Eighteen civil servants working for the military regime in Gangaw Township, Magwe Region have defected to the People’s Administration body under Myanmar’s civilian National Unity Government (NUG), the administration said on Tuesday.
The mass defections came five months after the Gangaw People’s Administration announced it was running the township’s governing and judicial processes effectively and urged all government staff working for the regime to switch sides.
The administration also warned it would take severe action against any government servants who threatened former civil servants who have joined the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement by refusing to work for the junta.
On Tuesday, 17 staff from the junta-run township education department and a clerk from its general administration department defected, the People’s Administration said.
Around 70 to 80 percent of judges, police, firefighters and government administrators resigned their posts in Gangaw in late 2021 after the anti-regime Yaw Defense Force (YDF) told junta-controlled staff to quit.
In early 2022, Magwe Region’s junta-appointed cabinet admitted the regime had almost lost control in six of the region’s 25 townships due to the attacks by anti-regime People’s Defense Forces.
Regional security minister Colonel Kyaw Kyaw Lin also confessed in 2022 that the junta administration had broken down in Gangaw District since July 2021 when the PDFs emerged.