Myanmar’s military government accused rebel forces in the eastern state of Kayah of firing at a passenger plane as it was preparing to land on Friday, wounding a passenger who was hit by a bullet that penetrated the fuselage. Rebel groups denied the allegation.
Myanmar state television MRTV said the Myanmar National Airlines plane, carrying 63 passengers, was hit as it was about to land in Loikaw, the capital of the eastern state of Kayah, also known as Karenni.
It cited junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun as saying the shooting was carried out by “terrorists” belonging to the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), an ethnic minority militia battling the government, and their allies in the People’s Defense Force (PDF), an armed pro-democracy group.
Photo: AP
“I want to say that this kind of attack on the passenger plane is a war crime,” he told MRTV by phone, adding that “people and organizations who want peace need to condemn this issue all round.”
MRTV said the bullet entered the plane’s lower fuselage as it was flying at an altitude of 1,070m about 6.5km north of the airport. It said the injured passenger was taken to a hospital.
The state news agency released photos it said were of the bullet hole and the passenger being treated.
Myanmar National Airlines’ office in Loikaw announced that all flights to the city were canceled indefinitely.
Kayah state has experienced intense conflict between the military and local resistance groups since the army seized power last year, overthrowing the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Feb. 1 takeover last year was met with peaceful nationwide protests, but after the army and police cracked down with lethal force on street demonstrators opposing military rule, thousands of civilians formed militia units as part of the PDF to fight back.
The PDF groups are allied with well-established armed ethnic minority groups such as the Karenni, the Karen and the Kachin which have been fighting the central government for more than half a century, seeking greater autonomy in border regions.
Karenni National Progressive Party leader Khu Daniel denied the government’s accusation and said his party had not ordered its armed wing, the Karenni Army, to shoot at civilians or passenger planes.
“The military always blames other organizations for the shootings. Our armed wing didn’t shoot the plane this morning,” he told The Associated Press.
Tun said it has been providing security around the airport and accused the KNPP and PDF of creating chaos in Loikaw by firing artillery into the city and the area near the airport.
Since the military seized power, there have been frequent clashes in Kayah between the army and local anti-government guerrillas near a base belonging to the government’s 54th Light Infantry Battalion, located south of the airport. State-run media reported last December that the KNPP and PDF attacked a Myanmar National Airlines passenger plane with four 107mm rockets, which exploded about two kilometers east of the airport, injuring no one.
The Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, another ethnic rebel group, earlier advised against traveling on Myanmar National Airlines because it is state-owned, so its revenues go to the military, and the army uses it to supply its forces.
The information officer of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, who spoke on condition of anonymity to safeguard his personal security, called the government’s allegation about Friday’s shooting “nothing more than defamatory propaganda against the revolutionary forces by the Military Council,” adding that “the runway and the area of the airfield are surrounded by infantry battalions and high security areas. So to say that PDFs attacked the plane is only an accusation.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a