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Monday, March 15, 2021

Inside Myanmar's bloodthirsty 'TikTok soldiers' gunning down their peers

The Telegraph
ByNicola Smith, 
ASIA CORRESPONDENT 
YANGON and Verity Bowman
13 March 2021 
Young soldiers take to TikTok in threatening videos

The young soldiers in the video clip line the benches of their truck with machetes tucked under their arms. Some crowd over a single mobile phone, cigarette in hand. Others lean on their hoe. “We don’t hold a gun any more," a line of Burmese script reads underneath, in reference to the blunt farm tools littered on the bed of the vehicle.

The message is clear: we don't just shoot, we bury too.

In another video a young soldier reaches for a machine gun, pulls it towards his face and kisses it before fixing his gaze at his smartphone camera with a tender smile. Meanwhile, a separate clip shows a young soldier drawing his fingers across his throat menacingly for his social media followers.

For those trying to make sense of the arbitrary street shootings that have become a daily occurrence in Myanmar's bloody standoff between pro-democracy protesters and the military junta, the chilling images may offer some clues.

Circulated widely on TikTok before they were taken down, the videos are part of a trend of what appear to be serving young officers glorifying the brutal violence they mete out on their peers with frightening abandon.


Myanmar's current bout of violence is nothing new.

Many of the young soldiers wielding powerful automatic weapons have been plucked from the battlegrounds of ethnic insurgencies and transplanted into urban environments, according to new research.

The military units now active in the metropolitan centres include light infantry divisions who have been implicated in some of the worst brutality in the country’s recent history, experts have identified.

Unit 33, just one of the divisions, has already been linked to crimes against humanity during a crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State in 2017.

Caught off guard by the magnitude of the backlash against them, the generals who launched Myanmar's recent coup are deploying these shock troops to terrorise the population through arbitrary detention, vicious beatings, night raids and the threat of being shot dead at rallies.

Among the most horrific tactics is the practice of singling out protesters at crowded rallies to shoot in the head.

The first such killing – of Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing, 19, who was suddenly felled by a bullet that sliced through her bike helmet as she took cover from water cannons – stunned the nation.

A bruised child being slingshot by soldiers hiding his their truck during an anti-coup demonstration

Social media is now flooded with the gut-churning evidence of regular catastrophic head traumas inflicted by live fire.

Lin Htet, a 19-year-old geology student, was one of the latest victims killed at a protest in the former royal capital of Mandalay on Friday. Before the rally his father had pleaded with him: “Son, don’t go. So many people are dying.”

He was later filmed lying on the street as soldiers appeared to coerce a bystander into saying he died from biting his tongue. The military have reportedly refused to release his body to his family.

“It’s basically using brutal counterinsurgency tactics which see the civilian population as the target,” said Richard Horsey, a Myanmar-based analyst with the International Crisis Group. The general population is now the “enemy.”

The units focused on sowing fear on the streets to break the spirit of demonstrators, he added. At least another three people were killed on Friday, including a 21-year-old, taking the total death toll over 70.
A woman cries near a portrait of Lin Htet, who was killed in an anti-coup protest and his body was taken by military, March 12 CREDIT: Reuters



Amnesty International has identified a variety of military firearms being used to quell peaceful demonstrations, including Chinese RPD light machine guns, as well as local MA-S sniper rifles, MA-1 semi-automatic rifles, Uzi-replica BA-93 and BA-94 submachine guns, that go far beyond the limits of crowd control.

People killed by “well aimed, targeted shots” were not necessarily on the protest frontlines, with the aim of thinning out the tenacious crowds, explained Mr Horsey.

“They are trying to do what snipers do in combat situations, which is instill fear in the enemy by making death random and unpredictable and from an unseen location,” he said.

Entire neighbourhoods are being traumatised by night raids as troops swarm streets, waking residents with flash bangs, slight shots and random gunfire. “People are being dragged out in the middle of the night, kids and parents and lined up in the streets and threatened at gunpoint,” he said.

On Monday, the Sanchaung area in the commercial capital Yangon, was sealed off after dark as troops threatened to enter homes to search for demonstrators.

The crisis was averted when foreign diplomats raised the alarm.

More than 2,000 have been arrested, charged or sentenced since Feb 1.

Among them was U Khin Maung Latt, an official from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party [NLD], who died in custody, allegedly beaten during interrogation.

One protester who was detained in Myeik, a southern coastal town, described how he was beaten black and blue with belts, chains, bamboo sticks and batons. He and others were escorted into detention by troops who said: “This is the hell room, why don’t you guys have a taste?”

The battle-hardened units are increasingly supplanting the traditional role of crowd control from the police, reportedly prompting hundreds of police officers to leave the force.

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