Myanmar Spring Chronicle – September 04 Scenes
Moe Ma Ka, September 05 2022
The military council forces took air support to recapture the border guard post near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border called 40 Mile Post, where the fighting between the Rakhine Army known as AA and the military council forces was taking place fiercely.
According to news reports, the Bangladesh side summoned the ambassador of the military council to object because the plane crossed into the border of Bangladesh. A few days ago, the AA troops attacked the border guard police station called the 40 mile post, killing 19 border guard policemen and capturing one wounded, and the post was taken over by the AA. This incident happened in which the military council’s warplanes crossed the other country’s airspace when they attacked both from the ground and from the air in order to recapture this camp.
During the recent clashes on the Thai border between the Myanmar military council forces and the KNDO battalions, the Thai side objected to the fact that fighter jets crossed into their airspace. However, since the government led by Thai generals has a close relationship with the Myanmar coup army, the junta does not seem to pay much attention to it.
The relationship with the neighboring country of Bangladesh is different from that of Thailand. The relationship between the Myanmar military and Bangladesh is cold because of the Rohingya refugee issue. Since September 2017, millions of refugees have taken refuge in Bangladesh, and the issue of these 700,000 to 1 million refugees is also a reason for the cooling of the relationship between Myanmar and Bangladesh. This refugee problem has resulted in tens of thousands of people entering Bangladesh due to military clearance operations after the Rohingya rescue armed group known as ARSA attacked dozens of border police stations in 2017.
The then-elected NLD government drew up plans for resettlement and communicated with Bangladesh, but it was not implemented until 2020. At the time of the cleanup, the military killed civilians including children, women, and the elderly under the title of ARSA members and supporters without question, burned villages, and cleared the villages with bulldozers. For these events, the Gambia applied to file a case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the heading of genocide. Repatriation of refugees has become a political problem which could not be implemented under the NLD government, and the military coup has occurred again, and now it has become a refugee problem that has lasted for 5 years.
It can be said that the refugee problem has further cooled the relationship between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Now, there is not only the Rohingya refugee problem in Rakhine, but also the widening armed conflict due to the military council’s offensives to prevent territorial domination, parallel governance, administration and jurisdictions of AA armed organization. The military council always says that the political problem in Myanmar is not a regional problem but a domestic problem, but battles along the Thai border, crossing the airspace of the neighboring countries and the falling of artillery shells and now, similar incidents happened again on the border of Bangladesh show that the Myanmar’s issue has becoming the regional problem.
Bangladesh has already asked China for help in the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, which has been going on for 5 years. China has promised to help and this was expressed in the news in recent weeks. It also means that China, which is influential in the region to a certain extent, was being asked for help in organizing the Myanmar military council.
The Myanmar military is not only committing human rights violations and having armed conflicts with ethnic resistance organizations domestically, but also showing a lack of respect and care for the borders of some neighboring countries. They have been performing to the point that the domestic problem is transforming into a regional problem.