Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing

MYANMAR: ARMY DENIES THAT GENERALS WERE SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR SURRENDERING KEY CITY TO INSURGENTS

January 29, 2024:

Myanmar’s military government is denying reports that it sentenced six army generals to death or life imprisonment for their surrender this month of a regional military command headquarters on the border with China to an alliance of ethnic armed groups, AP reported on January 24, 2024.
The generals were the key officers involved in the surrender of the headquarters in Laukkaing, a city in northern Shan state that had been a major target of the Three Brotherhood Alliance comprising the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army.
Laukkaing’s fall was the biggest defeat suffered by Myanmar’s military government since the alliance’s offensive was launched last October, underlining the pressure the military government is under as it battles pro-democracy guerrillas and other ethnic minority armed groups.
Independent media had reported that the six generals were put under investigation in the capital, Naypyitaw, after Laukkaing’s fall to the alliance. They had been sent back to territory still under the control of the military.
The independent media sympathetic to Myanmar’s anti-military resistance movement, including the online sites of Khit Thit and The Irrawaddy, reported on January 23 that three generals had been sentenced to death and three others to life imprisonment.
But the army’s press office, responding on January 23 to inquiries from journalists, denied the generals had received such sentences, calling the reports untrue.