The junta has released 23 people from the village of Let Kar, in Rakhine’s Mrauk-U Township, who were detained in April 2019 on suspicion of having links to the Arakan Army (AA).
The freed detainees emerged from Sittwe Prison at around 6pm on Saturday and were welcomed by a crowd that included their relatives.
Three others from the village of Thazi in Ponnagyun, who were also arrested for suspected links to the AA, were freed from the prison along with them.
Another two detainees accused of links to the AA were released from Yangon’s Insein Prison on the same day, according to sources with connections to local junta authorities.
They were among 362 people who have been arrested for suspected links to the Rakhine-based rebel group, according to the Thazin Legal Team, a group of lawyers based in Sittwe.
The trials of many of the detainees have dragged on for years, with authorities blaming the Covid-19 pandemic for the delays, and last year’s military coup slowing down the process even further.
On Saturday the military council announced in its media outlets that 46 people accused of connections to the AA would be released as part of a broader release of more than 800 prisoners, most of whom were not considered to be political detainees.
But the sources with local junta connections said only 35 with suspected AA connections had been freed in Rakhine and Yangon.
A total of 59 people were released from prison in Rakhine on Saturday, but many of them were not accused of links to the AA. “One of them… was in jail for burglary,” said a former MP from Kyauk Phyu Township.
Five villagers from Kyauk Seik in Ponnagyun Township who have been held for two years for AA links are also still in prison.
“If the military council decided to let them go for the victims’ own wellbeing, they need to clarify which of those freed were AA suspects and which were not,” the former MP said. “It seems as if they’re trying to keep everyone in the dark.”
‘Terrorists disguised as civlians’
On the morning of April 10, 2019, fighting broke out between the Myanmar military and the AA near the Let Kar Bridge on the Yangon-Sittwe highway, close to Let Kar village. The army later arrested 27 people.
“The terrorists ran into the Let Kar village and disguised themselves as innocent civilians,” the military said in a statement at the time, “the military managed to expose and capture 27 of them alive.”
Three of the detainees died during interrogation and another two, who were minors, were released. The remaining 22 were sent to Sittwe Prison.
Months later another woman from Let Kar was detained at a camp for displaced people in Mrauk-U for suspected AA links.
The 23 have since been on trial for weapons and terrorism charges at the Sittwe Township Court.
After the arrests in April 2019, Let Kar’s residents fled and took refuge in the nearby villages of Tain Nyo and Pi Pinyin.
The following month, Myanmar military soldiers were seen entering Let Kar. A fire broke out in the village that night, destroying 193 of the village’s roughly 300 houses, as well as a school.
The military blamed the fire on the AA, which denied the claim.
Two years of intense fighting between the AA and the military came to a halt just before the November 2020 general election. But there have been several fresh clashes between the two groups recently.
