“After being punished by this side [the revolutionary forces], I will return home and take care of my son and daughter so they won’t become fatherless children,” Major Khaing Thant Moe, a Myanmar military regime pilot who was captured by ethnic armed groups in Karenni (Kayah) State last month, tells his captors in a video that has circulated widely online.
He made the comments during initial questioning by revolutionary forces immediately after being captured. Khaing Thant Moe is a pilot with 20 years’ experience with the Myanmar Air Force (MAF), which has waged a bloody campaign of air strikes that has killed hundreds of civilians along with large numbers of resistance forces across the country since the coup in 2021.
Flying a K-8W fighter jet, the 43-year-old and his co-pilot Lieutenant Zarni Htet Maung attacked resistance forces during a clash in Karenni State on Nov. 11, the day the Operation 11.11 anti-regime offensive was launched in Karenni State.
The Karenni Nationalities Defense Force and the Karenni Army reported that their forces shot down the fighter jet during a clash in Hpruso Township. The two pilots ejected from the plane and initially could not be located. However, Maj. Khaing Thant Moe was captured after a week and video footage of his initial questioning began spreading on social media a month later. Lt. Zarni Htet Maung is still missing.
When he was asked about his family, Maj. Khaing Thant Moe replied that he had not had any contact with them since being shot down. “If I go back, I will resign from the military and work as a teacher,” he says in the video. He then addresses his children, promising them he will return home and take care of them.
Viewers of the video commented on the hypocrisy of a father hoping to go back home and reunite with his family, after he and the armed forces to which he belonged have committed war crimes across the nation, killing and maiming many civilians, including the beloved children of many families.
On social media, many commenters expressed anger at his words, criticizing him as devoid of empathy for his fellow humans and swearing at him.
“He has to pay for what he did. He shouldn’t even think about returning to his family. The suitable punishment for him is a death sentence,” a Sagaing resident wrote angrily.
Myanmar Air Force’s atrocities
As the people’s revolution against the military coup intensified, the Myanmar Air Force carried out 902 air strikes across Myanmar, killing at least 687 civilians, including children, between the coup and August this year, according to a report by Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, which monitors junta atrocities.
The group reported that the frequency of the Myanmar Air Force’s air strikes has increased year by year. In 2021, air raids were carried out once every four days. In 2022, the MAF carried out air strikes once a day and in 2023, the rate was twice a day.
Maj. Khaing Thant Moe was stationed at Bago Region’s Taungoo Air Base, which is one of 10 military air bases around the country. Aircraft from Taungoo have mostly carried out air strikes in Mandalay Region and Sagaing Region, but have also reportedly struck as far away as Myitkyina in Kachin State. “If a plane has extra fuel, it can fly to Myitkyina from Taungoo Air Base,” said Naung Yoe, a former sergeant and Air Force defector.
Sagaing Region is among the areas that have borne the brunt of the air strikes, and suffered the Myanmar military’s deadliest massacre so far, an air strike in Pazi Gyi Village in Kantbalu Township in April that killed 157 people, including 30 children.
Sagaing was targeted 69 times in May through August this year, making it second only to Karenni State on the list of states and regions most affected by air strikes.
Voices of the victims’ families
Thida Win, whose 7-year-old son was brutally killed in a military air raid last year, said the captured pilot should not be allowed to live.
Her son Phone Tayza and six other children were among 13 people slaughtered during a targeted aerial attack in September last year by the Myanmar military on a school in Let Yet Kone Village in Depayin Township, Sagaing Region, where several dozen students were studying. The military claimed that People’s Defense Force (PDF) and Kachin Independence Army (KIA) fighters were stationed at the school.
Thida Win said she will never forgive the military’s pilots—not just for killing her son, but for the atrocities against civilians they continue to commit around the country.
“He [Khaing Thant Moe] said he doesn’t want to break his family. So what about us? Our family’s lives are already broken,” Thida Win said angrily.
Khaing Thant Moe would still be conducting air raids around the country if he had not been captured by the resistance forces, she added.
Ko Myo, who lost three family members—his younger sister, younger brother and brother-in-law—during the aerial massacre in Pazi Gyi, said he was irate when he heard Khaing Thant Moe’s words.
“There are many people who suffer because of them. We want him to suffer like us,” Ko Myo told The Irrawaddy.
Pazi Gyi village has been destroyed since the April air raid and surviving residents still don’t dare to return, he said.
“After committing such atrocities, it is impossible [that he be allowed] to reunite with his family,” Ko Myo said bitterly.
Daw Aye Mar, a teacher at Let Yat Kone Village school who witnessed the junta aerial massacre there last year, said the pilot lacks contrition and doesn’t seem to regret his actions.
“I don’t believe that such a person would be a teacher. Meaningless words,” she told The Irrawaddy.
Air Force defector Naung Yoe said Khaing Thant Moe gives the appearance of someone who blindly obeys orders and doesn’t think about the civilians who suffer due to the brutality of the military around the country.
“It’s like they don’t even know they have committed a crime,” Naung Yoe told The Irrawaddy.
For those who have lost loved ones due to the military’s atrocities, the most important thing is that the pilot should be punished appropriately.
“We want his family to break like ours. We want his punishment to reflect how much we have suffered,” Thida Win told The Irrawaddy.
