SINGAPORE – In mid-March, a 26-year-old activist in a central Myanmar town began receiving calls from other young protesters asking if he could help them secretly slip into the jungle.
Wai Moe Naing is part of a small, loose network of people who started helping protesters who opposed the February 1 coup with rebel groups fighting the country’s army for decades.
For two months, protesters watched as soldiers and police shot down hundreds of unarmed civilians in broad daylight and raided their homes at night. The brutal repression hampered mass demonstrations that followed the coup across the country.
A small but growing contingent no longer believes that peaceful resistance is sustainable, and they turn to the many armed groups in the country’s border areas for help.
These groups belong to the ethnic minorities of Myanmar and have fought the military in long civil wars in their quest for greater autonomy. Some have now expressed support for the movement that the elected government wants to restore, despite an awkward relationship before the coup when they saw the civic leadership as unresponsive to their concerns.