BANGKOK (AP) – Units of an ethnic militia in eastern Myanmar’s Kayah state that is nominally part of the military have switched sides, allying themselves with the country’s pro-democracy movement to carry out attacks in recent weeks on army outposts and a police station, members of the area’s resistance movement said.
The two Border Guard Forces (BGF) units in Kayah are believed to be the first military-affiliated militia units to change sides since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
The takeover was met with peaceful nationwide protests, but after security forces cracked down with lethal force many armed resistance groups formed and have been loosely organised into what is called the People’s Defence Force. They have allied themselves with some major ethnic guerrilla groups in border regions around the country that have carried out armed struggle for decades, seeking greater autonomy.
Kayah, the smallest of Myanmar’s states and dominated by the Karenni ethnic minority, has experienced intense conflict especially since the army seized power. The area borders Thailand and is not far from Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw.
There are about two dozen BGF units nationwide with a total of 10,000 armed personnel.
The units were formed in 2009 from what had been autonomous ethnic insurgent groups that agreed to ceasefires with a previous military government.
The two BGF units that have rallied to the resistance forces comprise mostly members of the Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front, an ethnic guerrilla force formed in 1978 by breakaway members of the Karenni National Progressive Party, which has been fighting the central government for more than half a century and is the state’s main armed ethnic organisation.
A KPNLF member told the Associated Press (AP) on Sunday that almost all of the troops in the two BGF units, each with about 300 men, joined local resistance forces that recently destroyed four army outposts and a township police station in Mese in southeastern Kayah.
The member spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to release information from the group.
Mese, where the guerrilla force is headquartered, is about 200 kilometres southeast of Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw.
He said some of his fellow guerrilla fighters quietly collaborated with local armed resistance forces even before the militia units openly joined the fighting against the army in Mese in mid-June. Although the BGF units in Kayah were formally affiliated with the army, the Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front had kept some distance from the military regime.
A few days after the 2021 takeover, the group issued a statement decrying the military’s seizure of power and urging it to release political detainees. Khu Nyay Reh, a Karenni National Progressive Party central committee member, on Saturday also confirmed the defection of the two units to the resistance side.
He told the AP the militia’s members could not tolerate the army killing their family members.
