Nick Schifrin:
In Myanmar’s central heartland, government troops left scorched earth. Last week, residents say soldiers torched the village of Kin Ma. Now its residents and thousands of families around the country are hiding in forests, scared of the military ruling junta that’s hunting them down.
Army forces have injured thousands and killed more than 800 protesters. And in Mandalay this week, a regime soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade into a house full of protesters.
But, increasingly, the resistance is responding with more force. In cities, protesters build barricades to protect neighborhoods from government soldiers, and around the country, ethnic militias attack army checkpoints. Increasingly, their soldiers are civilians from cities who journey to ethnic-controlled territories to join the fight.
For decades, ethnic minorities in Myanmar have fought repression and political persecution by central authorities who deny those minorities full rights. And now that fight has new political momentum.