Myanmar rebels take the road to Mandalay
AFP
October 25, 2024

Myanmar's second-largest city Mandalay is a prime target of fighters who oppose the ruling junta - Copyright AFP STR

Winding through the lawless, rugged hills of northern Myanmar, National Highway 3 links a stunning series of victories by ethnic rebels and pro-democracy fighters in their war against the junta.

An offensive launched a year ago Sunday has seen opponents of the military seize much of the 480-kilometre-long (300-mile) route that connects second city Mandalay to China, Myanmar’s biggest trade partner.

Control of the road denies the junta lucrative taxes, threatens its bases in the central plains, and is a huge morale booster for its opponents as the civil war grinds through its fourth year.

AFP images from National Highway 3 show the destruction wrought by the previous year’s fighting and rebel groups trying to administer their newly seized territory.

The route begins at Muse, a town of ill-repute pressed up against the border with China.

Each morning, hundreds of locals queued for day passes to cross into China to buy medicine and consumer goods that can be re-sold back in Myanmar.

More than $2 billion worth of trade passed through Muse in the 2023-2024 financial year, according to the junta’s commerce ministry. Analysts say much more goes through off the books.

But following the rebels’ spectacular advance, venturing into the hinterland from Muse requires some savvy — and cash — said Aung Gyi, a driver.

“We’re OK if we can negotiate when we meet with ethnic rebel soldiers on roads and they ask for money,” he said, asking to use a pseudonym.

Around an hour from Muse was a checkpoint manned by soldiers from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of the rebel groups behind last year’s offensive.



– ‘Fighting up and close’ –



Around 30 kilometres further on is the town of Kutkai, infamous for the production of methamphetamine and normally home to around 50,000 people.

The fighting that has pushed the military out has scattered many of its residents and scarred the town.

Rubble littered across an open patch of ground was all that remained of the main market, flattened by a military airstrike.

Nearby, vendors had set up makeshift bamboo stalls to sell medicine and clothes.

“In northern Shan, the sound of gunfire is not very strange for us,” said resident Soe Naung, asking to use a pseudonym.

“But when we saw the fighting up close in our town, we were very afraid. We witnessed it with our own eyes.

“We can only hope our city will revive if the national highway opens again. Now our daily lives are full of fear about air strikes.”

In Kutkai, highway traffic consisted mostly of motorbikes laden with goods wrapped in tarpaulins.

Two young police officers in ethnic rebel uniforms sat on plastic chairs by the roadside and watched the traffic go by.



– Burma Road –



Roughly halfway along the highway, the city of Lashio embodies the biggest defeat the junta has suffered since it seized power in 2021.

Its four-lane toll gate was riddled with bullet holes and several panels were hanging loose, remnants of fierce fighting for the city where around 150,000 people lived before the offensive.

Lashio was famous as the terminus of the “Burma Road” built by the British usng local labour to supply Chinese forces battling Japanese invaders during the Second World War.

Now it is the prize of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), an ethnic Chinese rebel group, whose red and blue flags flutter over its pockmarked buildings.

A spiked black gate bears the name of a military engineering unit that was chased from the city.

On another street, two men were fixing electricity pylons.

The MNDAA is working to install a civilian administration it hopes will tempt residents to return to the city.

The military is trying to keep people away, and on Wednesday launched its latest airstrike on Lashio, according to local media and a rescue group.


– Hill station –


Near the end of National Highway 3, the former British hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin is still in the hands of the military.

The road passes grand houses of teak and brick and the military’s elite officer training academy.

“We also hear shooting sounds here sometimes,” said one female vendor at the town’s bustling market.

A two-hour drive down into the dusty plains places you in the former royal capital of Mandalay and the end of the highway.

Targeting the city of 1.5 million is the “Mandalay People’s Defence Force,” which fought alongside the ethnic rebels in the Shan hills during the past year.

In August, the “Mandalay PDF” hailed the bonds its fighters now shared with Shan state, forged in battle against the military along “National Highway 3.”

“Now, the dream of a day trip for Shan noodles is coming true,” it said in a statement, referencing a popular local dish from the region.


 

Rebels take control of Myanmar rare earth mining hub

Staff Writer | October 23, 2024 |

The military seized control on February 1, 2021 following a general election that saw Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party win by a landslide. (Image courtesy of OneNews | Wikimedia Commons)

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which has been fighting Myanmar’s military junta in power since 2021 on Wednesday said it had taken control of the country’s rare earth mining region.


Rare earth mining in Myanmar is concentrated in Kachin state around the towns of Panwa and Chipwe, adjacent to southwestern China’s Yunnan province. The region also hosts a number of gem mining sites and is a key trade route into Myitkyina (Kachin state’s capital) and north into China.

A KIA spokesperson told Reuters on Tuesday the group wrested control of the area from the militia group NDA-K over the weekend but did not elaborate on its plans on mining in the region. The NDA-K is allied with the ruling junta and has been working with Chinese companies involved in mining.

In a note on Tuesday, Adamas Intelligence, a Toronto-based rare earth and battery metals research consultancy, said rebel control of these mining sites could potentially disrupt rare earth concentrate shipments into China, which have declined for four months straight owing to the monsoon season and other challenges.


In June, a landslide at a rare earth mining site in Ngilot village in Panwa region claimed 10 lives and left at least 30 people missing.

Adamas says with Myanmar responsible for 57% of global dysprosium and terbium mine supply last year, a prolonged disruption would strain availability of feedstock supplies for magnet makers during what is typically a seasonally strong quarter.

More than 90% of electric vehicles feature at least one permanent magnet motor and rising production from Myanmar and low prices have made it easy for automakers “to turn a blind eye to the environmental destruction and social upheaval that rare earth mining fuels in the country,” according to Adamas.

“Should the recent border seizure and expected capture of rare earth mines this week result in a disruption of rare earth concentrate flows to China from Myanmar, importers of Chinese rare earths and magnets may soon have to pay, literally and figuratively, for failing to support and secure alternative sources of supply in time.”