“Myanmar Army bad. They come shoot, shoot,” one soldier said through an interpreter, mimicking machine gun fire.
The Wa will not participate in the election, he said, because it refuses to cooperate with the junta it says is illegitimate and brutal.
“We protect our territory. We fight for [our] people,” he said.
The Wa refuse to discuss drugs, but he added: “Our life here is hard ... we always need to make money some way, any way to feed our people. We need to survive.”
In Thailand a former Wa drug runner, who now works undercover for the Thai army gathering intelligence on shipments, said: “The Wa are very worried, they think junta’s soldiers are coming soon ... the soldiers are afraid. They sell the drugs to buy many, many guns, so they can fight.
“The Wa fighters will be ready, and they will fight,” he said.
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