On February 6, a video of two revolutionary soldiers from Yaw Defense Force (YDF), Comrade Phoe Tae and Comrade Thar Htaung, being burned alive by junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee militiamen from Myauk Khin Yan Village (a village of Pyu Saw Htee militia under Myanmar’s junta), went viral on social media. In the video, which took place in Gangaw Township, Magway Region, the junta soldiers and Pyu militiamen tortured the two revolutionary soldiers in various ways before burning them to death.

“They (PDF soldiers) were arrested and tortured in the hospital (the village’s hospital). They (junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militiamen) are stationed in the hospital. Then they were tied with chains and dragged from the gate in the south of the hospital, tied to a Lebbeck tree, and burned to death,” said a woman who escaped from Pyu Saw Hti village in North Khin Ran.

In the video footage of the arson and killing, two soldiers are seen screaming in pain, “Do you dare to come to MyaukKhin Yan Village next time? Yoo! Hoo!” while the junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militiamen are arrogantly celebrating.

A short distance away, junta soldiers and members of the Pyu Saw Htee militia were watching the inhumane killing. It is said that the lead members of the killing were Junta’s Major Than Naing, Phyo Win, the leader of the ‘Moegyo’ Pyu Saw Htee group, and Aung Bo, Maung Nyo, the militiamen of Pyu Saw Htee, and San Win Aung, the military training officer.

At 5:00 a.m. on November 7, 2023, Myauk Khin Yan Pyu Saw Htee village was attacked by the YDF and its allied forces as part of the Alliance Operation.

In the operation, junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee soldiers gained an advantage due to the information being leaked, and five revolutionary soldiers from the joint forces were killed, five were wounded, and some weapons and ammunition were lost, the YDF said.

“We were in an offensive position, but the information leaked out. So, they (the junta’s troops) launched an offensive again with superior strength. There are 11 Pyu villages around North Khin Ran village. After all those Pyu villages were united, they relaunched the attack with a superior force. When we were retreating, two YDF soldiers were captured after being hit by a bullet in the leg,” said the military-region commander of the YDF.

Although the inhuman brutality of the members of the military junta and Pyu Saw Htee militia in Myauk Khin Yan Village has become visible to the whole country and the international community due to the spread of this video, there had been many such inhumane killings before that incident, those who escaped from Myauk Khin Yan Village said.

How the village of Pyu Saw Htee Militia became Myauk Khin Yan Village is one of Bullet Hla Swe’s stronghold villages. Before the 2010 election, Hla Swe, a former lieutenant colonel, came to Myauk Khin Yan Village and sold agricultural medicines and fertilizers in the village. After that, he was accepted as a villager of Myauk Khin Yan, contested the 2010 election, and became a Member of Parliament of Gangaw Township, a local resident of Myauk Khin Yan village said.

“His (Bullet Hla Swe) mistress is a villager of Myauk Khin Yan. That’s why there are also his relatives in the village. There are many people who support him,” he said.

In the 2015 election, Bullet Hla Swe was defeated by Pyue Lwin, a member of the NLD and a former school teacher from Myauk Khin Yan Village, and Pyue Lwin became a Member of Parliament for Gangaw Township. After that, MyaukKhin Yan village, which has about 1,500 households, was divided into two groups: supporters of the NLD party and those influenced by Bullet Hla Swe.

In the 2020 election, only Pyu Lwin won, and Bullet Hla Swe lost again. However, Myauk Khin Yan Village and its surrounding villages were still under the influence of Bullet Hla Swe.

“When Min Aung Hlaing seized the power of the state, our village was included in the protest. However, when we shouted in the village that Min Aung Hlaing is not wanted, nothing happened, but when we shouted that Bullet Hla Swe is not wanted, the people who support him want to fight against us,” said a villager from Myauk Khin Yan.

After that, under the management of Bullet Hla Swe, his influencers formed groups under the pretext of village security. Night patrols were formed in the village. They began to investigate the news of revolutionary people in the village and the leading protesters against the military junta, reporting to the junta troops.

When the Junta’s military vehicles entered the village, some NLD members and anti-coup protesters were arrested. The military junta also supported them, armed the villagers, and gave them military training. At the time of the first training, only around 50 army supporters attended, but later, men between the ages of 18 and 40 were forced to join the Pyu Saw Htee militia for mandatory. They were also forced to dig trenches around the village and build bunkers. The elders were asked to stand guard for the safety of the village. In this way, Myauk Khin Yan Village became a powerful and strong village for the Pu Saw Htee militia.

The first attack by PDFs on Myauk Khin Yan Village and the evacuation of its residents

After the military junta troops were stationed in Myauk Khin Yan Village, the junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee, who became stronger, raided the surrounding villages, illegally took property, cattle, money, and gold jewelry, and often burned down houses. It was also the time when the revolutionary forces were gradually getting stronger throughout the country.

Due to repeated raids by the junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militia in the Yaw region, the whole village of San Myo in the east of Myauk Khin Yan village, was burned to ashes.

“It can be said that the first time they (junta soldiers and Pyu milita) attacked and raided was in San Myo village. At that time, we started giving training to the PDFs in the hills east of San Myo Village. They were repeatedly attacked from Myauk Khin Yan and Lel Gyi villages. The whole village was burned to ashes. Even though the monastery was not on fire, all the doors and toilets were broken,” said one of the Ganggaw Township People’s Defense Forces.

In addition to this, they repeatedly fired heavy weapons from Myauk Khin Yan to the villages of Thin Taw and Shwe Bo, which are not the villages of the Pyu Saw Htee militia. For this reason, the Joint Regional Defense Forces attacked MyaukKhin Ran Pyu Village for the first time in March 2022.

During the battle, local defense soldiers were able to enter the village and evacuate more than 400 local people, including the entire population of North Khin Ran Village, Ward No. 1, who opposed the military coup and did not want to be under the control of the junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee militia.

The arrest and killing of (U) Ba Shwe and the killing field of Pyu Saw Htee Militia Regarding the first attack by local defense forces on Myauk Khin Yan Village, Ba Shwe from the middle of the village was arrested by the junta troops, and Pyu Saw Htee. Ba Shwe is over 60 years old and was the one who led the protest in Gangaw Township during the 1988 Uprising.

The woman who escaped three months after the PDF’s first attack said that the military junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee accused and arrested him because they were attacked – saying that Ba Shwe gave their information to PDFs.

“After the PDF entered the village, they (junta troops and Pyu) arrested Ba Shwe at night. We knew that he was then taken to the school,” he said.

According to members of Pyu Saw Htee and people in the village, soldiers and Pyu members put Ba Shwe in stocks in the village school, beat him, and interrogated him.

When Ba Shwe said that he was not an informer and that he had nothing to do with the PDFs, they pulled his fingernails away, poured hot water on him, and tortured him in various ways. The next day, Ba Shwe, who was nearly dead, was dragged around the middle of the village by a car with a noose around his neck and was shown around to the villagers, shouting, “Look at those who cooperate with the PDF.”

“I saw him on the road when I went to the inside of the village. When I asked what they did, they told me that he joined with PDFs. I couldn’t even look at his body. Lots of blood was smeared on his body. He was dragged by a car in his underwear. When I saw him, I thought he was already dead. After being dragged by the car for so long, he was already dead. Then I knew he was dragged to the mouth of the river,” said a woman who escaped from Myauk Khin Yan village and witnessed Ba Shwe’s killing.

In this way, the Bank of Myit Thar River between Myauk Khin Yan Village and Lel Gyi Village became the killing field of the junta soldiers and the Pyu Saw Htee milia. After U Ba Shwe was killed, Pyu Saw Htee troops started committing murders continuously.

A woman who escaped on December 20, 2023, said that she witnessed a mentally ill man who took the wrong way and came to Myauk Khin Yan Village from Myin Thar Village a few days after Ba Shwe was killed and was arrested by Pyu Saw Htee troops and shot dead on the bank of the Myit Thar River.

“We met him when we came back from the farms. They (junta troops) brought him on the back of a motorcycle with his face covered with a cloth. At the shoreline of the river, Maung Nyo (a Pyu Saw Htee member) shot him dead from behind,” she said.

Those who escaped in December said that one of the two civilians (cattle dealers) from Myinzar Village who were caught in the west of Thin Taw village were killed at the shoreline of the river, as mentioned, and the other was beaten and released.

After that, the arrested revolutionary soldiers, the civilians who had mistakenly entered Myauk Khin Yan Village, and many of those who were arrested and suspicious of them were killed by the members of the junta and Pu Saw Htee at the shoreline of the Myit Thar River.

Killing among villagers by themselves and assaulting women As the revolution accelerated, the defense forces in the Yaw area were able to form counterattacks from the war of resistance. The junta troops stationed police stations, and Pyu Saw Htee villages were frequently attacked. As the revolutionary forces, their control of the area was stronger and wider than that of the junta troops in the Yaw area.

As the revolutionary forces strengthened their control over the area, they controlled both sides of the Kalay-Gangaw Road and cut off food supplies to the villages of Pyu Saw Htee milita in the south of Kalay Township, such as Kyan Thar, Inn Kyun, Kyauk Se, Kyauk Pyote, Mantaw, and Myauk Khin Yan, Kokkar, Shwe Myit Thar, Hantharwaddy , Win Wa, Lel Gyi (East), and Lel Gyi (West) villages in the northern part of Gangaw Township.

As a result, there was no flow of goods in the villages of the Pyu Saw Htee militia, and the food supply was cut off. As before, they were no longer able to easily raid its surrounding villages. The food supply was totally cut off. Therefore, when they went out to search for food, they were wounded and retreated because they were intercepted and attacked by revolutionary forces.

The junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee members from Myauk Khin Yan village began to fight and bear a grudge against the villagers of Myauk Khin Yan. A 50-year-old woman said that in September 2022, more than 20 villagers were arrested and killed by the junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee members, who claimed that the villagers were in contact with the PDFs and participated in the protests.

She said, “The arrest was made by San Win Aung, the military trainer. Then they tied their hands behind their backs and took them to the village cemetery. There, a couple were killed. The other one was beaten to death,” he said.

The couple who was killed were 40-year-old Maung Maung (aka Zaw Zaw Oo) and 36-year-old Phyu Phyu Win, and the other was 45-year-old Aung Bo Lin.

Maung Maung and his wife were accused of relating to PDFs, tied their hands behind their backs and beat them, then dragged them to a place and shot them dead. After that, the bodies were not returned to their parents, and they were dragged to the bank of the Myit Thar River, where they floated in the water and hid the bodies. Maung Maung and his wife left behind two minor children. Aung Bo Lin died on the way to Hantharwaddy Hospital because of being beaten. In addition, the arrested women were also stripped naked and interrogated.

The 50-year-old woman continued, “A Win was stripped of her body naked. She is a young woman. She is a vendor in the village. She was accused of selling drugs, and then she was beaten naked. The rest of them did not get undressed in their down parts. But they were stripped of their upper part. The trainer (for military training) was drunk. He arrested them for no reason.”

Junta’s Major Than Naing (who was in charge of governing Pyu and soldiers in Myauk Khin Yan Village at that time) heard that San Win Aung was going on a rampage and torturing and killing at will. He went to stop him, so the rest were released.

“Around the summer of 2022, Daw Soe (name changed) was arrested by San Win Aung. She was arrested for allegedly calling with her husband on the phone and saying with PDFs. She got stripped off her clothes, stirred a woman’s down with sticks, and cut shallow breasts with knives. She was arrested for about 10 days. She was not killed. She said that she had to pay MMK 3,000,000 (three million kyats). She never goes out of the village,” a person close to Daw Soe, who escaped in December, said.

Due to various tortures by the junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee members and food shortages, in December, more than 300 residents of Myauk Khin Yan Pyu Saw Htee village fled to the local defense forces. As a result of many residents fleeing, it was learned that Major Than Naing was taken back by the Junta in Kalay.

Junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee members dug trenches and built many bunkers around the village of Myauk Khin Yan. The police stations in Yaw Area also left their camp and joined Pyu Saw Htee villages.

Myauk Khin Yan village has more than 200 soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militiamen, equipped with a lot of weapons and ammunition at present, but they are not in a state of attack and are prepared to defend themselves firmly, it is reported.