SINGAPORE – In mid-March, a 26-year-old activist in a city in central Myanmar received calls from other young protesters asking if he could help them slip into the jungle secretly.
Wai Moe Naing is part of a small, loose network of people who have started helping protesters oppose the February 1 coup train that features rebel groups that have fought against the country’s military for decades.
For two months, protesters watched soldiers and police shoot hundreds of unarmed civilians in daylight and invade their homes at night. The brutal repression has sparked mass demonstrations that swept across the country after the coup.
A small but growing contingent no longer believes that peaceful resistance is sustainable, and they are turning to the many armed groups in the country’s border countries for help.
These groups belong to Myanmar’s ethnic minorities and have fought against the military in long-running 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 uneasy pre-coup relationship when they saw civilian leadership unresponsive to their concerns.