Anti-junta administrators resign in resistance-controlled town, protesting NUG's logging policies

In an act of protest against resistance prohibitions on timber harvesting, local administrators resigned their positions this week in the town of Maw Luu in Sagaing Region’s Indaw Township, which has been held by anti-junta forces since December. Maw Luu, which is located in Katha District on the border between Kachin State and Sagaing Region, had a population of nearly 9,000 in 2014, according to the nationwide census taken that year. The People’s Defence Forces (PDF)—the armed wing of the publicly mandated, anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG)—and their allies succeeded in capturing Maw Luu on December 13, 2023, installing a local People’s Administration Team (PAT) staffed by NUG officials to govern the town. Members of the PDF of Kachin State and Sagaing Region, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and other local anti-junta forces took part in the capture of Maw Luu from junta forces. Since the resistance established control, the PAT and PDF have permitted logging trucks belonging to some of the country’s largest timber businesses to pass through Maw Luu. However, they have reportedly enforced a strict ban on local logging at the same time, making it difficult for local loggers and woodworkers to make a living and leading to protests. Civilians living in Maw Luu stopped 16 logging trucks driving through the area on March 17, turning them over to the PAT. The town’s administration team chose to let the trucks continue on their route, prompting locals to protest in the streets and detain five more logging trucks trying to pass through the town. Most timber harvested in upper Sagaing Region must go through Maw Luu to get to the China-Myanmar border for export, one local man said. Maw Luu locals objected to their town being used by wealthy businessmen to profit from timber production when the limitations on ordinary inhabitants of the town were so severe. “They arrest citizens if they find even a splinter of wood on them, but they allow trucks to go through to China like that,” the local man said. “That’s how this trouble started.” Some 60 percent of locals in Maw Luu are involved in woodworking and have traditionally made a living by selling furniture, for which they usually harvested the raw materials themselves. However, the activity has stopped in the area due to a logging ban enforced by the NUG, according to local sources. Aik Tun, an officer of the Maw Luu PDF, said the trucks stopped by Maw Luu residents had come from near Homalin and Banmauk, Sagaing Region, which are currently under the control of the Shanni Nationalities Army, an organisation that has sometimes fought alongside the Myanmar army against the KIA. Fighters for the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, which took part in the capture of Maw Luu from junta forces, seen in late 2023 (ABSDF) The PDF and PAT were not authorised to detain the trucks, he added, because they had already registered with and paid taxes due to the NUG’s ministry of natural resources and environmental conservation. “Those loggers had already paid the necessary logging tax to the ministry, so all we could do was check to make sure they were abiding by the rules,” he said. Shwe Ya, an Indaw Township PAT official, came to negotiate with the protest leaders in Maw Luu on Monday, but the administration and demonstrators were unable to reach a mutually agreeable solution to the crisis, according to a Maw Luu resident. “He said he would allow people to do private logging if they let the trucks go, but the protesters wanted him to put this promise in writing and sign it, and he refused,” the Maw Luu resident said. After the meeting with Shwe Ya, six ward administrators resigned their positions in Maw Luu, according to Aik Tun and two of the town’s residents. Myanmar Now tried to reach the administrators who resigned but has been unable to make direct contact. Alex, a spokesperson from the NUG’s ministry of natural resources and environmental conservation, spoke with Myanmar Now about the NUG’s logging policy, declining to give his full name due to the sensitivity of the issue. According to Alex, the NUG has imposed a nationwide ban on logging, but is allowing the transport of timber harvested before the ban was in place, provided the transporters pay a fine or tax. The ministry collects a fine of 1.3 million kyat (US $615) for each ton of teak moved to the China-Myanmar border, and an average of 20 million kyat (US $9,470) for each freight truck carrying teak logs in areas under the anti-junta forces’ control. “We are trying to strike a fine balance between local businesses’ interests, the need for revenue to fund the resistance against the junta, and environmental conservation,” Alex said. Du Kabar Taung Khawn, a district-level official for the NUG based in Katha, met with protesters and local Maw Luu administrators on Tuesday, ultimately granting permission to locals to harvest timber in the area on a small scale. “They said local people would be allowed to gather wood and sell their products at a reasonable price until further notice,” one Maw Luu resident said. Myanmar Now has yet to confirm this claim independently, and local protesters do not appear to have let the detained trucks leave Maw Luu at the time of reporting.

Anti-junta administrators resign in resistance-controlled town, protesting NUG’s logging policies

Local people in Maw Luu, prevented from harvesting timber by an NUG ban, have protested by blocking logging trucks that the resistance administration team allowed to travel through the town based on a prior arrangement

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