More evidence of mass killings is emerging amid the Myanmar junta’s crackdown on pro-democracy rebels. Last weekend at least 35 civilians were murdered in Hpruso township, and their bodies burned.

There is also evidence of at least 40 men being rounded up, tortured and killed in four incidents in June. These follow previous testimonies of human rights abuses as the military regime, which took power in a coup in February, attempts to stamp its authority on a tenaciously resistant civilian populace.

The latest revelations will increase pressure on the international community to confront the junta more directly. However, in truth, these kinds of tactics are par for the course for the Tatmadaw, the armed forces of Myanmar.

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Blatant disregard for human life has been widespread among the military during the decades-long conflict with ethnic rebels fighting for greater autonomy, as seen in the shelling of civilian communities and the use of mass starvation as a weapon of war. Both tactics have been shown to have been in use in offensives against areas that are resisting military authority, or communities that continue to demand the reinstatement of the civilian government elected late last year.

Meanwhile, terrorizing communities by rounding up and publicly killing the men, as well as sexually abusing women and even minors, were well attested during the Tatmadaw’s genocide of the Rohingya minority during 2016-2017.

The Myanmar military has been deploying the tactics of genocide against ethnic minority groups in the borderlands for decades. But now it using the same tactic against what is supposed to be its political base: The Buddhist Burmese majority in the heartlands of the country.

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