Three new military recruits, including one who had killed a village administrator in Shwetaung Township, Bago Region, have defected from the military council’s Operation Aung Zeya to the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). According to their testimonies, military council troops are too afraid to engage in combat and are only conducting operations through deceptive tactics. The defectors revealed that the military council’s fighting capability has significantly deteriorated, and they are primarily resorting to traditional tactics such as burning villages and artillery strikes.
Private Khant Win Naing from Infantry Battalion 511 under Division 55 confessed that he had killed the administrator of Samankon village because the administrator was extorting monthly payments of 30,000 kyats from young people under the pretext of military service fees. After the killing, he joined the military to avoid capture. He detailed how the military council troops are now fearful and unwilling to engage in direct combat, instead relying on deceptive strategies and artillery attacks on villages to force resistance fighters to retreat.
Similarly, Private Dai Oo from Infantry Battalion 355 under Strategic Command-12 revealed how he was deceived by a taxi driver while looking for work in Myeik from Kyunsu Township. He was forcibly recruited as a porter and sent to the Moeyungyi Training School and No. 4 Military Advanced Training School before being deployed to the frontlines. He described how new recruits are first used for internal security and road construction at their base battalions before being sent to combat zones.
Private Kyaw Min Htun from Infantry Battalion 112 under Division 55, who resided in Ngakhunma village in Taungdwingyi Township, Magway Region, shared how military-controlled police forcibly entered his home with three vehicles to arrest him. He was subsequently transferred through various training camps in Taungdwingyi, Taunggyi, and Hopon, where he underwent two and a half months of training before being assigned to Operation Aung Zeya. These testimonies clearly demonstrate the military council’s practices of forced recruitment and extortion of civilians, highlighting the deteriorating state of their forces and their reliance on coercive measures to maintain their ranks.
