The junta has falsely claimed that its forces seized a cache of weapons in Mandalay after detaining dozens of people it accuses of being resistance fighters over the past month, the leader of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) for the city has said.
Bo Nat Khat told Myanmar Now that a December 1 statement from the military council that it had arrested 33 resistance fighters and found guns, bombs and grenades was a “lie”.
The statement said that 28 men and five women were detained between November 3 and December 1, including 15 members of the Mandalay PDF. It named Khin Aye Maw, 50, as one of the fighters.
But Khin Aye Maw, a resident of Chanmyathazi Township, had no involvement with the PDF and was taken as a hostage on November 25 when her son evaded arrest, said Bo Nat Khat.
“She’s the mother of an engineering student the military was looking for. She has absolutely no ties with the PDF or any revolutionary forces. She was taken in the place of her son,” he added.
Khin Aye Maw’s 12-year-old daughter was detained with her mother, then later released and placed under house arrest, he said.
The statement added that the captives included four members of the Yaw Defence Force (YDF), which is based in neighbouring Magway Region, but the YDF told Myanmar Now that none of its members were captured.
The junta’s statement also said that one of the captives, Ko Htwe, gave information to interrogators that led to the discovery of 20 guns, an M79 grenade launcher, bombs, grenades and bullets near the Leikkya waterfall in Taunggaung village, Madaya Township on November 30.
“It’s not true that they seized weapons from the Mandalay PDF. None of that really happened,” Bo Nat Khat said.
Bo Nat Khat suggested many of the captives were arrested not because of any proven involvement in attacks against junta targets, but because their names were given up by others who were tortured during interrogation.
The military uses CCTV to track culprits in the wake of attacks and then tortures captives to extract information from them about their connections, he added.
“The revolution is everybody’s business,” he said. “We are not doing this for individual profit. We are not doing this for the development of our own lives. We are doing this to overthrow the dictatorship and we need the strength of the entire country to be able to do so.”
