According to intelligence documents leaked last month, the military regime has set up a network of spies among anti-regime forces. The reports suggest counterintelligence operations led to the capture of one of the top pro-democracy activists, who was executed last year. Pro-democracy militias also have their own double agents called "watermelons”.
Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Myanmar’s military appears to have successfully penetrated the country’s pro-democracy resistance through double agents while setting up fake militias and providing ineffective weapons.
Last month, classified reports from the Yangon branch of Myanmar’s Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs (OCMSA), also known as Sa Ya Pa in Burmese, were leaked to local media.
The reports provide information about intelligence operations carried out in 2021, after the military coup of 1 February, until early 2022.
The documents also reveal details about sabotage missions against the People's Defence Forces (PDF), the armed wing of the exiled National Unity Government (NUG), composed mostly of former lawmakers from the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi's party.
The reports suggest that OCMSA supplied small arms for assassination and urban guerrilla missions. By infiltrating the resistance, its agents could also monitor access to weapons stores and provide resistance fighters with explosive devices that would not cause large damages.
The military are said to have set up fake militias affiliated with the People's Defence Forces like the "Human Rights Defenders" and "Generation Z Defence Forces" to carry out phoney operations, including mock attacks on army checkpoints.
One of the basic strategies is the infiltration of mostly former PDF members arrested by the military and then turned double agents. On 22 January, aware of the presence of moles in their ranks, the PDF ambushed and killed an officer and an NCO along with two double agents.
The OCMSA documents suggest that network of infiltrators is very wide, reaching into key positions among anti-regime forces.
They claim that infiltration operations led to the arrest of Phyo Zeyar Thaw, an anti-regime activist and National League for Democracy MP executed along with other pro-democracy leaders in July 2022.
According to researcher Amara Thiha, intelligence operations by Myanmar’s military junta are not only aimed at capturing dissidents, but also seek to pinpoint the resistance’s smallest and most secretive military camps.
The military has in fact refrained from attacking some of the largest camps of armed ethnic militias (which have been fighting against the central government since Myanmar's independence and have allied themselves with the PDF after the coup).
On 21 January, the military hit the homes of some leaders of the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, one of the few militias to actually have good relations with the regime.
According to the expert, the attack was carried out because the military had information of probable cooperation of the militia with anti-regime forces.
At the same time, the OCMSA does not seem to have total control over the situation since the resistance also uses infiltrators to obtain information on military operations.
These moles are known as “watermelons”: military green outside, resistance red inside.