60-year-old Paletwa man is latest to be detained by military in Chin State

By DMG 10 Jun 2022

DMG Newsroom
10 June 2022, Paletwa, Chin State 

The Myanmar military has made a series of arrests of locals in Paletwa Township, Chin State, where military tensions between junta troops and the Arakan Army (AA) have simmered in recent days, and another 100-household head was arrested on June 8. 

The detainee has been identified as U Maung Win, a 60-year-old resident of Paletwa’s Myoma ward. He was taken by the military at about 7 p.m. on Wednesday, said Ma Ngwe Ngwe Thein, the detainee’s daughter. 

“My father received a phone call from the Myanmar military to come to Myoma Monastery, along with another man. So he went to the monastery alone because the other man had gone fishing. When my father stepped out of the home, he was taken away in a car by security personnel. When we went to the monastery, they were not there,” she explained. 

U Maung Win is reportedly being held at the military’s Light Infantry Battalion No. 289 in Paletwa. An administrator of Myoma ward did not respond to a request made by family members to meet with the detainee, Ma Ngwe Ngwe Thein added. 

“My father was arrested on suspicion of having ties to the Arakan Army. He has no links with any organisation,” she said. “I repeatedly phoned the ward administrator but his mobile phone was switched off. I also asked for help from the abbot of the monastery, who has close relations with the ward administrator, because I wanted to know my father’s whereabouts. We are worried about his safety.” 

DMG phoned Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the regime, for comment on the arrest, but he could not be reached. 

U Maung Me Kyawt, a 57-year-old resident of Paletwa’s Myoma ward, was detained by the Myanmar military on June 4. The military also arrested the administrator of Paletwa’s Abaung Thar village and two of the village’s 10-household heads on May 26, with the two lower-level administrators subsequently released.  

The May 26 arrests came the same day that fighting broke out between the military and Arakan Army (AA) in Paletwa Township. Four clashes between the two sides have been reported from February to May in Arakan State and neighbouring Chin State, in Paletwa and the Arakan townships of Maungdaw, Kyauktaw and Myebon.  

The Myanmar military and Arakan Army entered into an unofficial ceasefire toward the end of 2020, after some two years of fighting in Arakan State and parts of Chin State. 

Since the truce was reached, the AA has been building up a separate administrative apparatus in Arakan State, including its own judiciary, revenue department, public security offices and other traditional governing institutions that now run parallel to the junta administration.  

In an indication of regime disapproval of the Arakan Army’s increasingly assertive actions in the region, junta troops have been reported moving from village to village in Arakan State, warning locals not to get involved with the ethnic armed group.