BURMA COUP - 12

March 12: The subject of KNU Watch was initially the Karen leadership, and conflict and human rights issues facing the Karen people. It rarely strayed into news of Burma overall, or even what was happening with the other ethnic nationalities.

With the popular protests - we should really start calling them what they are, the popular democratic revolution - the Group expanded to Burma's overall situation. This is a once in a life opportunity to free not only the Karen people but everyone in the country.

The Group obviously is a publishing site for pertinent news, but it has also had the secondary objective of being an organizing forum. Now, with the protest, the latter is not only possible; it must be pursued. If you are in Burma, please participate in the protests and CDM, and consider other actions that you might take. If you are a member of another ethnic nationality, please encourage your leaders, particularly if your group has an EAO, to protect the protestors and to oppose, by all means necessary, the terrorist Min Aung Hlaing Junta. If you are outside the country, there are many opportunities to support the cause and everyone inside.

With what is happening in Burma and with the expansion of the Group's subject, membership has been growing by leaps and bounds. We can all make KNU Watch a leading platform in the movement for democratic change.

There is little question that many of the new members work in the Myanmar Government or are even police or soldiers. This is a special appeal to you. If you are in the government and have not already done so, please join CDM. If you are in the police or the Tatmadaw, or one of its allied militias - e.g., the BGF and DKBA, please also join CDM and for the former desert your posts. Under no circumstances follow orders to harm the demonstrators, and if you can take direct action to end the coup, please do so.

March 13: The terrorist dictatorship perpetrated full-on mass murder today. Around the country, the pattern was like before, crackdowns on specific protests and where one or a few protestors were shot. But in Rangoon it appears that the police and soldiers were ordered to kill the people, and as many as possible. The total death count for Rangoon alone appears to be over thirty and it may go a lot higher than that.

These are crimes against humanity, on camera. President Joe Biden, do something! Right after the coup you went on TV and spoke strong about how you would back the people. But since then you have only imposed very limited sanctions - they are having no effect on the regime leaders and street killers at all. Did your new Secretary of State - Blinken - persuade you to go slow? This is terrible advice. You must help save Burma and through this you will, in your first hundred days, cement yourself a a true champion of democracy. Do something! America doesn't sit back and watch. It acts!

This is State Terrorism! Fight the terrorism!

March 13: The people of Burma have been pleading for international assistance against the military dictatorship State Terrorists. They have asked, for weeks now, how many of us have to die before you will help? This is a very fair question.

Locally, China will never help - it is as much responsible for the murders as Min Aung Hlaing. Burma is a China colony, and the Colonial Master bears a huge portion of the blame. Thailand won't help, either, not militarily, although it will take refugees and if asked, by the U.S., it would probably help the border EAOs (if only by letting U.S. assistance reach them.) India, ditto on the refugees, but nothing else. "It's not our problem." Asean, "we don't intervene in anything - it's also not our problem."

The United Nations: "Sorry, we can't help, even though that is what we were designed to do, because China says no."

The West: Europe - "Ha!!! Us! Help! You must be joking. We had our wars - we don't want anymore. Remember, we killed millions - or sat by and watched. Help stop murder - preposterous. (Unless it is in our own backyard, of course.)"

The U.S.: I know many people say it is impossible, but I could see it happen. Watching say a million Burmese be slaughtered WOULD be too much for President Biden, even - "we won't intervene" - Secretary Blinken. But what is the real number? It's over 100 crimes against humanity today. Is that enough? 1,000? 10,000? How high does it have to go, the death and the pain and suffering, to answer the people's calls?

Send an aircraft carrier, equipped with special forces, drones and cruise missiles. No doubt plans have already been prepared, and intelligence collected on the locations of the generals. Take them out!!! Don't let more innocent people die!

March 13: Some people are wondering if the fires at the Chinese factories are a false flag operation, if regime thugs started them to create the justification for martial law and a mass murder crackdown. This could be, but it does leave the question of where it might lead next.

Right now the people, especially the young men, are getting very angry - extremely motivated. They are talking about lots of actions. There are videos about the proper use of Molotov cocktails (which we won't post). They view, rightly, the Communist and Business leaders of China as being as much the enemy as the Tatmadaw. The Chinese sell the Tatmadaw weapons, and Internet control. Their companies exploit workers and steal the country's natural resources. Burma has a joint Tatmadaw/Chinese dictatorship.

If the people found out that they were tricked and misrepresented, they may well react not in the way the dictatorship intended. "You said we burned some factories, and then killed us. Ok, then we might as well …"

Min Aung Hlaing is short-sighted. He is still thinking he can make this go away. But with what his killers did today, there is no chance that it will ever go away, until he is defeated. Burma is on the cusp of going crazy (at night). This may well be exactly what it needs.

March 13: I have dread for today. It's been difficult going to sleep at night, worrying about what was going to happen. My last post is about 11 am Burma time, and the demonstrations are typically going well. Then there are crackdowns, and I wake up to the terrorist atrocities and the death count (and continued inaction from the West).

Today, with martial law in some areas of Rangoon, we probably won't have marches there. But who knows? There may well be marches in other neighborhoods, and certainly around the country. And there will no doubt be more crackdowns.

What was interesting today was the increasing reports of sabotage, the fires, even if the parties responsible for some of them may be in dispute. There are also increasing reports of EAO battles with the Tatmadaw.

I can only suggest, do what you can to make a difference. But if at all possible do not put yourself in harms way. Bold actions by small groups, while risky, are certainly possible. But be extremely careful in crowds. Always have a planned escape route. Don't let yourself get shot, or arrested. If soldiers or police show up in force, and start showing aggression - tear gas and rubber bullets, it is time to go. Better to survive today so you can fight again tomorrow.

March 15: DVB is reporting that the junta terrorists have broken up demonstrations in Kutkai and Mogok (no word on how). It is obvious now that the top generals, and this must start from Than Shwe, have ordered the protests to be stopped no matter what. Martial law, murder, whatever it takes.

But remember the second element, the national strike. It is now in its second month, and more and more businesses are closing every day. Soon the country will come to a standstill. Total has even said that if there are new sanctions to shut down its natural gas operations, that it will comply. (So we need these sanctions immediately!) Yadana gas powers Rangoon. And oil is running out, too. Imagine Burma with no electricity. How can the terrorists control the streets when there are no lights?

A new type of resistance is forming, and which is much more aggressive and direct action oriented. At some point it seems inevitable that the EAOs will get involved in a bigger way, too. They won't have a choice. The KIA has already attacked in three locations. Tatmadaw fled from one. In these circumstances they could probably take one outpost and camp after another. So could the KNLA, and the TNLA. When the Tatmadaw starts losing in a significant way, then what is happening inside its ranks will change. I may be wrong but I have to believe that many of the soldiers, certainly the younger soldiers, are still human. We know the worst atrocities are perpetrated by specific LIDs. There will be turmoil internally when lots of soldiers start to die.

This isn't over by a long shot.