Injuries strengthen Myanmar’s anti-coup fighters

• The military fired into the masses.
• They killed hundreds in the following month.
• They prompted up people across the nation to take up guns.

Salai Peter lost both legs three months after joining Myanmar’s armed uprising against the military coup, three weeks before his 24th birthday.

Peter, like many young Myanmar resistance fighters, never expected to fight.

He is one among millions of Chin people who protested nonviolently after the February 2021 coup.

The military fired into the masses, killing hundreds in the following months and prompting people across the nation to take up guns. Some ethnic armed organizations fighting for self-determination along the country’s boundaries supported the national movement, while dozens of new resistance groups appeared.

In June 2021, Peter departed Hakha for the highlands to join Myanmar’s northwest’s burgeoning Chinland Defense Forces (CDF).

Three months later, he used a drone camera to track the military before an ambush on a military camp in India. The military blasted the camp after 200 anti-coup fighters killed 12 troops and took their guns, injuring eight individuals, including Peter.

He plays the ukulele and learns to walk with prosthetic legs in a rehabilitation center to return to camp. “I will return before this revolution is over,” he vowed. “This injury strengthened my willpower.”

Peter is one of more than 100,000 Myanmar citizens risking their life to combat the coup and a military that receives fighter planes and fuses from Russia, China, and India. UN experts have accused the Myanmar army of systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Despite a serious lack of equipment—even guns—the anti-coup movement appears to have gained considerable territorial advances over the previous year, especially in rural areas.

The National Unity Government (NUG), formed by ethnic leaders, activists, and the elected politicians the generals overthrew in the coup, announced a statewide “people’s defensive war” last September. A little over a year later, it stated that resistance forces controlled more than half of the country and called the coming year the “decisive year of the ultimate fight”.

A September briefing document (PDF) by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a collection of independent international specialists, reached a similar result. It stated that opposition forces controlled 52% of Myanmar and that the military had suffered a “irreversible collapse” in its ability to govern.

Advertisement

“Report on the one-year analytical review and planned future endeavors of the People’s Defensive Revolution in Myanmar” pic.twitter.com/FhKNdQVtgD

— Dr. Sasa (@DrSasa22222) October 8, 2022

Also Read

Former lawmaker in Myanmar is given a 173-year prison sentence

Former MP Win Myint Hlaing sentenced to 148 years in jail for...