Ethnic Armed Organizations Building Unity With Myanmar Anti-coup Activists

MAE SOT, THAILAND - In a sleepy Karen village on the Myanmar-Thai border in Kayin state, a day after the March 27 Myanmar government air strikes, rebel soldiers stood guard as two dusty trucks stopped near a Karen National Defense Organization camp at the edge of the hamlet.

Eight young men jumped off the tailgate of the truck beds with knapsacks and assembled near a bamboo hut. The group had come from Yangon to seek military training. They were obviously not soldiers. Their presence was the result of a growing new alliance between the most recent victims of Myanmar army attacks, prodemocracy forces, and non-Burman ethnic groups, such as the Karens, that have been involved in decades of conflict with Myanmar’s military.