Terror in the Aftershock: Myanmar’s Military Junta and the War Against Its Own People

In the immediate aftermath of a devastating earthquake in Myanmar, the ruling military junta intensified aerial bombardments against rebel-held regions, notably in Sagaing and Kachin states, even as civilian communities grappled with destruction and loss. Reports confirmed by the National Unity Government (NUG) and foreign observers such as France24’s Cyril Payen, a veteran Southeast Asia correspondent, detail attacks using Chinese-supplied aircraft and Russian-made helicopters, striking densely populated areas already ravaged by the quake. At least seven resistance fighters were reportedly killed shortly after the tremors, while civilians—including children and monks—have also perished in strikes unrelated to the natural disaster.

This escalation during a humanitarian crisis has provoked international condemnation, with the UN urging the junta to halt all military operations. Yet the regime continues to prioritize counterinsurgency efforts over disaster response, blocking humanitarian access and channeling foreign aid through tightly controlled military structures. Despite pledges of over $4.5 million in emergency relief from the U.S. and EU, testimonies from local survivors indicate that assistance has not reached the victims. Instead, civilian populations are conducting their own rescue operations amid the ruins, with no evidence of state-organized relief.

In the absence of military-led aid, resistance groups such as the People’s Defense Forces (PDF), Kokang, and other ethnic guerrilla factions have mobilized their own rescue teams. These forces, operating under the umbrella of the NUG and controlling an estimated 60–70% of Myanmar’s territory, are stepping in to fill the humanitarian vacuum. Their actions underscore a broader effort to establish an alternative governance structure rooted in grassroots support and opposition to military authoritarianism.

The roots of Myanmar’s crisis lie in the 2021 military coup, which ousted the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. In the coup’s wake, peaceful protests quickly turned into armed resistance as thousands of young citizens—workers, students, and teachers—fled to the jungle to join or train with ethnic militias. Payen describes this transformation as a generational refusal to return to the country’s 70-year legacy of military rule, following a brief democratic interlude from 2011 to 2021. Today’s fighters represent a coalition of politically awakened youth and longstanding ethnic insurgencies united in their rejection of the junta’s violent oppression.

Despite widespread repression—including the incarceration of over 20,000 political prisoners—the junta maintains international backing from China, Russia, North Korea, and Israel, while the democratic opposition receives little material support from Western powers. This geopolitical imbalance has enabled the junta to act with near-total impunity, even during moments of national catastrophe.

Payen draws a chilling parallel to Cyclone Nargis in 2008, when the military similarly blocked foreign aid and concealed the scale of devastation. Then, as now, the regime used disaster as a pretext for further militarization, closing borders, withholding transparency, and attacking perceived enemies instead of protecting civilians. The earthquake has become not a moment of national solidarity, but another front in Myanmar’s internal war.

As the regime wages war from the skies over ruined villages, the people of Myanmar continue to resist on the ground—digging through rubble, organizing relief, and defying a regime that has weaponized every crisis for control. This tragedy reveals the core contradiction of Myanmar’s military state: a government that declares itself sovereign while systematically destroying the nation it claims to defend.