Karen rebels in Myanmar learn a strategic border town is easy to take from the junta, but hard to hold

Karen rebels in Myanmar learn a strategic border town is easy to take from the junta, but hard to holdA soldier in the Karen National Liberation Army raises the Karen flag on the outskirts of Myawaddy on April 15, before burning a Myanmar flag that once flew over this trading hub on the Thai border.Just over a rickety bamboo bridge spanning the Moei River, which serves as the border between Thailand and Myanmar, a flag hangs limply in the stifling, premonsoon humidity.

But while the military has been unable to retake Myawaddy, the KNU is not in charge of the town either, having ceded control to another armed group, one with aThe BGF has its roots in a KNU split in the 1990s, during a previous period of military rule in Myanmar.

Call centres have sprung up in other border regions as well, as the conflict has reduced state control over much of Myanmar.

Reports in Myanmar media, supported by interviews with multiple people familiar with the situation, suggest the junta threatened to conduct air strikes against Shwe Kokko and other BGF strongholds if the group fully broke with the regime. In recent weeks, the KNU has been tied up repelling the junta’s counterattack and keeping the remaining government forces in the region holed up, leaving the militia too busy to launch what would inevitably be a bloody assault on Myawaddy. But there is another reason the KNU may hesitate to seize the town – one that speaks to a wider problem for resistance groups as they consolidate control over Myanmar’s borders: trade.

Mr. Taw Nee acknowledged this problem is “very difficult to solve” but was confident that, as it becomes clear resistance groups are in firm control of the border, neighbouring countries will find a way to work with them.

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