KNLA retakes camp it lost to Myanmar military more than three decades ago

After more than three decades in the hands of Myanmar’s military, a key outpost on the country’s border with Thailand was retaken without a fight on Monday, according to the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). The Hpa Lu Gyi camp, located on the Moei River some nine miles south of Myawaddy in Karen State, served as the police headquarters of Brigade 6 of the KNLA—an armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU)—until it fell to the military in 1990. That event came after a fierce battle still remembered as a major turning point for the KNU, which lost control of its headquarters at Manerplaw five years later. Monday’s clash was less dramatic, but equally memorable, according to KNLA Brigade 6 tactical commander Col. Ne Dah Htoo. “We only had to fight for five minutes,” he said, speaking to Myanmar Now on Tuesday. Following the brief exchange of fire, two junta soldiers were captured, while around a dozen others fled across the border to Thailand, he added. No casualties were reported on either side. A source who was present at the time of the fighting said that the regime troops stationed at the camp tried to negotiate with the Karen resistance forces. “They said we could have the camp if they could leave with their weapons. We didn’t agree to that, so when they refused to surrender, we attacked. Most of them just ran,” he said. Photos of six men in Thai military custody, believed to be junta soldiers who fled the fighting, have circulated on social media since the incident. After losing control of the camp, Myanmar’s military carried out airstrikes in the surrounding area, according to Ne Dah Htoo. Karen resistance fighters during a recent clash in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township (Supplied) The capture of the Hpa Lu Gyi camp is not just symbolically important. Some 30 miles to the south is Waw Lay, a border town with a heavy military presence that regularly receives reinforcements from Myawaddy to the north—something that will be more difficult now. Meanwhile, the KNLA says it has also taken control of a Light Infantry Battalion 355 (LIB) camp and a police station in Thin Gan Nyi Naung, a village just a few miles west of Myawaddy. A junta hill camp located farther west near the village of Ah Lel Bo Te was also captured after it was abandoned by soldiers stationed there, but fighting for control of LIB 356 and 357 camps continues, according to Ne Dah Htoo. According to Lin Htet Aung, a former army captain who has defected to the anti-regime resistance, junta troops are showing little willingness to fight amid mounting losses to groups opposed to the military’s rule. “The Hpa Lu Gyi camp is the closest one to Myawaddy, and could easily have requested backup. The fact that they didn’t suggests that they were already planning to run away if they came under attack,” he said. However, junta troops in Thin Gan Nyi Naung continue to fight back against attacking resistance forces, with artillery support from Infantry Battalion 275 troops based in Myawaddy. Some 3,000 civilians displaced by the fighting west of Myawaddy are currently sheltering in the town, according to residents.

KNLA retakes camp it lost to Myanmar military more than three decades ago

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