Ta'ang National Liberation Army

The Ta'ang National Liberation Army (Burmese: တအောင်း အမျိုးသား လွတ်မြောက်ရေး တပ်မတော်; abbreviated TNLA) in Myanmar (Burma), is the armed wing of the Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF).

Ta'ang National Liberation Army
တအောင်း အမျိုးသား လွတ်မြောက်ရေး တပ်မတော်
LeadersTar Aik Bong
Tar Bone Kyaw
Tar Hod Plarng
Dates of operationJanuary 1992 (1992-01) – present
HeadquartersNamhsan, Shan State, Myanmar
Active regionsTawngpeng, Shan State
Mogok, Mandalay Region
IdeologyTa'ang nationalism
Federalism[1]
Size8,000+[2]
Part ofPalaung State Liberation Front
AlliesNorthern Alliance[3]

Other allies

OpponentsState opponents

 Myanmar

Non-state opponents

Panthay militias[6]
Shan State Army - South
Battles and warsInternal conflict in Myanmar
Websitepslftnla.org (Archived English Version up to 2022)

The TNLA is known for their opposition to drug trade, conducting operations where they actively destroy poppy fields, heroin refineries and meth labs.[7][8][9][10][11] The TNLA claims that they arrest opium smugglers regularly and the narcotics seized are publicly burned on special occasions to deter drug trade.[6]

History

The TNLA was originally founded as the Palaung State Liberation Organization/Army (PSLO/A), which signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in 1991 and disarmed in 2005. After the dissolution of the PSLO/A, Ta'ang (Palaung) leaders Tar Aik Bong and Tar Bone Kyaw founded the TNLA alongside the PSLF to continue fighting for the self-determination of the Ta'ang people. The TNLA is presently allied with the Kachin Independence Army and the Shan State Army - North, and have been conducting operations alongside them in northern Shan State.[12]

Following the 2010 general election and constitutional reforms in 2011, the government created the Pa Laung Self-Administered Zone in northern Shan State as a special self-administration zone for the Ta'ang people. The region is one of the most underdeveloped in the country, with few schools and hospitals.

Clashes with Tatmadaw resumed after the military coup, with TNLA alongside its allies, AA and MNDAA, attacking a police station south of Lashio, killing at least 14 police officers and burning the station to the ground.[13] TNLA and MNDAA further launched attacks in multiple locations in Northern Shan State on 4 and 5 May 2021, inflicting heavy casualties on the Myanmar military.[14]

Combined forces of TNLA and SSPP clashed with RCSS in March and April 2021, injuring several civilians and displacing thousands.[15][16]

Tar Bone Kyaw, the second-in-command of TNLA, voiced his support for the National Unity Government formed in opposition to the military junta.[17]

Abductions

On October 17, 2020, TNLA abducted a local woman from Mogok and demanded 60 millions of kyats and beaten until ransoms were paid.[18][19]

On December 5, 2020, also in Mogok, another local man was also abducted by TNLA.[20][21]

References
  1. Hay, Wayne (17 February 2016). "Myanmar rebels continue fight despite ceasefire deal". www.aljazeera.com. Archived from the original on 11 July 2019. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  2. "Myanmar Junta Invasion Force Under Siege: Ta'ang Army". 8 December 2022. Archived from the original on 8 December 2022. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  3. Lynn, Kyaw Ye. "Curfew imposed after clashes near Myanmar-China border". Anadolu Agency. Archived from the original on 24 May 2020. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
  4. Thar, Ken; Khine, Tin Aung (2 August 2018). "300 Myanmar Villagers Flee Township as Ethnic Armies Approach". Radio Free Asia. Translated by Khet Mar. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  5. "Two helicopters used in fighting near northern Shan State's Naungcho". Mizzima. 14 March 2022. Archived from the original on 16 March 2022. Retrieved 4 May 2022.
  6. Veits, Chris (July 2015). "Are the TNLA a threat to peace in Myanmar? - Inside the TNLA's war on drugs". Journeyman Pictures. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  7. Larsen, Niels (23 April 2015). "On Patrol With Myanmar Rebels Fighting Both the Army and Drug Addiction". VICE News. No. Crime and Drugs. Archived from the original on 24 January 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  8. "Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar's Shan State". Crisis Group. 16 March 2020. Archived from the original on 25 October 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  9. Weng, Lawi (16 March 2020). "TNLA Attacks Five Poppy-Growing Hubs in Northern Myanmar". Archived from the original on 31 March 2021. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  10. Ferrie, Jared (5 November 2015). "The drug war in Myanmar's mountains". The New Humanitarian. No. Forgotten Conflicts - Myanmar. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  11. Floramo, Vincenzo (11 July 2014). "The power of the flower". Archived from the original on 18 April 2021. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  12. "Myanmar Peace Monitor - TNLA". 6 June 2013. Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  13. Eckert, Paul (10 April 2021). "Ethnic Army Alliance Kills 14 Myanmar Police in Dawn Raid as Death Toll Mounts in Bago". Radio Free Asia. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  14. "TNLA, MNDAA Claim to Have Killed Dozens of Myanmar Junta Troops in Shan State". The Irrawaddy. 5 May 2021. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  15. "Clashes Persist Between RCSS and Combined Forces of TNLA, SSPP in Namtu". BNI Multimedia Group. 16 March 2021. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  16. "Shan State Villagers Flee Fighting Between Rival Ethnic Armed Groups". The Irrawaddy. 16 April 2021. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  17. "ဒီကနေ့ ဖွဲ့စည်းလိုက်တဲ့ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ NUG ကို ကြိုဆိုထောက်ခံကြောင်းနဲ့ ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ဖို့ ကြိုးစားပြင်ဆင်သွားမယ်လို့ TNLA အထွေထွေအတွင်းရေးမှူး ဗိုလ်မှူးချုပ် တာဘုန်းကျော် က ကြေညာလိုက်ပါတယ်။". Facebook (in Burmese). Democratic Voice of Burma. 16 April 2021. Archived from the original on 11 September 2022. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  18. "မိုးကုတ်ဒေသခံများအား TNLA မှ ဖမ်းဆီးပြီး ငွေကြေးတောင်းခံမှုများရှိနေ". Myanmar NOW on YouTube. Archived from the original on 11 September 2022. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  19. "ပြန်ပေးဆွဲပြီး ကျပ်သိန်းရာချီတောင်းသည့်အပြင် တုတ်အချောင်းချောင်းကျိုးသည်အထိ ရိုက်နှက်". Myanmar NOW (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 5 December 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  20. "DVB - မိုးကုတ်မြို့မျက်နာဖုံးကို TNLA က ဖမ်းဆီးသွားတာဖြစ်". DVB on YouTube. Archived from the original on 11 September 2022. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  21. "မိုးကုတ်မြို့ စံပြမုန့်တိုက်ပိုင်ရှင်အမျိုးသားကို လက်နက်ကိုင်လူသုံးဦးက ဖမ်းဆီး". Myanmar NOW (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
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