KNU’s columns attacked Kawkareik City; the FATF financial organization blacklisted Myanmar

Myanmar Spring Chronicle – October 21 Scenes
MoeMaKa, October 22 2022

KNU’s columns attacked Kawkareik City; the FATF financial organization blacklisted Myanmar

On the morning of October 21st, the armed forces, including the PDF comrades led by some columns that could be said to be KNU’s allies, suddenly attacked the battalion, government offices of the regiment, the police station and the cell related to Kawkareik city.

The veterans, Bo Kyaw Thet and Bo Sa Lone, who were active in the armed forces as DKBA, recently rejoined KNU a few months ago. The column, the Albino Tiger Column, was led by Bo Saw Eh Say Wah, who participated in the Battle of Ukaritta.

It is still unclear whether or not KNU was involved in the decision to attack Kawkareik, but it is a city in KNU’s brigade area.

Some news media also reported with the headline that the battle to seize the city had started. It means that they are determined to capture the city of Kawkareik, and we read in one news article that a captain of the attacking column said that it might be difficult to capture the city. There may be a need for strategic weaponry and machinery to seize the city. Rather than taking over and controlling, attacking and retreating as a test of morale and strength may be more likely to be the purpose of this attack. It can also be considered that they attacked with the goal of being able to attack and threaten the city of Kawkareik even if they could not seize it. After the incident where DKBA attacked Myawaddy town during the 2010 election, the attack on Kawkareik city happened this time.

Kawkareik is a district headquartered city and is located near the Thai-Myanmar trade route. Currently, it is not as economically important as Myawaddy. Recently, the trade road has been closed for more than 2 days due to fighting with KNU near the Asian highway and the attack on Kawkareik city took place when traffic was halted. 


It is said that the military council used mainly air support as usual, while the ground battalions fired heavy weapons at the city of Kawkareik. 2 civilians were killed and several people were injured due to heavy weapons shelling and firing from aircraft and helicopters.

Regarding the attacks to capture the city of Kawkareik, most of the opponents of the military council cheered and supported them with the hope that they would advance to the stage of the battle to seize the city. As for the residents of the city, they might be worried about the destruction of the whole city, like Thantlang.

Another piece of news for today is the news that the International Financial Monitoring Group has decided to blacklist Myanmar. The 2 countries that have been blacklisted are North Korea and Iran, and Myanmar is the third country. It said that it would make an exception for humanitarian aid cases in adding Myanmar to the blacklist. Many believe that the consequences of this will worsen the country’s economic crisis, where the value of the currency has fallen, inflation is high, and jobs have been scarce since before.

Since 2019, Myanmar has been put on the grey watch list after being warned to implement strict policies on matters related to money laundering, illegal financial transactions, drug dealing and gambling. And this year, it has been now put on the blacklist.

There is no doubt that the economic crisis will affect the entire country. The mismanagement of wars and the financing of armed conflicts can also be more or less affected. I think the impact of the additional costs and the increase in the exchange rate will affect both the illegal economy and the legal economy. It was also seen that online remittance business prices were posting up to 5,000 to 6,000 kyats per dollar overnight. As soon as the next day dawned, we began to see cars lined up at gas stations in Yangon. It remains to be seen how much the impact on the economy will affect the political armed conflict.