Myanmar’s Anti-Junta Protesters Turning to Rebel Armies for Military Training

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - As the death toll from the military crackdown against peaceful protesters in Myanmar mounts, some in the Southeast Asian nation are turning to armed combat to fight back. They are trading peaceful resistance against the coup in the cities and heading to the country’s remote borderlands to join a patchwork of rebel armies. 

One of the oldest and largest ethnic armed groups, the Karen National Union (KNU), told VOA protesters coming from the lowlands of central Myanmar have been trekking to the rebels’ hilly jungle redouts for training since late March.  “We train people who want to be trained and who want to fight against the military regime,” said Maj. Gen. Nerdah Bo Mya, chief of staff of the Karen National Defense Organization, an armed wing of the KNU.  “We are [on] the same boat, helping one another. [We] help each other to survive and get rid of the military regime and to re-establish what we call the democratic government,” he said.