Siblings driven apart by the junta but united in hope

As night fell at their makeshift jungle camp, Kwan and his comrades spotted a drone whirring overhead. Then came an urgent tip from a local that the military was about to raid their hideout.

The young fighters grabbed their weapons — modified hunting rifles and two prized new assault rifles — plus camouflage gear, phones and the precious solar panels that provide their only power for a couple of hours a day in the wilds of northwestern Myanmar.

They were still booby-trapping the camp with mines when the attack was launched on Wednesday night.

By the time they had fought their way out, one of Kwan’s friends was dead. As they escaped into the darkness, a blast rang out behind them: one of their home-made explosive devices had evidently served its purpose.

The skirmish was the latest clash in the savage warfare engulfing the country, pitting a powerful military machine against an ill equipped but determined guerrilla force in the battle for Myanmar’s future.

 “I don’t know much about politics,” said Kwan, 20, who was fitting air conditioning units in Yangon and enjoying city life with his friends until a military junta seized power in a coup a year ago this week.

Now he is serving with a unit of the rebel People’s Defence Force on the bloodiest front line of the conflict in Sagaing, near the Indian border. “Honestly, I am fighting because I hate the bastards [the junta]. Once they are taken down, I will go back to a normal life.

“But for now, armed resistance is our only way. We have given up on any foreign intervention. We realise we are alone. No one and no foreign country is going to help us.”

He added: “We are short of weapons so we take it in turns to carry guns. We don’t have the numbers to confront them in battle, so we stage hit-and-run ambushes, plant our mines and then retreat. They use drones to hunt us. They attack us from their air with helicopter gunships. And they massacre civilians and burn their villages to try to terrify them.”

Yet by some measures, it is the resistance that is winning.

Growing up, Kwan had no interest in politics. Nor did his sister Ma Ei, 28, who was a teacher until the coup. Their experiences since then — of dreams broken and lives upended, of death, sacrifice and radical defiance — are mirrored in families across the country.

The pair are more than siblings. After their mother died and their father left home when she was ten and he was two, she helped to raise her baby brother. “Kwan is like a son,” she said. “He means everything to me.”

On February 1 last year General Min Aung Hlaing, chief of the Tatmadaw, or military, overthrew the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, claiming that the landslide election victory of her National League for Democracy was the result of voter fraud. Suu Kyi, 76, now faces the likelihood of life in detention on a raft of trumped-up charges.

Ma Ei was at her home in a market town in Bago province, north of Yangon. “The internet had gone off overnight and the television was only playing military songs,” she recalled. “Then when the internet came back, we heard reports of detention of NLD leaders. I was so angry and sad, I was crying.”

She joined the civil disobedience movement (CDM) of strikes by public service workers and was a regular figure on protest marches with her fellow teachers in their green and white uniforms.

“In those early days, we truly hoped that the military would be ashamed by the scale of the opposition and restore power to our leaders,” she said.

But the mood soured quickly. For Ma Ei, who was prominent in the protests and organised funds and rice rations for the CDM, the threats began with anonymous online messages.

Then, in early March, a warrant was issued for her arrest for fomenting public disorder. “Only at that stage did I become truly scared,” she said. “I wasn’t just fearful of prison. I was fearful that if I was detained, I could not do anything for the movement.”

People were being grabbed off the streets, reports of torture behind bars were spreading. She went into hiding, moving between safe houses, after the police raided her home.

Ma Ei was sheltered by supporters but feared that her presence was too dangerous for her hosts and sought refuge in territory controlled by the ethnic Karen forces who have fought the central government for decades. But even there, the fighting intensified and so Ma Ei took the “sad and reluctant decision” to cross the Thai border into a life of exile.

In Yangon, meanwhile, her brother and his friends had joined the mass sit-ins around Sule Pagoda in the crowded heart of the city. The atmosphere was initially almost festive and the camaraderie strong, but there were soon violent crackdowns.

First came attacks by pro-junta assailants in plain clothes, then the security forces deployed rubber bullets and stun guns, followed by live rounds and sniper fire. Kwan was one of the so-called “frontliners”, building barricades, carrying supplies and organising flashmob strikes.

“We tried to stick with mass non- violent protests but the attacks were too brutal. There were informers everywhere, they had my picture and my name.”

For several months he went underground in Yangon, joining a cell that planted bombs at government offices and at the homes of officials and agents.

“I was living in constant fear that the door would be kicked in and I’d be taken away. It really took a toll on my mental health. And it was also clear that our underground activities would not defeat this junta.”

The country spiralled into chaos and collapse, battered by the dual disasters of the coup and a devastating Covid-19 outbreak. Public services ground to a halt, with medical staff and teachers at the forefront of the CDM, refusing to work under the junta. The economy went into freefall, shrinking by 18 per cent last year, according to the World Bank.

In September, the National Unity Government — a shadow administration formed by politicians elected in 2020 — declared a “defensive war”. The Gandhian principles of non-violent protest were swept away by the brutality of the junta and the lack of support from the international community.

In October Kwan made his way north to join the People’s Defence Force in Sagaing, the heartland of the armed resistance, where he completed a month’s military training.

Soon after that the Tatmadaw in Sagaing carried out one of the worst atrocities of the struggle so far when they bound, shot and incinerated 11 villagers, including children, some apparently while they were still alive.

Some 1,500 civilians have been killed by the junta, many shot on the streets or tortured to death in prison, and nearly 9,000 detained, according to monitors. Countless more have died on both sides in the conflict, while more than 300,000 people have displaced by military offensives.

The military categorises all rebel fighters, such as Kwan, as “terrorists”. They face the death penalty if brought to trial. They might never make it that far. Three members of Kwan’s unit were summarily killed and their bodies burnt after they were captured in clashes.

It is little wonder that Ma Ei fears for the brother whom she still calls “baby” and has not seen for two years, since before the first coronavirus wave put the country into lockdown.

“I originally begged him not to fight,” she said. “I told him we could flee the country together, but he’d already made up his mind. I understood as our non-violent protests hadn’t worked. He told me, ‘If I don’t do it, I will always feel the guilt.’ I support him completely.”

Despite their brutality and overwhelming advantage in firepower the Tatmadaw are racking up defeats and ceding territory in Sagaing.

“Force is the only language that the Tatmadaw understands and now the opposition is speaking it,” a Yangon-based analyst said. “The military are taking a lot of casualties. They are really shocked by events in Sagaing. They have lost the hearts and minds.”

Leaving Myanmar was never an option for Kwan. “I don’t know if we’re winning or losing,” he said. “But I’m fighting because that’s my duty and my responsibility. I have to finish what I’ve started. If we all leave, the revolution can never succeed.”