Myanmar Spring Chronicle – August 15 Scenes
MoeMaKa, August 16, 2023
Villages in the southern part of Kalay have been blocked from purchasing food and fuel; Chairperson of the Rakhine Women’s Network has been arrested
In some villages on the road connecting Kalay in Sagaing Division to Gangaw in the south, as it is no longer easy to buy food and fuel from Kalay, commodity prices have skyrocketed, and hundreds of households from those villages have moved to villages controlled by the PDF, according to a news article.
These are 12 villages in Gangaw Township, such as Kyauk Pyote, Kyan Tha, Ingyun, Kyaukse, etc. In these villages, militia groups known as Pyu Saw Htee, formed by the military council, were originally active. But they have to go to Kalay to buy fuel and food.
As some of the roads connecting these villages to Kalay are controlled by the PDFs, the prices of fuel and necessary food items have become exorbitantly high in the long run, according to the news. In a complaint letter that went viral on social media, people living in that area have to buy fuel at a price of 60,000 kyats per gallon, and consumer goods are also becoming scarce.
These villages have strong militias of the military. As for the military council, it seems not to provide military assistance to these villages that support them in solving the difficulties they are facing. Therefore, it is concluded that the letter asking for help has spread online.
In the middle of 2021, when the armed attacks started, there were widespread PDF activities and suppression attacks by the military council in those areas. The villages were also the first to be burned down by the military council. However, later on, under the organization and arming of the military council, the villages turned into Pyu Saw Htee villages, where the militia groups called Pyu Saw Htee, formed by the military council, are active. Here, designating the whole village as Pyu Saw Htee Village, in other words, as a village that supports the militia, has a sense of dividing black and white without organizing. In the long run, rather than aiming to mobilize politically and militarily, it is possible to designate village-by-village whether it supports red or green, which could lead to attacks, looting, and food blockades.
If we cannot distinguish between civilians and armed militias, we may face mistakes when we arbitrarily include both armed and non-armed people, women, and children as part of the enemy and treat them as enemy villages as a whole. It should also be noted that civilians may be mistakenly killed. To prevent the crimes committed by the military council, such as the cutting off of food, medicine, and consumer goods and the arrest, torture, and killing of innocent civilians, including minors and women alleged to be enemy supporters and conspirators, it is necessary to clearly inform and announce the policy to maintain and enforce the code of conduct that the armed groups must follow.
Another piece of news for today is the news that the military council filed a case and arrested Daw Nyo Aye, the chairperson of the Rakhine Women’s Network (RWN), which is based in Sittwe, Rakhine State. The status of political activities and the activities of civil society organizations in Rakhine State is much stronger than that of other regions and states. There, we can see AA’s parallel administrative structures and the activities of CSO organizations that are in a position to be able to do more activities than other regions. As the chairperson of the Rakhine Women’s Network, who has been arrested, she is active in issues such as violence against women and other issues in Rakhine State. According to news reports, she was arrested after delivering a speech at a commemoration of Sittwe’s “Rice Killing Day” recently. Daw Nyo Aye’s daughter answered in a news article that her mother has filed a case under Section 505(b).
The Sittwe rice crisis occurred on August 13, 1967, when rice warehouses were broken into and the rice was taken away by a protesting mass, which resulted from the situation where they could not eat enough rice and had to eat rice porridge due to the high price of rice and the scarcity of rice. The following day, the military opened fire, and according to historical records, about 200 protesters were killed. Annual commemorations were also held for those who died in the historic event in which more than 200 protesters were killed. From 1962 to 1988, known as the Masala era (the period ruled by CPB party), the military generals ruled under various names such as the Revolutionary Council (RC), Myanmar Socialist Party, etc. These were times when the public could not buy or eat enough rice due to mismanagement.