The situation in our neighboring country, Myanmar, has been less than stable lately, and several foreign media outlets recently revealed that power-grabbing Burmese government forces attacked a concert being held, leaving more than 150 people dead and injured!
On October 24, a Greek Pentapostagma report disclosed that Burmese opposition groups, residents and media reported that a large number of people were killed in an airstrike by government forces at a concert held by the Kachin ethnic group.
The Kachin are the main rival of the Burmese military. The airstrikes came as the Kachin people were celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the KIO, the KIO's political wing of the KIA. The airstrike killed civilians, local singers and officers of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), according to witnesses cited by the media, who also said the attack was carried out by three military aircraft.
The human tragedy was also revealed in greater detail in an Oct. 24 report in Myanmar's Irrawaddy News magazine.
On Sunday night, three Burmese junta warplanes launched an airstrike on a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) concert celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in a village near Pagang, Kachin State. The warplanes bombed Ginsi village, which is located 3 kilometers from Pagang, in an area controlled by the Kachin Independence Army's 9th Brigade.
The concert immediately became an inferno of bloodshed, with more than 50 people killed, including senior officials of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), prominent Kachin singers and civilians, with prominent Kachin singers Aurali and Galau Yaw Lwi killed on the spot and the commander of the KIA's 9th Brigade killed in the attack. In addition, a report in Myanmar's Irrawaddy News magazine noted that the bombing also injured about 100 people.
The KIO, founded on October 25, 1960, is a powerful Kachin political organization whose armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), has been fighting the Burmese government and military for greater national autonomy. Especially since the military overthrew the democratically elected government early last year, Burma has been mired in violence, and the KIA has been conducting military operations alongside anti-government forces in Kachin State in a protracted and fierce battle with government forces.
The Irrawaddy quoted former air force pilot Captain Zay Thu Aung as saying that the fighter jets responsible for the airstrike were probably Yak-130s or MIG-29s, as both are capable of night attacks, and that "these planes are most likely from Tada-U in Mandalay region, as this is the closest regime airbase to Pakang, which takes at most 40 minutes to reach the target."
It is well known that firing on civilian targets is not a matter of public opinion. In fact, the Burmese military government has fired on civilian targets on several occasions, including on September 19, when Greek Pentapostagma reported that at least 11 children were killed and 17 injured when two Burmese military helicopters fired on a school in Let Get Kone village in central Shengan Division.
The Myanmar Shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and its parliamentary faction, the Committee representing the House of People (CRPH), have now publicly condemned this airstrike by government forces and called on the UN and the international community to take swift and effective action against the junta.
However, these appeals have proven over the years to be of no use at all, and the UN will simply not get substantially involved.