Myanmar junta touts surrender of over 500 rebel fighters

A Mandalay People’s Defence Force spokesman suggested the event was propaganda. Read more at straitstimes.com.

MANDALAY, Myanmar - More than 500 Myanmar opposition guerrillas surrendered to the junta, the military said on March 19, with AFP journalists witnessing a disarming ceremony that one resistance faction suggested was a propaganda stunt.

Myanmar has been consumed by a civil war since 2021, when the military swept aside the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup.

A kaleidoscope of rebel factions have entered the fray including battalions of pro-democracy fighters formed after the putsch and ethnic minority armies which have long resisted central rule.

AFP journalists in central Mandalay city saw hundreds of personnel assembled on a military base in the grounds of the ancient Royal Palace before a table stacked with guns, bullets and weapon magazines.

“You went there because you didn’t know any better, but now you have regained your conscience,” head of Myanmar’s Central Command, Brigadier General Aung Htay, told the assembled ranks.

“You all have experienced it firsthand. Living in the jungle is nothing like you see in movies or what other people say,” he said. “A person in the light can live in freedom without any fear.”