Myanmar Spring Chronicle – September 03 Scenes
MoeMaKa, September 04 2022
In the months before the 2020 election, the fighting between the AA and the military decreased significantly. After the election, both sides stopped the armed conflicts, issuing statements of opinion and urging the Election Commission to hold a follow-up election. Around 2 years after that, the battles intensified again.
Between 2017 and 2019, it is estimated that between 300 and 400 civilians lost their lives during the widespread fighting in Rakhine State, and hundreds of armed members of the Myanmar army and AA were also killed. Some villages were destroyed by fire, and transportation, businesses, and humanitarian aid were all affected.
On the other hand, AA was strengthening and recruiting new people from the end of 2020 to the beginning of 2022, forming parallel administrative and legal tax collections quietly. They used as an opportunity of the fact that the coup army was facing armed battles with other armed groups and political instability in the mainland and other states of Myanmar.
The military difficulties were used as an opportunity for Rakhine and the position of the AA two years ago has changed a lot from the position of the current AA. It is estimated that AA is trying to advance to the next level because of the renewed armed clashes. It may aim to achieve a level of change by trying to establish the border area as army bases and, as a strong political and military organization that can deal with the Rohingya issue.
The Chinese foreign minister recently visited Bangladesh and promised to help the Rohingya refugees return home. The AA group is an armed group that established a strong hold in the north and gradually moved to Rakhine state, and it is believed that they have private relations with China, so China’s role in solving the Rohingya issue will be important to some extent.
It is assumed that China has already understood the importance of Rakhine State and the role of AA for reasons such as China’s offshore oil and natural gas pipeline exiting into the Indian Ocean through Rakhine State.
On the other hand, when the military council has opened at least 10 war fronts in the country, and when the army and security police battalions have been deployed in the big cities, there is no possibility that it will be able to fight the Rakhine issue as forcefully as in previous years. It can be assumed that the Myanmar armed forces were ordered to attack once again to prevent the establishment of a parallel government of AA. However, I am sure that they are not able to fight with as much strength as they did in 2018-19.
It can be predicted that for the Rakhine people, many more difficulties and battles will have to be overcome before reaching the goal of establishing self-determination of their own state and confederation. AA may consider it as an opportunity to try hard to achieve the goal of achieving the status of autonomous confederation of Rakhine state when the state military council is facing a crisis.
The Military Council will also try hard to show that it is still capable of fighting in Rakhine State even though some of the States and the mainland are facing armed conflicts. As for the military council, it is definitely not a situation where they can attack with full force like in 2018-19. In the current situation, the military council is using air attacks rather than just ground attacks, both on the mainland and in the states, and it is a situation where air strikes are advantages of the military council.
It is assumed that the details of to what extent the difficulty of the military council can be used as an opportunity for Rakhine and how much the goal can be achieved, will be answered in the coming months or year.
In other news for today, the US Secretary of State condemned the news that Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to 3 years in prison for violating the election law. Along with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, NLD president U Win Myint and former minister U Min Thu were each sentenced to 3 years in prison. While the international community continues to demand the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, U Win Myint and other leaders of the NLD party, who were arrested, they have imposed additional punishments and there are still more cases filed. This reflects the intention of the military council to ignore international demands and remove Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD from the political arena. There are also evaluations saying that the military council is not an organization that should be engaged in negotiations. The military council is only willing to discuss with the ethnic armed groups, but it has often stated that there is no plan to discuss with NLD party parliamentarians and leaders of NUG and CRPH, calling them terrorist groups.