Junta Attempts to Divide in Western Myanmar’s Arakan State

By Admin 12 Jul 2024

Written By Khaing Roe La
 
With the Arakkha/Arakan Army (AA) making sweeping gains in the fight against Myanmar’s military regime in Arakan State, accusations of the ethnic armed group committing human rights violations, civilian killings and even genocide against non-Arakanese people have been made.

Such allegations ran rife especially after the AA seized Buthidaung Township, a garrison township in northern Arakan State where 17 battalions including the 15th Military Operations Command are based. Muslims known internationally as Rohingya make up the majority of residents in Buthidaung Township.

In May, many organisations and individuals including the United Nations expressed concerns for the safety of Muslim people in Arakan State, urging the AA to report the situation on the ground.

The entirety of Buthidaung Township fell into the hands of the AA on May 18. Muslim activists U Tun Khin and Ro Nay San Lwin, and the deputy human rights minister for the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) U Aung Kyaw Moe accused the AA of torching thousands of Muslim houses and forcibly removing residents in Buthidaung Town on May 17.

And 195 human rights organisations and revolutionary groups inside and outside Myanmar released a joint statement that called for uncovering the truth in the Buthidaung incident, and for ensuring justice for Muslim people there.

In an interview with Voice of America, AA chief Major-General Twan Mrat Naing said: “We exercised considerable caution in Buthidaung. It is very racially and religiously sensitive. The military council is implementing its scheme to label the AA as a villain internationally by conducting various forms of attacks.”

The AA only warned residents to evacuate the town for their safety, and did not commit arson attacks, according to Maj-Gen Twan Mrat Naing.

“Lobbyists abroad have no positive view of our alerts. You will face harsher criticisms when you engage in fighting than when you engage in politics,” the AA chief said.

Locals told DMG that junta soldiers, Muslim conscripts and members of Muslim armed groups such as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) had torched 2,327 houses of Arakanese and Hindu people as of May 17, before the AA seized the town.

Maj-Gen Twan Mrat Naing said 550 houses were burnt amid fighting on May 17. Along with the residences, 12 Buddhist monasteries, one Islamic school, two Hindu temples and two churches were burnt, said the AA.

A video file purportedly showing armed Muslim men in military uniforms celebrating in front of the burning houses in Buthidaung Town also went viral on social media in the second week of March.

Muslim Armed Groups

What is significant about the latest fighting in Arakan State is that the regime has mobilised the RSO, ARSA and Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA), which successive military regimes have declared terrorist organisations, to fight for it. This has been confirmed by local Muslim residents both internally displaced (IDPs) and still residing in their homes, as well as refugees in Bangladesh.

The regime collaborated with Muslim groups in Buthidaung Town as it sought to repel the AA’s attacks, a Muslim resident of Kin Taung Village in Buthidaung Township told DMG.

ARSA and RSO militants abducted around 100 Muslim men from refugee camp Nos. 1, 16, 18 and 19 at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, purportedly for the AA, on April 29.  They were in fact conscripted for the military regime, according to a Muslim from the refugee camp.

The RSO attempted to detain more than 30 young men from the same refugee camp on May 21. They were successfully and violently thwarted by the Muslim refugees, with a video recording of the incident sent to DMG.

“The RSO had arrested young men from our camp and was forcing them onto a truck. They fled when we beat them with sticks,” said a refugee who asked for anonymity.

According to refugees, the RSO and other groups have abducted around 200 Muslim men from other refugee camps, and sold them to the regime.

Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the parallel National Unity Government (NUG), told a cabinet meeting on May 28: “The terrorist regime is deliberately creating racial conflict regarding the Muslim [Rohingya] issue.”

The Myanmar military has often portrayed itself as the protector of race and religion, particularly Buddhism. Political observers say it has tended to exploit Myanmar’s racial and religious diversity in politics over successive periods.

Former Arakan State lawmaker U Pe Than said: “The regime plays a dirty trick hoping that conflict between the Arakanese and Muslim communities will derail the revolution of the AA.”

Political analyst U Than Soe Naing said the AA’s statements show the armed group is exercising restraint to avoid racial strife.

“It is the military regime and Muslim extremist and terrorist organisations like ARSA, ARA and RSO that are creating problems over Muslim issues,” said U Than Soe Naing.

Junta Exploitation 

The regime has attempted many means to prop up its army as it is on the brink of losing the entirety of northern Arakan State, according to residents. Arakan State is home to several ethnic groups and tribes including Thet, Khami, Mro, Thakkama (Daingnet), Maramagyi and Kaman peoples.

The regime has conscripted Muslims whom it once called interlopers. It has targeted Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, which have the largest Muslim populations in Arakan State.

“They said that they would give us citizenship IDs and monthly salaries and that we only need to protect our place, and that there would be many other allowances. So, we are faced with a dilemma. They pressured us through local administrators,” said a young Muslim man from Sittwe who asked for anonymity.

“Since the Muslims asked for security, we made them secure from the point of view that they should have the right to defend themselves,” junta spokesman Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun said in an interview with the BBC in April.

Via a lottery system, Myanmar’s military regime has been conscripting some internally displaced people (IDPs) from Muslim displacement camps in Arakan State’s Sittwe Township including Bumay, Thaechaung, Barsar, Darpaing, Thakkaypyin, and Ohntaw since May 25. Many Muslim conscripts were sent straight to the frontline after just two weeks of basic military training, family members said.

Hundreds of junta soldiers and their families including the deputy battalion commander of the 15th Military Operations Command based in Buthidaung surrendered on May 2. Among them were Muslim conscripts. The regime trained 1,000 Muslims from Sittwe Township in February and March and sent them to the frontline to fight the AA. Some have died in clashes.

A Muslim mother from Darpaing Village told DMG of her son in the first week of May: “I can’t contact him since. I want to make a direct phone call to him. I want to know if he and his friends are doing well. I am worried for their safety.”

About 3,000 Muslims from Buthidaung, Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Maungdaw have already attended the military training provided by the regime. All told, from the townships under its control, the regime has forcibly recruited nearly 5,000, according to Muslim activists.

The regime has orchestrated Muslim protests against the AA in Sittwe, Maungdaw and Buthidaung towns on multiple occasions in an attempt to create racial conflicts in Arakan State.

Ro Nay San Lwin, founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, said: “The regime forcibly took Rohingya (Muslims) and gave them military training. And it has been committing acts like this to cause misunderstanding between the two communities.”

Hate Speech and Signs of Harmony

Analysts say the regime has intensified efforts to incite religious and ethnic hatred between ethnic armed groups and different communities since ‘Operation 1027’ was launched in late October.

Junta propagandists have used Telegram channels to spread hate speech targeting the AA, publishing at least 71 posts from May 18 to May 24 that accused the ethnic armed group of slaughtering Muslims and being involved in the illicit drugs trade, according to Burma Affairs & Conflict Study (BACS).

When DMG sought the views of local Muslim residents regarding the regime’s propaganda, they expressed a simple desire to live and work together with the other ethnic groups in Arakan State.

“We are OK now. We usually go to an area held by the AA to receive medical treatment. We make a living as merchants,” said a Muslim woman from Paikthay Ward in Kyauktaw.

“Muslims are used in elections, and other political and conflict processes. In the previous religious and ethnic process, Muslims were used for political gain,” said a Muslim cleric in Minbya Township.

He continued that Muslims and Arakanese in the AA-controlled areas live in social harmony and interact with each other.

Conflict between the Arakanese and Muslim communities in Sittwe, Kyauktaw, Pauktaw, Myebon and Kyaukphyu in 2012 resulted in many deaths, injuries and property damage, and many Muslims are still living in displacement camps.

Five years later, more than 700,000 Muslims fled to Bangladesh when the Myanmar military carried out brutal so-called “area clearance operations” in the aftermath of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks on multiple border guard police outposts in 2017.

The Gambia, on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, filed a lawsuit in 2019 against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Southeast Asian nation of committing genocide against Arakan State’s Muslims in 2017.

AA chief Maj-Gen Twan Mrat Naing assured in an interview with The New Humanitarian in May that since Muslims are residents of Arakan State, they will be given equal citizenship under any government headed by its political arm, the United League of Arakan (ULA).

A Muslim cleric from Minbya Township said of his simple hope, “We were born and raised in Arakan State. Interests are on both sides, and we want to see a harmonious future in Arakan State.”