use their weapons to bully the opposite native ethnic folks within the area,” he stated, including that the SNA can’t compete on their very own, so it’s pure they’d cooperate with one other “organisation”.

Aung Khin, president of the Shanni Solidarity Social gathering, primarily based in Sagaing’s Monywa Township, stated the Shanni persons are “strolling their very own path”.

“For those who ask me what I consider them [the SNA], I feel an ethnic group will need to have its personal military,” he stated, though he insisted his celebration shouldn’t be related to the armed group.

However a 28-year-old Shanni from Kachin’s Bhamo Township had a distinct perspective.

Yaung Ni*, whose deceased father had served within the KIA, advised Frontier that among the PDFs working in these contested areas are largely made up of Shanni youth like himself.

“We Shanni folks will need to have our personal military, however the SNA doesn’t symbolize us. It solely represents the few who assist them,” he stated, insisting that PDFs in Homalin and Momauk townships are 80pc Shanni.

“This exhibits the SNA doesn’t symbolize your entire Shanni ethnic group.”

However Yaung Ni agreed that the KIA’s actions might have pushed the SNA to the opposite facet. He stated the SNA initially condemned the coup and clashed with the army, and even quietly educated some PDFs. 

“However issues began to alter because of the KIA’s advanced political targets. The KIA clearly doesn’t need the SNA to develop in energy. You may see that a lot of the battles in Sagaing Area have taken place within the SNA’s territory,” he stated. “In order that’s what pushed the SNA to hitch forces with the Tatmadaw.”

Yaung Ni stated the KIA has extorted taxes and forcibly recruited Shanni folks from smaller villages, however the truth that so many Shanni youth have volunteered to serve in PDFs underneath KIA command exhibits they’re prioritising overthrowing the army regime over the rest.

He added that regardless of the SNA’s preliminary anti-coup stance, the KIA finally supplied a extra viable technique of combating the junta. “I imagine the majority of Shanni younger folks from PDFs opted to serve underneath the KIA moderately than the SNA as a result of the SNA may solely present coaching and couldn’t meet their want for weapons or monetary assist,” he stated.

One other Shanni youth, 27-year-old Nyi Nyi* from Sagaing’s Banmauk Township, who unsuccessfully contested the 2020 election for the SSP, stated he has been unable to return to his house for greater than a 12 months out of worry of the KIA. 

“Recently, Shanni political, literary and cultural figures are being assassinated in Hpakant and Mohnyin in Kachin State, in addition to within the higher areas of Sagaing. We are able to’t say for positive if it was achieved by the KIA or a PDF as a result of [PDFs] are serving underneath KIA”, he stated.

On January 23, an unverified video went viral on social media, seemingly displaying KIA troopers destroying Shanni cultural artefacts in Homalin. Additionally final month, the Shan Ethnic Affairs Society accused the Kachin PDF of assassinating a SSP member in Mohnyin.

“The motive behind these assassinations, for my part, is that the rising energy of the Shanni threatens the Kachin,” Nyi Nyi stated, referring to the demand for Shanni autonomy in areas additionally inhabited by Kachin.

“The Kachin and Shanni folks have advanced historic and political issues. They didn’t begin with the coup, however the political sport bought trickier after it.”

* signifies using a pseudonym on request for security causes