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Kawthoolei Army

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Kawthoolei Army
Leader
General Saw Nerdah Mya[1] – General Officer Commanding (GOC.) Lieutenant General Saw Hsar Gay Po – Vice Chief of Staff (VCS.)
Dates active16 July 2022 (2022-07-16) – present
Split fromKaren National Union
CountryKawthoolei
Active regionsKayin State
Mon State
Tanintharyi Region
Myanmar-Thailand border
Ideology
Size200+

The Kawthoolei Army[2][1] (Burmese: ကော်သူးလေ တပ်မတော်; abbr. KTLA) is a militant and separatist group in Myanmar, split from Karen National Union.[3]

The formation of the new militia was announced on 19 July 2022.[4] General Nerdah Mya, former head of the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO), had been removed from his KNDO position after allegations that his KNDO troops killed 25 suspected Burmese military spies in southern Karen State.[5]

In April 2023, the KTLA launched an offensive against the Kayin State BGF in Shwe Kokko, forcing over 10,000 people to flee into Thailand.[6] On 21 May, the KTLA, alongside other anti-junta forces, launched offensives against the Tatmadaw's "Plato" and Maw Khee camps, south of Myawaddy.[7]

The KTLA is reportedly associated with an Italian neo-fascist group CasaPound through the group "Popoli Onlus Solidarity Community".[8]

According to the Bangkok Post, the KTLA claims to control a 40km-long pipeline owned by PTT Exploration and Production that transports gas from Myanmar into Thailand's Kanchanaburi Province. The KTLA is reportedly considering either shutting down or destroying the pipeline.[9]

Quasi-state

[edit]

The Kawthoolei Army established in November 2023 the Kawthoolei Government and renamed it on the 5 January 2026 as the Republic of Kawthoolei.[10][11]

The proclamation marks a divergence from the political stance of the Karen National Union (KNU), the primary political organization representing the Karen people, which advocates for a federal democratic union within Myanmar rather than complete secession.[12] The KNU calls the "liberated" territory within Myanmar it administers as Kawthoolei.[13] As of January 2026, the state remains unrecognized by the international community, and the Karen National Union has publicly rejected the KTLA's proclamation.[12]

History

[edit]

Proclamation of independence

[edit]

In November 2023 the Kawthoolei Government was established, on the 5 January 2026 it was renamed into the Republic of Kawthoolei and declerad independence.[14] The proclamation cited the failure of the Myanmar military junta to protect civilian rights as the primary justification for secession. Nerdah Mya was named President, and Poe Thulay was named Prime Minister of the provisional government.[15][16][17][18][19]

Kawthoolei has proclaimed that it will be democratic, with a free-market economic structure. The new administration said it intends to uphold peace and cooperation and has called on other countries to recognize the Republic.[20] Nerdah Mya has announced plans to create a constitution and has already announced the creation of a provisional government,[21][22] including prime minister Poe Thulay and other cabinet members.[23]

Relationships

[edit]

Karen National Union

[edit]

General Nerdah Mya was formerly the head of the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO), a wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), but was dismissed in 2022 after the KNU found him guilty of extrajudicial killings of construction workers alleged to be spies,[24] three days after he formed the splinter group KTLA.[21]

Following the January 2026 proclamation, the KNU, which advocates for a federal state, publicly dismissed the declaration. Padoh Saw Taw Nee, the KNU spokesperson, characterized the move as "nonsense", arguing that the KTLA lacks both significant territorial control and the civil administration infrastructure necessary to govern a state.[12]

Since March 2026, the KNLA accused KTLA units under the command of Colonel Kaw La Phoe (Ai Khwe) of collaborating with the Tatmadaw and attacking Brigade 4 in Tanintharyi Region. Furthermore, KNU officials alleges that KTLA carries out extortion and attacks against civilian and humanitarian aid distribution, including a 22 April attack where a child was killed.[25] [26] [27]

On 4 May 2026, 37 KTLA members defected to KNLA Brigade 4 in Tanintharyi Region.[28]

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 "Thousands Flee as Myanmar Junta Artillery, Gunships Attack Villages in Karen State". The Irrawaddy. 25 January 2023. Archived from the original on 23 December 2023.
  2. ↑ "On Karen Revolution Day the Kawthoolei Army released 5 detained policemen in Myawaddy Karen state". Karen News. 4 February 2023. Archived from the original on 23 December 2023.
  3. ↑ "Kawthoolei Army: How a broken system and a disrespect for the rules of law in the KNU gave birth to another armed group in Karen State". KIC News. 2 August 2022.
  4. ↑ "သုးခိၣ်ကျၢၢ်ဖိစီၤနၢၤဒါမၠးတီခိၣ်ရိၣ်မဲဒုးအိၣ်ထီၣ် ကီၢ်သူလ့ၤသုးမုၢ်ဒိၣ်". Karen News. 20 July 2022.
  5. ↑ "Kawthoolei Army: How a broken system and a disrespect for the rules of law in the KNU gave birth to another armed group in Karen State". Karen News. 2 August 2022.
  6. ↑ "Into the lion's den: The failed attack on Shwe Kokko". Frontier Myanmar. 11 May 2023. Archived from the original on 30 June 2023. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
  7. ↑ "KTLA joint forces attack the military council Plato and Mawkhi camp". Democratic Voice of Burma (in Burmese). 22 May 2025. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
  8. ↑ "Italian classical fascist group CasaPound portrayed itself as NGO and trying to mislead Karen National Union". Libcom.org. 11 May 2023. Archived from the original on 28 April 2025. Retrieved 3 May 2025.
  9. ↑ Thai gas pipeline under threat from Myanmar rebels. 9 August 2025.
  10. ↑ "Son of General Bo Mya declares himself President of Kawthoolei Republic, announces independence from Myanmar". Khaosod (in Thai). Retrieved 6 January 2026.
  11. ↑ https://www.powermentor.org/blog/forging-freedom-the-case-for-kachin-independence-and-strategic-alliance-with-kawthoolei-and-other-ethnic-nations-of-burma
  12. 1 2 3 "KNU dismisses KTLA's Kawthoolei declaration as 'nonsense', analysts see publicity stunt". Transborder News. 7 January 2026. Retrieved 9 January 2026.
  13. ↑ Smith, Martin (1 June 1999). Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 82, 389–401. ISBN 978-1-85649-660-5.
  14. ↑ "ASEAN Shocked! Independence Declared: 'Republic of Kawthoolei' Established". Dailynews (in Thai). Retrieved 6 January 2026.
  15. ↑ "Watch out! "Kawthoolei" declares independence, establishes new republic". Siam Rath (in Thai). Retrieved 6 January 2026.
  16. ↑ "กอทูเล ประกาศฝันรัฐเอกราช ประเทศใหม่บนแผนที่โลก?" [Kawthoolei declares dream of sovereign state: a new country on the world map?]. Thairath (in Thai). 8 January 2026. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  17. ↑ "KNU dismisses KTLA's Kawthoolei declaration as 'nonsense', analysts see publicity stunt". Trans Border News. 7 January 2026.
  18. ↑ https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/the-opinion/commentary/40060927
  19. ↑ https://www.nationthailand.com/news/asean/40060908
  20. ↑ Petpailin, Petch (8 January 2026). "New 'Republic of Kawthoolei' announced at Thai-Myanmar border". Thaiger. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  21. 1 2 "Armed group in Karen State declares independence from Myanmar". DVB. 8 January 2026. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  22. ↑ org, Stratfor. "Myanmar: Splinter Group Declares Independence Amid Election Violence | RANE". Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  23. ↑ English, Khaosod (8 January 2026). "Armed group in Karen State declares independence from Myanmar". DVB. Retrieved 8 January 2026.
  24. ↑ "Karen armed groups will not endorse new Kawthoolei Army splinter". DVB. 21 July 2022. Retrieved 9 January 2026.
  25. ↑ "(KTLA)ဖီၣ်မၤသံဝဲ သုးရ့ၣ်-၁၂ အပှၤတဂၤဒီးကီၢ်ဆၣ်ပှၤမၤတၢ်ဖိတဂၤအဂ့ၢ်န့ၣ် KNU ယူၣ်စံးဝဲ" [KNU Statement- KTLA killed one civilian aid worker and one Battalion 12 fighter.]. Karen Information Center (in S'gaw Karen). 8 March 2026. Retrieved 25 April 2026.
  26. ↑ "KTLA ဗိုလ်အယ်ခွီးအဖွဲ့ကို စစ်အုပ်စု၏ မိတ်ဖက်အဖွဲ့အဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ကြောင်း KNU ကြေညာ" [KNU declares KTLA's Bo Ai Khwe's group as an ally of the military junta.]. Karen Information Center (in Burmese). 15 March 2026. Retrieved 25 April 2026.
  27. ↑ "သရက်ချောင်းမြို့နယ်တွင် KTLA အဖွဲ့၏ တိုက်ခိုက်မှုကြောင့် ကလေးငယ် ၁ ဦးနှင့် KNLA တပ်ရင်း ၁၂ မှ ရဲဘော် ၄ ဦးကျဆုံး" [1 child and 4 comrades from KNLA Battalion 12 killed in KTLA attack in Thayetchaung Township]. Khit Thit Media (in Burmese). 22 April 2026. Retrieved 25 April 2026.
  28. ↑ "သရက်ချောင်းမြို့နယ်တွင် KTLA အဖွဲ့၏ တိုက်ခိုက်မှုကြောင့် ကလေးငယ် ၁ ဦးနှင့် KNLA တပ်ရင်း ၁၂ မှ ရဲဘော် ၄ ဦးကျဆုံး" [KNU welcomes 37 members of General Nerdah Mya's KTLA unit, including battalion commander, who are joining the force]. Khit Thit Media (in Burmese). 7 May 2026. Retrieved 8 May 2026.
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