Another thing. If they are in doubt, there is no such thing as civilian. Whether it is true or not, if they have doubts, they will wipe people out if they want to. They won’t care for religious buildings, education buildings or common habitation areas. They will treat them with equal cruelty and viciousness. We need to be aware of that. More than that, we need to know clearly how much we need to oppose that kind of organisation.
(Q) You said earlier on, they dropped people (soldiers). Do you mean they dropped people with helicopters after bombing?
(A) Yes. They do like that. They fire from air and after that they drop people with helicopters. And they loot all the properties from those abandoned villages.
01:02 The other day at Yinbaungtain, they took more than 20 million kyats. There are many incidents like this. I am just telling you this to show that they are acting like villains in movies. They took the wads of banknotes worth around 20 millions and forced the owner to sit down and fanned their faces with the notes by way of taunt. And they took a ring from someone from his finger saying this ring doesn’t suit you. Give it to me’ and put it on his finger. This is what they usually do. They fire from air first and drop people on those places and villages and look for money.
The situation of the army might be like this. Min Aung Hlaing hasn’t given anything to his soldiers. The soldiers at the bottom are starving in the army. They tell these hungry people to go and get what they want. It is done in that fashion. They are doing like that.
(Q) The situation must be bad. According to the lists issued by UN, there are around 1.5 millions IDPs. Sagaing has most. Last month the number was 500000. It must be a lot now. How many people are there? I asked it before. I think you don’t get help from th UN. How are you coping?
(A) Regard to that, we share among revolution forces and township PaAPhas and people as much as we could. We are helping each other. Another is, donors from inside outside the country are helping with difficulties for war victims. The people are sharing the food.
(Q) Don’t you get help from the UN?
(A) Regards to that I don’t know what to say. There is nothing like that. They might come but there might be difficulties. There might be other reasons. We get nothing direct from that.
(Q) As for the situation of clashes, it has been a year and a half. The situation is not the same from one place to another. As far as I know clashes in Chin, Karenni have decreased. It might be to do with cooperation and weapon and ammunitions. What can you say in summary about your area during this time? It s the rate of clashes still high?
(A) What you said earlier at Chin and Kachin, they already have ERO format for existence. They are well-equipped more than us. Their unity is in anyway better than us. Here, there are divisions with various names. We have local groups in their own rights. We have both BaKaPha and PDFs under NUG, and PaLaPha, section by section. To connect these, we are not in balance yet. We are still trying. Another thing, Sagain is being focused. For example, at Chin and Kayin areas, they tried for success and even if they succeed, it is not the same at Sagaing now. I often said that Sagaing is like the heart of the revolution. Everyone has to accept that because if you get/control Sagaing it is like the revolution’s answer. If we get Sagaing, most of the fight will be over. Therefore, there are more focus here from the enemy and us. As it is so, the clashes are more violent.
(Q) So you can say that clashes are still intensive as it there were clashes recently.
(A) Yes. Yes. Sagaing is, even if you can’t call it the spearhead of revolution, the heart of revolution.
(Q) You can say that it is a place that will decide the revolution.
(A) Yes. As it is like that and both sides are fighting for it, the clashes will be more intensive. The situation will continue to be like that and only when we are able to win and control most of the areas, the situation will be much better.
(Q) Now what can you say about the control situation?
(A) The control situation in Sagaing is becoming like Chin and Kachin areas in terms of form. Not that there is no more army bases, but they are not able to operate easily like before. For example, Pale; they can’t run operations in town anymore. They are inside their camp but they can’t go out anymore. If they do, there is a high percent that they will die. They can only operate with the help of airpower and in massive operations. As they are not in control of the town, you can guess the situation. The situation is similar to those of big ERO areas although we haven’t got enough weapons yet. The situation is like that. They are not able to dominate anymore.
END
