The Tatmadaw or Sit-Tat is the military of Myanmar. It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include the Myanmar Police Force, the Border Guard Forces, the Myanmar Coast Guard, and the People's Militia Units. Since independence in 1948, the Tatmadaw has faced significant ethnic insurgencies, especially in Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, and Shan states. General Ne Win took control of the country in a 1962 coup d'état, attempting to build an autarkic society called the Burmese Way to Socialism. Following the violent repression of nationwide protests in 1988, the military agreed to free elections in 1990, but ignored the resulting victory of the National League for Democracy and imprisoned its leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The 1990s also saw the escalation of the conflict involving Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State due to RSO attacks on the Tatmadaw forces, which saw the Rohingya minority facing oppression and, starting in 2017, genocide.
Insurgencies have been ongoing in Myanmar since 1948, the year the country, then known as Burma, gained independence from the United Kingdom. The conflict has largely been ethnic-based, with several ethnic armed groups fighting Myanmar's armed forces, the Tatmadaw, for self-determination. Despite numerous ceasefires and the creation of autonomous self-administered zones in 2008, many armed groups continue to call for independence, increased autonomy, or the federalisation of the country. The conflict is the world's longest ongoing civil war, having spanned more than seven decades.
Kawlin (ကောလင်းမြို့) is a town in the Sagaing Division in Myanmar. Since December 2018 it has been the administration headquarters for Kawlin District as well as Kawlin Township. As of 2019, the town had a population of 25,254, up from 21,431 in 2014. The town is further subdivided into 8 wards.
The Kachin conflict or the Kachin War is one of the multiple conflicts which are collectively referred to as the internal conflict in Myanmar. Kachin insurgents have been fighting against the Tatmadaw since 1961, with only one major ceasefire being brokered between them, which lasted from 1994 to 2011, a total of 17 years.
The Arakan Army, officially the Arakha Army is an ethnic armed organisation based in Rakhine State (Arakan). Founded on 10 April 2009, the AA is the military wing of the United League of Arakan (ULA). It is currently led by Commander-in-Chief Major General Twan Mrat Naing and vice deputy commander-in-chief Brigadier General Nyo Twan Awng. The Arakan Army states that the objective of its armed revolution is to restore the sovereignty of the Arakan people. In a February 2024 interview, Twan Mrat Naing claimed that the AA had grown to at least 38,000 troops. Anthony Davis, an expert of military and security, rejected this claim and estimated that it has at least 15,000 troops in Chin State and Rakhine State, in addition to around 1500 in Kachin State and Shan State. In the early 2010s, the Arakan Army fought alongside the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) against the Tatmadaw in the Kachin conflict. Following the 2016 outbreak of conflict in Rakhine state, AA became more heavily involved in the Arakan region. In 2019, AA launched attacks on state security forces and the Myanmar Army responded, heightening clashes. The AA reached a ceasefire in late 2020 after eroding the central government's control in northern Rakhine. The power vacuum was filled by the AA over the next 18 months with state-building efforts, like their COVID-19 vaccine rollouts.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) is an armed resistance group in the Kokang region of Myanmar (Burma). The army has existed since 1989, having been the first one to sign a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese government. The ceasefire lasted for about two decades.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), formerly known as Harakah al-Yaqin, is a Rohingya insurgent group active in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. According to a December 2016 report by the International Crisis Group, it is led by Ataullah abu Ammar Jununi, a Rohingya man who was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and grew up in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Other members of its leadership include a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia.
The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the military of Myanmar. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution. Many other countries consider these events ethnic cleansing.
Violent clashes have been ongoing in the northern part of Myanmar's Rakhine State since October 2016. Insurgent attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) have led to sectarian violence perpetrated by Myanmar's military and the local Buddhist population against predominantly Muslim Rohingya civilians. The conflict has sparked international outcry and was described as an ethnic cleansing by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In August 2017, the situation worsened and hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Myanmar into Bangladesh, with an estimated 500,000 refugees having arrived by 27 September 2017. In January 2019, Arakan Army insurgents raided border police posts in Buthidaung Township, joining the conflict and beginning their military campaign in northern Rakhine State against the Burmese military.
2021 (MMXXI) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2021st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 21st year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 2nd year of the 2020s decade.
The Kalay clashes are a series of clashes between the Tatmadaw and armed civilians in the town of Kalay and surrounding villages in Kale Township during the Myanmar civil war. The conflict in the township has become one of the first instances of armed resistance to the military of Myanmar apart from actions by Ethnic Armed Organizations during the recent unrest in the country following the February coup.
The People's Defence Force is the armed wing of the National Unity Government in Myanmar. The armed wing was formed by the NUG from youths and pro-democracy activists on 5 May 2021 in response to the coup d'état that occurred on 1 February 2021 that put the military junta and their armed wing the Tatmadaw in power. The military junta designated it as a terrorist organisation on 8 May 2021. In October 2021, NUG's Ministry of Defence announced that it had formed a central committee to coordinate military operations across the country.
The Myanmar civil war, also called the Burmese Spring Revolution, Burmese civil war or People's Defensive War, is an ongoing civil war following Myanmar's long-running insurgencies, which escalated significantly in response to the 2021 military coup d'état and the subsequent violent crackdown on anti-coup protests. The exiled National Unity Government and major ethnic armed organisations repudiated the 2008 Constitution and called instead for a democratic federal state. Besides engaging this rebel alliance, the junta also contends with other anti-junta forces in areas under its control. Hannah Beech of The New York Times observed the insurgents are apportioned into hundreds of armed groups scattered across the country.
The following is a timeline of major events during the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), following the 2021 military coup d'état and protests. It was also a renewed intensity in existing internal conflict in Myanmar.
This is the list of important events happened in Myanmar in 2023.
The Let Yet Kone massacre was a mass killing of civilians on 16 September 2022, at a monastic school in the village of Let Yet Kone, near Tabayin in Sagaing Region, in north-western Myanmar. During the massacre, Myanmar Army and Myanmar Air Force troops killed at least 13 civilians, including 8 children. The event became one of Myanmar's deadliest civilian massacres involving children in 2022, during which 165 children were killed by military forces.
The Mon Taing Pin massacre was a mass killing of civilians by Burmese military forces on 11 May 2022, in the village of Mondaingbin, Sagaing Region, Myanmar. During the massacre, Myanmar Army troops executed at least 37 villagers. Sagaing Region later became the site of several additional mass killings perpetrated by the Burmese military, including the Letyetkon and Tadaing massacres.
The military of Myanmar (Tatmadaw), its allies, and anti-junta forces, have committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 2021–present Myanmar civil war.
The Dry Zone theater, also known as the Anyar theater, is one of the theaters of the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), taking place in Myanmar's Dry Zone region which encompasses the Bamar-majority Sagaing, Magway and Mandalay regions. It has been described as the "prime center" of resistance against the junta.
