Burma’s Rebels’ Homemade Weapons vs. Modern Military
Ethnic resistance army fighters with Vietnam-era M-16 and wooden rifles. Photo by Antonio Graceffo.
Reporting from the Thai/Burma border
“We have done so much, with so little for so long, now we know we can do anything forever with nothing.” Old military saying, originally attributed to Konstantin Josef Jireček
In 2007-2008, when I was embedded with an ethnic resistance army in Myanmar (Burma), I saw rebel soldiers wearing flip-flops. Some had wooden, non-firing guns, while others had rifles left over from the 19th-century British army. There were muzzle-loaders, homemade spear guns, crossbows, and a plethora of other makeshift weapons. The best-equipped soldiers had M-16s and M-79 grenade launchers from the Vietnam War. Modern weapons included cheap plastic copies of AK-47s.
