{"id":61501,"date":"2024-01-29T17:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T08:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2024\/jan\/29\/myanmar-military-junta-totters-as-battalions-surrender"},"modified":"2024-01-29T17:00:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T08:00:30","slug":"why-should-i-kill-our-own-thousands-of-soldiers-surrender-as-myanmar-junta-shaken-by-rebel-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=61501","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Why should I kill our own?\u2019: Thousands of soldiers surrender as Myanmar junta shaken by rebel advances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Three years after the military seized power in a coup, defectors report dire morale as the regime suffers humiliating losses of men and arms, with even generals surrendering to the rebels<\/p>\n<p>One night last August, as the monsoon rains poured, Wunna Kyaw and some fellow soldiers walked away from their military base in Myanmar. It was hours before they were due to be deployed to an area gripped by intense fighting, where the military was struggling to control attacks by armed pro-democracy groups.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believed I would die if I did not defect,\u201d says Wunna Kyaw. As the senior officers and commander slept, they crept away from their compound in Kayin, also known as Karen state. It was an act punishable by at least seven years in prison and, potentially, the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2024\/jan\/29\/myanmar-military-junta-totters-as-battalions-surrender\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three years after the military seized power in a coup, defectors report dire morale as the regime suffers humiliating losses of men and arms, with even generals surrendering to the rebelsOne night last August, as the monsoon rains poured, Wunna Kyaw an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,82,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-development","category-myanmar","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61502,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61501\/revisions\/61502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}