BANGKOK (AP) – Myanmar’s military government has denied reports of a new mass killing of civilians by its troops, instead blaming pro-democracy resistance groups for the deaths of more than 20 people, including three Buddhist monks and a woman.
Members of armed resistance groups opposed to the military government have said the bodies of 22 people were found late Saturday in the compound of the Buddhist monastery in Nam Nein village, in the southern part of Shan State in eastern Myanmar. They blamed the army for the deaths.
No independent witnesses have emerged. The military government’s tight restrictions on travel and information make it virtually impossible to verify details of such incidents. The village is about 80 kilometres east of the capital, Naypyitaw. The area is part of the Self-Administered Zone of the Pa-O ethnic minority. It is governed by the Pa-O National Organisation, or PNO, which is allied with the military government.
Other Pa-O support the resistance. Critics of the military say there is strong evidence that the army has repeatedly carried out war crimes since seizing power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
Opposition to military rule has turned into what some United Nations (UN) experts have described as a civil war.
Anti-government resistance groups and villagers who had fled Nam Nein earlier but kept in touch by phone with the monastery said about 30 people had been sheltering in its main building since fighting in the area escalated last month.
Exactly what happened on Saturday morning is unclear, but the aftermath was documented in photos and video.
Those released on social media by the anti-government Karenni Nationalities Defense Force showed monks and other men with apparent bullet wounds lying near and against the wall of the monastery’s main building.
They also show pools of blood and bullet holes dotting the wall.
The Pa-O area is next to Kayah State, where the Karenni, an ethnic minority fighting against the government, are dominant.
A local leader of the Karenni guerrillas who took the photos said that his group’s snipers in the surrounding area had used their rifle scopes to watch about 100 soldiers firing their guns and torching houses as they entered the village on Saturday morning.
He said the snipers were unable to watch more, because they had to withdraw when coming under fire from government aircraft.
The Karenni guerrilla, who asked not to be identified because of fear of reprisals by the military, acknowledged that his forces had not witnessed the killings, but had only seen the bodies when they entered the village late Saturday and took photos.
He strongly denied the resistance forces had been responsible for the killings, as had been alleged by the army and its supporters.
A spokesperson for Myanmar’s ruling military council said the violence was initiated by the resistance forces who ambushed army troops and then entered the village where fighting continued.
