For years, living along Union Highway 8 was an economic boon for residents of New Rar Hpu village. The vital trade and transport artery hugs the Andaman Sea coastline, stretching over 650 kilometres from Tanintharyi Region’s Myeik Township in the deep south to Mon State’s Bilin Township. Connecting roads run west to the commercial capital Yangon and east to the Thai border.
But with the country plunged into civil war, the strategic importance of the highway has turned it into a conflict hotspot. or one year old,” recalled Daw Khin Yone, a resident of New Rar Hpu village in Tanintharyi’s Yebyu Township, who asked to be identified by her nickname.
“But both my grandson and my son-in-law were killed by the military, and my daughter is going crazy with grief,” she said, explaining they died on June 7 when the military fired artillery from the nearby Mawyawadi naval base.
Frontier encountered a more upbeat scene during a trip in May with the anti-junta fighters of the Dawna Column. On reaching a checkpoint the group had set up on the highway, between Yebyu and Mon State’s Ye Township, some civilian travellers even clapped and cheered at the novelty of being searched by resistance fighters.
Passengers on express buses were asked to disembark – with exceptions made for the sick, the elderly and pregnant women – and show their national ID cards. Both drivers and passengers were quizzed about their destinations, while vehicles were inspected to see if they were carrying products or conducting business related to the military regime.
“Revolutionary forces began expanding military operations in Mon State and Tanintharyi Region in June last year. Before then, fighting had mainly been occurring in areas [further north] along the Asian Highway in Kayin State,” said Dawna Column spokesperson Saw Dar Ko in a subsequent telephone interview in May.
“Our PDFs and joint allied forces now control 60 percent of Union Highway 8,” he said, referring to People’s Defence Forces, as armed groups formed in response to the 2021 military coup are commonly known.
The Dawna Column is affiliated with the National Unity Government, a parallel administration appointed by lawmakers deposed in the coup. It nominally oversees PDFs, although many of them follow the command of more established ethnic armed groups like the Karen National Union, which has fought for autonomy for the Karen people for decades.
Colonel Saw Nal Dar Htoo, a battalion commander in the KNU’s Brigade 6, said the major towns on the highway remain under the junta’s thumb, but many rural stretches are under the control of the resistance coalition.
But the military didn’t take those losses sitting down. Since late May, it has launched a counter-offensive aimed at regaining control of the highway, with some success.
A fluid front
Naing Nagar, spokesman for the Mon State Revolutionary Force, a post-coup group unaffiliated with the NUG, said the regime launched a “simultaneous offensive” with some 800 troops, forcing the resistance groups to “withdraw from some areas”.
“This section of the road had been controlled by our joint revolutionary forces for a long time, but the military council has started to attack with massive force,” he said. “They’re trying to clear the area, but we’re prepared to defend it.”
He said the junta troops came from Light Infantry Battalions 408, 409 and 410 – based near Kaleinaung, the second biggest town in Yebyu Township, about 50km north of Yebyu town.
Bo Kyan Yit, commander of Dawna Column’s Battalion 2, said between June 7 and 11 the regime retook control of the villages of Thar Yar Mon and New Rar Hpu, where Khin Yone’s relatives and five other civilians were killed. He said in both cases, ground troops occupied the villages after they were bombarded with artillery from the naval base.
Due to the intensifying clashes, resistance groups warned civilians to avoid using the 160km stretch of highway that goes from Ye, past Yebyu and onto Dawei, the Tanintharyi capital.
The junta has also sent reinforcements to the Light Infantry Battalion 406 base at Ma Hlwe Mountain on the outskirts of Ye town. Resistance groups say there is also a large military checkpoint on the highway there, manned by soldiers, General Administration Department staff, and tax and immigration officials. Resistance fighters and military equipment have regularly been captured at the checkpoint and multiple attempts to attack the base have been repelled.
The resistance coalition includes NUG-affiliated groups like the Dawna Column and Tanintharyi PDF, independent post-coup groups like the MSRF, older groups like the KNU and All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, and even a drone team named the Ye Air Force.
A similar coalition under KNU leadership has been persistently fighting since the coup along the section of the Asian Highway between the town of Myawaddy on the Thai border and Kawkareik town in Kayin. While the groups have failed to take either town, they have managed to disrupt trade and troop movements and repelled attempts to clear the road.
“Just as the Asian Highway is important in Kayin State, Union Highway 8 is a very important road both economically and militarily in the southern region,” said Nal Dar Htoo from the KNU.
He said the vast majority of border and domestic trade in the southeast uses the highway, making it crucial to disrupting the military’s troop movements and supply chains, as well as its revenue from road tolls.
Since 2023, the KNU’s Brigade 6 has led the fight over the highway in Mon and Tanintharyi, expanding from its traditional territory in southern Kayin State. But in doing so, it’s stepped on the toes of other major armed groups, including its KNU comrades in Brigade 4, which operates in Tanintharyi and has largely stayed out of the post-coup struggle. Frontier understands Brigade 4 was so unhappy with Brigade 6’s encroachment that Brigade 5, widely seen as the most powerful unit militarily, had to step in to negotiate a settlement.
Meanwhile, the New Mon State Party has long been wary of the KNU’s influence in Mon State. The largest Mon armed group, founded in 1958, the NMSP has continued honouring a three-decade ceasefire with the military. But an NMSP splinter group has joined forces with post-coup resistance armies and the KNU, which has been careful to emphasise its cooperation with Mon militias.
In addition to cutting off the military’s access and resources, taking control of the highway was a source of funds and supplies for resistance groups, which taxed travellers and cargo trucks and used the road to transport goods, including those smuggled from Thailand.
But the recent fighting has changed that.
“Since May, we have not been able to check cars or collect taxes in some places on the road,” said Naing Nagar from the MSRF.
Paved with gold
The highway is dotted with checkpoints controlled by the military, KNU and various other resistance groups. These serve two main purposes – taxing travellers and searching vehicles for enemy passengers and supplies.
The KNU’s Brigade 6 declared on June 10 last year that vehicles would only be allowed to travel on Union Highway 8 from 6am to 6pm, a curfew that remains in effect today. The group explained that military troops were pretending to be civilians, sometimes loading supplies into ordinary cars in an effort to sneak through resistance checkpoints.
“On December 24 last year, we caught troops from the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion 406 transporting equipment in a civilian light truck between Ka Nin Ka Mawt and Aung Thar Yar villages,” Nal Dar Htoo said, referring to two settlements on the highway in southern Ye Township, near the Yebyu Township border.
“We found military uniforms, military equipment, two motorcycles and some documents,” he said, adding the documents included some strategically valuable information like troop movements.
He said in the past year, his brigade has seized four other civilian vehicles transporting military equipment. It also regularly confiscates military-linked products, like Myanmar Beer. The civilian drivers are typically questioned and released, but any travellers identified as soldiers are taken into custody.
Dawna Column spokesperson Dar Ko said resistance groups including the KNU only inspect vehicles and don’t tax them. “Our responsibility is to control the territory and carry out military operations, so we’re not collecting taxes or working on territorial administration yet,” he said.
But other resistance groups and a trader told a different story.
A man who runs a business based in Dawei, which imports and distributes products from Thailand, says his drivers have to pay taxes to a kaleidoscope of different armed groups.
“When we import goods, we [go by road] from the Thai border to Mawlamyine, and then use Union Highway 8 to transport the goods south to Ye and Dawei,” he said, adding both the KNU and military collect taxes at checkpoints on both sections of the journey. Because the Asian Highway has been blocked by fighting over the last year, his drivers have used an older highway that runs parallel from Myawaddy, before reaching Mawlamyine.
“My staff drive 5-to-10-tonne vehicles on this route about five times a week, and they have to pay K50,000 to K150,000 in taxes at each gate,” he said, estimating that this costs him about K3 million per month.
NUG-affiliated groups also collect taxes across the route, he said, but at mobile rather than fixed checkpoints. The trader said that while he doesn’t mind paying taxes to the NUG, the current need to pay multiple different resistance groups imposes an unreasonable burden.
“I want them to negotiate with each other. After paying tax to the NUG, I don’t want to pay tax to the KNU. It feels like double taxation. And if possible, I don’t want to pay taxes to the military council at all, so it would be good if the NUG controlled the entire Union Highway 8,” he said.
Resistance groups are trying to grant his wish, but the military has proven resilient, and the recent escalation in clashes has largely halted traffic while putting civilians at risk.
“We have to cut the military off from important roads,” said Bo Kyan Yit of the Dawna Column. “The only thing to worry about is the military council targeting local people in the fighting.”
For Khin Yone and others, that worry is already a brutal reality.
“In our village, there is no one who supports the junta,.” said the grieving grandmother, suggesting that their suffering has only hardened their opposition to the regime. “I want the military council to fall quickly so we can all live peacefully.”
