Diplomatic situation in complicated by Arakan Army's control over the province, and India's past support for military junta, straining ties with the rebel groups
The fighting between the Myanmarese Army Tatmadaw and the separatist Arakan Army seems to have entered a crucial phase in the country's southeastern coastal province of Rakhine (former Arakan).
After a ceasefire announced by both sides to help humanitarian aid reach the March earthquake victims, fighting resumed in late May in the 36,762 sq km province that is separated from central Myanmar by the Arakan Yoma mountains that runs north to south.
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In the past few weeks, the Arakan Army has consolidated its grip on Rakhine’s border region with India and Bangladesh, and its fighters have crossed into central Myanmar’s Magwe and Ayeyarwady regions with the intent of capturing Myanmarese ordnance factories in the area and it has belatedly mounted a fierce offensive on the China-funded deep-sea port of Kyaukphyu and islands around it.
A Myanmarese brigadier has been killed in Kyaukphyu, and nearly 100 troops have already surrendered to the Arakan Army fighters. Though the Army garrison has been heavily reinforced, troop morale was reportedly running low.
The Arakan Army is already in control of 14 of the 17 townships of Rakhine province. If Kyaukphyu falls, the Myanmarese military junta will only be left in control of the provincial capital Sittwe (former Akyab) and a smaller township Manaung.
The Rohingya factor
But the northern part of the Rakhine province is largely populated by Muslim Rohingyas with a history of animosity with Buddhist Rakhines and Bamars (ethnic Bamars). The Myanmarese Army has persecuted the Rohingyas forcing more than one million of them to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. Some of them have entered India or fled to countries in Southeast Asia.
The ethnic cleansing intensified after attacks on Myanmarese security forces by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the youngest of the Rohingya armed groups in 2017.
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But during the last two years, since the Arakan Army intensified its offensive along with its allies in the Three Brotherhood Alliance, the Rohingya armed groups have sided with the Myanmarese troops against the Arakan Army. That has led to fresh persecution on Rohingyas by the Arakan Army, forcing many to flee to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh’s dilemma
Bangladesh’s interim government led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus is keen to send back the tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees because their continued presence is unwelcome by locals and maintaining them strains Bangladesh’s limited resources. But the Rohingya armed groups enjoy support of Bangladesh’s Islamist radical groups like the Jamaat-e-Islami, whose support is important for the survival of the Yunus regime.
The Rohingya armed groups like ARSA and Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) have now started fresh recruitment in the refugee camps to expand their strength. Their leaders want to fight the Arakan Army to create an autonomous region in northern Rakhine around the towns of Buthidaung, Rathedaung and Maungdaw.
The ARSA is also close to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which has funded their recruitment and weapons supplies.
The US factor
But Yunus is under increasing pressure from the US, which strongly backed last year’s regime change in Bangladesh and played a key role in putting him in charge, to back the Arakan Army and create a supply corridor for the Rakhine province.
Initially, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the corridor was for humanitarian supplies to the conflict-ravaged province but US diplomats and generals have alluded to a military dimension for supplies to the Arakan Army.
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Such supplies have already reached the Arakan Army and some western mercenaries have joined up with them and other rebel groups fighting the Myanmar military junta. The US would be understandably keen to back these rebel groups, specially the Arakan Army, to deny Beijing land-to-sea access through the proposed China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) .
China is desperately trying to sustain the Myanmarese military junta to protect its huge investments in Myanmar’s infrastructure. It has deployed scores of security guards, possibly ex-soldiers, to guard Chinese establishments and some media reports suggest some of these Chinese guards are fighting alongside Myanmarese troops against the Arakan Army at Kyaukphyu.
Implications for India
India has so far avoided getting dragged into the Myanmar civil war. But it can no longer afford to 'wait-and-watch'. With the Arakan Army almost in total control of the Rakhine province, India, like Bangladesh, has now been compelled to open a covert dialogue with it.
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Rakhine provincial capital, the port town of Sittwe, sits at the heart of the India-funded Kaladan Multimodal Transport project that seeks to open an alternative route to connect India's Northeastern region with the country's mainland – first from India's eastern ports to Sittwe, then up River Kaladan to Paletwa and then finally from Paletwa to Zorinpuii in Mizoram by road.
With India's Northeastern connectivity through Bangladesh facing uncertainties after the ouster of the Hasina regime, the Kaladan project has assumed greater importance. There is no way India can operationalise the Kaladan Multimodal Transport project without the blessings of the Arakan Army, which has started running a parallel administration in Rakhine province, much of which is now under their control.
Indian Army action
Connecting to the Arakan Army will not be easy for India because it conducted Operation Sunrise against their bases in Southern Mizoram not so long ago. The Indian Army also eliminated the top leadership of Arakan Army's predecessor organisation, National Unity Party of Arakan ( NUPA) in the infamous 'Operation Leech' in February 1998 in controversial circumstances detailed in Nandita Haksar's book " Rogue Agent".
India's long support for the Myanmarese military junta, despite it being much closer to Beijing than Delhi, not only makes it difficult for opening back channels to rebel groups like the Arakan Army but also to the pro-democracy National Unity Government (NUG) that claims to be 'real representatives' of the Myanmarese people. India has finally allowed the NUG to open a liaison office in Delhi and the Arakan Army has sent leaders to request for Indian support.
But Indian support for the NUG and the rebel groups may upset China and lead to resumption of Beijing’s direct support for rebel groups active in India's Northeastern states. This at a time when India is according top priority to normalising its relations with India.
In Myanmar, especially in the strategic Rakhine province, India may have to hunt with the hounds and swim with the crocodiles. Not an easy task, by any means.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the article are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)
