According to intelligence service documents leaked last month, the coup military created a spy network among anti-regime forces. Reports claim that counter-intelligence operations led to the arrest of one of the pro-democracy activists executed last year. The pro-democratic militias also have their own agents and they are called “watermelons”.
Yangon ( / Agencies) – Double secret agents, false infiltrated militias and ineffective weapons: these are the ploys used by the Burmese coup junta in counter-espionage operations to attack the pro-democratic resistance. This is confirmed by internal reports from the Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs (OJASM or Sa ya pa in Burmese, the department in charge of the secret services) that were leaked to the local media last month.
The documents offer details of the intelligence operations that were carried out in 2021, after the military coup on February 1, until the beginning of 2022, and reveal details about the operation of the sabotage missions against the Popular Defense Forces (FDP). ), the armed wing of the Government of National Unity in exile, made up mostly of former deputies belonging to the National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Reports indicate that OJASM military personnel oversaw the management of small arms for assassination and urban guerrilla missions. Similarly, its operatives infiltrated the ranks of the resistance, controlling access to weapons depots and supplying fighters with explosive devices that would not have caused heavy casualties. In addition, the military created fake militias affiliated with the People’s Defense Forces, called “Human Rights Defenders” and “Generation Z Defense Forces,” which carried out a series of fictitious operations, including fake attacks on outposts. army control.
One of the fundamental strategies is the infiltration of double agents, in most cases former members of the FDP who had been detained by the army and later released as spies. On January 22, the FDP, realizing the presence of moles in its ranks, ambushed and killed two junta officers along with two undercover spies. However, the OJASM documents emphasize the creation of a vast network of infiltrators that reached key positions in anti-regime forces: reports state that it was these infiltration operations that led to the arrest of Phyo Zeyar Thaw. , anti-regime activist and National League for Democracy parliamentarian who was executed along with other pro-democracy figures in July 2022.
According to the researcher Amara Thiha, the intelligence operations of the coup junta have the objective not only of capturing dissidents, but also of dismantling small secret military posts of the resistance. In fact, the Burmese army has so far refrained from shelling some of the larger camps of armed ethnic militias (which have been fighting the central state since Burma’s independence and allied with the PDF after the coup). On January 21, the army attacked the houses of some leaders of the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, one of the few militias that actually maintain good relations with the regime. According to the expert, the attack was carried out because the military had information about a possible collaboration of the militia with anti-regime forces.
At the same time, the OJASM does not seem to be in full control of the situation, because the resistance also uses infiltrators through whom it has managed to obtain information about military operations. These moles are called “watermelons” in jargon: green represents affiliation with the military, red loyalty to the resistance.
