11/22/22, 4:29 PM Junta weaponises digital banking transition to starve resistance funding | Frontier Myanmar transaction to a distinct sender and beneficiary. Interception laws that preceded the coup mean providers must surrender this information, along with a users’ banking history and location, to the junta on request. Although bureaucratic inefficiency and a lack of technical know-how may prevent the junta from fully using its surveillance tools, recent prosecutions show it is already using this information to locate, starve and in some cases kill its opponents. In a press conference on September 20, military spokesperson Major-General Zaw Min Tun said the new CBM rules were mainly aimed at cracking down on fraud facilitated by mobile payments. However, he betrayed what was probably the regime’s real concern when he added, “It’s also to protect agents from being abused by the terrorists [opposition groups] and later charged in terrorism-related crimes.” Although it has targeted a range of dissidents, the regime is most concerned with cutting supply lines to the armed resistance groups and the parallel National Unity Government, which it has labelled terrorist organisations. As battles again erupt in Rakhine State, and with the dry season likely to promote fiercer fighting, armed resistance groups continue to pose an existential challenge to the regime. To cut off their financing is, for the junta, more vital than ever, and resistance sources told Frontier the regime had had some success in doing this. Aside from freezing accounts and removing sender anonymity, point 8 of the CBM’s August directive states that people wanting to maintain or set up a “Level 3” account – enabling large mobile transactions, in excess of 5 million kyat ($1,600) – must now gain, in person, written recommendations from both their local administrator and police force. This is an impossible ask for those forced by the junta to go into hiding or operate from “liberated” territory controlled by resistance groups. A source working for the NUG from Thailand told Frontier last month that several of his KBZPay mobile money accounts had been closed without explanation. “All my accounts were used for fundraising for our shadow government, who I work for remotely. All of them were frozen by KBZ Bank earlier this year, so I began using a trusted friend’s account, but even that was closed last week. It contained around 1 million kyat ($473) which I can’t access anymore,” he said. “When I contacted their call centre, KBZ said the account was closed by direct order of the [junta]. They apologised but said there was nothing they could do about it,” he said, adding that we was too frightened to report the account closures on social media, for fear of arrest and torture if deported to Myanmar. Ko Bike Pu, a fighter from a People’s Defence Force in Sagaing Region, told Frontier that his battalion had accepted public donations via KBZPay and WavePay before the directive was introduced, but now most of the group’s accounts had been closed. “We lost all the contributions, and all of our missions have been delayed because of it. We are now being very careful about how we take donations over these apps, and are thinking of alternative approaches,” he said. Another resistance fighter operating in Bago Region in territory controlled by the Karen National Liberation Army told Frontier that his battalion is now almost entirely dependent on funds from supporters abroad, deposited to accounts opened by his friends and other trusted individuals. “We don’t register the accounts with our own names. We use different names; some of which are family members, or close friends,” he said. As the junta attempts to suppress and control access to funds, armed resistance groups are turning to a digital currency that is beyond the regime’s reach. A member of Yangon-based anti-coup youth organisation Octopus, which organises flash mob protests in the city, told Frontier that his group was now using NUGPay – a payment platform that https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/junta-weaponises-digital-banking-transition-to-starve-resistance-funding/ 3/9