In the first week of March, many Military Council informants were killed in different townships.

Eight informers, including some Military Council-appointed ward administrators, were killed in a single week.

People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) said that because of these informers, PDF missions and operations have been slowed down and people are being arrested on false charges, so they need to be executed. The PDFs only undertake missions to execute informers after carefully considering each case, they added.

Two major Military Council informers in Kawa Township, Bago division were shot 12 times and killed on 4 March. One of the informers, San Win sued 30 Yit Kan Gyi villagers after the coup, locals said. He also attended Military Council press conferences as the editor of Pyi Thu Yin Pwint journal under the name of Moe Thout Pan.

The other informer was Maung Zaw, a ward administrator of Mat Mout village. “Maung Zaw, the Military Council appointed ward administrator of Mat Mout village collected taxes unlawfully from fishermen. He also opened gambling dens for cock fighting and playing cards, and collected protection fees. We heard he shared the money with the military council’s goons”, said a local.

“After confirming the combined information given by the locals and PDFs, we carried out the execution”, a leader of the Kawa People’s Defence Force explained. The two informants were on a motorbike together when they were shot and killed. Their bodies were later collected by the police.

A local news outlet, Kha Yan Channel reported that since the coup, up to five military appointed ward administrators and informers have been killed. The Kawa People’s Defence Force (KPDF) made a statement warning the ward administrators, informants for the Military Council and the aligned Pyu Saw Htee militia that they were giving them their second and final warning to stop their work and quit by 15 March at the latest. If they did not they would be considered military targets and would be targeted and killed.

An infamous military informer, Min Oo from Nyaung Kaut Village, in southern Shan State’s Pintaya Township was shot and killed at midday on 5 March. He had been regularly sending supplies to Ba Htoo camp in Lawksawk Township where Military Council troops are stationed. He was shot and

killed while he was at a rice mill between Pha Nan and Thane Kone villages. Junta troops came to inspect the mill after the shooting. The Pintaya PDF said that they also bombed the Pintaya municipal office as warning to municipal office staff.

An assistant ward administrator of No 5 ward of Yangon’s Hlaingthaya Township, Myint Aung was shot six times and died on the spot at the No 5 Ward Administration office, on 6 March. Another person was also hit during the shooting. A bomb was set off in front of Myint Aung’s house last month as a warning to him.

Killings of informants is so common that on the same day, 6 March, in Thanlyin, another Yangon township, the ward administrator of the Aung Chan Thar quarter, Maung Phone, was shot and killed in the morning. After the shooting, military troops came and locked down the township to carry out investigations, according to locals.

In some townships, ward administrators are collaborating with soldiers to collect money by force from slum dwellers and oppressing townspeople by threatening them with their guns, according to witnesses.

One of the administrators of Thanhlyat Mhaw East ward in Mandalay’s Maha Aung Myay Township, 50-year-old Tin Myo Lwin, was shot and killed by two motorcycle gunmen on 7 March while he was riding his motorbike in the ward.

Also, on 7 March a well-known informer was killed in Tanintharyi division. Zaw Win was working on his rubber plantation in Dawei District’s Tha Ye Taung Village when he was shot and killed. A local said “Zaw Win was an informer for the Military Council and he also had connections with the Pyu Zaw Htees. He called military council soldiers and asked them to arrest the young people from the village.”

Military supporters are being targeted and have been getting killed every day this week.