“End the Impunity”: Rohingya Muslims Under Attack by Both Burmese Army and Rebel Group

DEMOCRACY NOW
StoryAugust 15, 2024 

Topics

Burma
Rohingya
Bangladesh

Guests

Nay San Lwin
co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition.

Up to 200 Rohingya Muslims were killed in drone strikes last week in Burma as they attempted to flee to Bangladesh. This comes amid intensifying conflict between the military junta and the Arakan Army, a rebel armed group. Human Rights Watch says the military and the Arakan Army have both committed extrajudicial killings, unlawful recruitment for combat, and widespread arson against Rohingya civilians. “They are the enemy of each other, but when it comes to the Rohingya issue, they have the same intention,” says Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition. Only about 600,000 Rohingya remain in Burma, down from about 1.4 million before a campaign of ethnic cleansing began in 2016, though Nay San Lwin says the Rohingya genocide goes back even further to 1978. 

Nearly 200 Rohingyas killed in single day by Arakan Army, says activists

Maktoob Media
Maktoob Staff
August 9, 2024

Rohingya advocacy groups have said that, on 05 August, the Arakan Army (AA) attacked thousands of refugees gathered at the beach in Maungdaw Township of Rakhine State in Myanmar with drone bombs killing about 200 of them. Two Rohingya activists told

They left a trail of ash: decoding the Arakan Army’s arson attacks in the Rohingya heartland

THE STRATEGIST
13 Jun 2024
Nathan Ruser

The village of Maw Ni Bill (Oe Thei) being burnt by arson attack on May 18th.

 

In the late evening of Friday 17 May 2024, Rohingya neighbourhoods in the town of Buthidaung in Myanmar’s Rakhine State were disturbed by an ominously familiar sight. Armed gunmen had come to their doors and ordered them to leave before the gunmen set their houses alight. If they refused, they were told, they would be burnt with their house.

Arakan Army treatment of Rohingya minority poses challenge to Myanmar opposition

RFA
A commentary by Zachary Abuza
2024.06.08

 The Rakhine force, the most effective rebel army fighting the junta, vents its grievances on the battlefield.

Illustration by Amanda Weisbrod/RFA; Images by Adobe Stock

Evidence of Arakan Army culpability in mass arson attacks on Rohingya homes in western Myanmar's Buthidaung township – where satellite imagery has confirmed that more than 400 homes were burnt to the ground – poses a serious challenge to the anti-junta opposition.

BRIEFING: The Arakan Army has killed hundreds of Rohingya since late March. An urgent investigation is required!

'Arakan Army has displaced thousands in Rakhine State'

Dhaka Tribune
AFP
Publish : 22 May 2024, 03:22 PM 

File Photo: The remains of a burned Rohingya village is seen in this aerial photograph near Maungdaw, north of Rakhine State, Myanmar on September 27, 2017. Photo: Reuters

 

Rohingya activists accused a Myanmar ethnic armed group on Wednesday of displacing thousands of the persecuted minority in western Rakhine state, after the United States said it was troubled by increasing violence.

Arakan Army Takes Key Town in Western Myanmar, While Denying Rohingya Attacks

THE I DIPLOMAT
By Sebastian Strangio
May 20, 2024

The Arakan Army (AA) claims that it has seized control of a strategic town in western Myanmar after weeks of fighting, amid reports of arson attacks and mass displacement of Rohingya communities in the area.

150,000 Displaced Following Seizure Of Myanmar's Buthidaung Town By Rebels: Rights Group

EN. HABERLER
By Aamir Latif
19.05.2024

Rebel ethnic Arakan Army has reportedly taken over control of Buthidaung town in Rakhine state.

ANKARA (AA)- The reported seizure of Buthiduang town of Myanmar's Rakhine state by the rebel ethnic Arakan Army (AA) has triggered a fresh exodus, displacing 150,000 Rohingya Muslims, a Rohingya rights group said on Sunday.

On Saturday, the rebel group claimed that took complete control of Buthidaung township, home to the ethnic Rohingya population, near the Bangladesh border after the regime's Strategic Military Command in the northern Rakhine State town fell.

Arakan Army captures hundreds of junta soldiers in Rakhine

Dhaka Tribune
AFP
Publish : 06 May 2024,

• Clashes between the Arakan Army and the military have intensified since November
• The conflict has resulted in significant displacement and casualties
  

File photo: Arakan Army fighters raise their flag over an artillery gun after seizing a junta outpost in Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township. Photo: Collected

A Myanmar ethnic armed group said on Monday it had captured a military command and taken hundreds of junta personnel prisoner in western Rakhine state, the latest blow to the military.

Battle intensifies between rebels and military in Myanmar’s Buthidaung town

NORTHEAST NOW
NE NOW NEWS
May 2, 2024

Representative Image

Guwahati: Many people from the Hindu and Rakhine communities are trapped in Myanmar’s Buthidaung town in Rakhine state as there is a clash that is happening between the military and the rebel group, the Arakan Army.

Arakan Army’s gains enough to enable self-rule in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

RFA
A commentary by Zachary Abuza
2024.04.06 

Their strength will impact future negotiations over establishing a federal democracy and questions of citizenship. 

The Arakan Army, or AA, is continuing their sweep across Rakhine, furthering the military gains of the ethnic Three Brotherhood Alliance, of which it is a member, in Shan state. While the capture of nine towns, with a tenth in southern Chin state, is another humiliating defeat for the Burmese military, it also sets the scene for a very messy political discussion moving forward.

Arakan Army captures two junta battalions in Rakhine state

Benar News
RFA Burmese
2024.02.08

The Arakan Army displays weapons seized after the capture of the Myanmar army’s Light Infantry Battalion 379 in Minbya township, Jan. 30, 2024.AA Info Desk

Arakan Army insurgents have captured two key military units in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, giving the group effective control of Minbya township and putting it in a position to challenge junta control of the state capital Sittwe, according to an ethnic rebel alliance and regional sources.

Arakan Army seizes two Myanmar junta bases

daily observer
Published : Tuesday, 6 February, 2024 

The Arakan Army (AA) claims to have seized two Myanmar junta battalion headquarters in Mrauk U and Kyauktaw townships, Rakhine State, according to a news published in The Irrawaddy on Tuesday (February 6).

264 Myanmar border, security force members now in Bangladesh: BGB

Dhaka Tribune
Tribune Desk
Publish : 06 Feb 2024,

Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) members are seen talking to Border Guard Bangladesh members in Bangladesh after seeking refuge due to an attack by rebels on February 4, 2024. Photo: Dhaka Tribune

 

A total of 264 members of Myanmar's border and security forces are now taking shelter in Bangladesh amid clashes between the Myanmar military and the armed rebel group, Arakan Army, Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) has said.

Arakan Army fighters claim control of key city in northwestern Myanmar

Al Jazeera
16 Jan 2024

Lying along the Kaladar River in Chin State, Paletwa is a strategically important city on a major trade route. 

 

The AA, led by Tun Myat Naing, has been fighting the military for years [File: Reuters]

 

The Arakan Army (AA), an armed ethnic group fighting as part of an alliance against the Myanmar military, has claimed control of a key western town near the border with India and Bangladesh.

Situation Update: Arakan Army Attacks SAC in Northern Rakhine and Paletwa

Rohingya Muslims stuck between Myanmar’s military junta, rebel Arakan Army

AA
Halil Ibrahim Medet
ISTANBUL
28.11.2022

Effect of military coup in country led to even more pressure on Rohingya after decades of oppression, says Arakanese activist

File Photo - A Rohingya Muslim man, fled from oppression within ongoing military operations in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, recites Adhan (call to prayer) as they take shelter at a makeshift camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on September 24, 2017

After suffering decades of oppression, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are now caught between two fires from the country’s repressive military junta and the rebel Buddhist Arakan Army, according to local Arakanese activists.

The UN and other international human rights organizations have called the violence against the country’s Rohingya “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide,” saying the Muslim group is “the most persecuted minority in the world.”

 

Arakan Army Seeks to Build ‘Inclusive’ Administration in Rakhine State

THE I DIPLOMAT
Kyaw Hsan Hlaing
August 31, 2021

The armed group’s decision to include Muslim Rohingya representatives in local administration marks a sharp break with a succession of central governments.

Seven months since the military coup in Myanmar, the political wing of the rebel Arakan Army (AA) has significantly expanded its administrative and judicial mechanisms across Rakhine State in western Myanmar, with hundreds of its personnel now effectively administering the region independently of the military junta that rules in Naypyidaw. The group is also attempting to involve the state’s entire population, including the Rohingya Muslims, in the governance of what it hopes will become an autonomous Rakhine State.

On April 11, 2020, the 11th anniversary of the formation of the AA, Gen. Maj. Twan Mrat Naing, the army’s commander-in-chief, outlined the concept of the “way of Rakhita,” which he described as “the struggle for national liberation and the restoration of Arakan’s sovereignty to the people of Arakan.” This refers to the restoration of the independent Arakan kingdom that ruled significant parts of western Myanmar until 1824, when it was conquered by the Burmese kingdom based in Mandalay.

The Arakan Army, Myanmar Military Coup and Politics of Arakan

tni
Authors: Kyaw Lynn
Programmes:Myanmar in Focus

A Myanmar Commentary by Kyaw Lynn

In the aftermath of the November general election the intense fighting between the national armed forces (Tatmadaw) and the Arakan Army came to an unexpected halt. Since the February coup of the State Administration Council, the situation has remained delicately poised. Political sentiment is very high. But Rakhine nationalism is presently on a different cycle to political movements in other parts of the country. In this commentary Kyaw Lynn outlines why the coming months will remain a time of high tension and uncertainty in Arakan politics.

Arakan Army troops in forest training / Photo credit JG

When political analysts in Myanmar and beyond discuss the role of ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) in the struggle against the military coup in February, the Arakan Army (AA) becomes one of the key political forces in shaping their dialogue and perceptions. The AA, the military wing of the United League of Army (ULA), is the only armed group that can challenge the power of the national armed forces (Tatmadaw) on Myanmar’s western frontiers. This became especially evident during the 2018-20 period when the ULA-AA demonstrated its sharp resistance against the power of the centralised Myanmar state. Behind the ULA rise, there were three key features: popular support among the Rakhine population, well-trained soldiers, and a younger leadership that read the evolving mood and political situation in the country perceptively well.

Rakhine's Arakan Army joins other minorities in condemning junta

Dhaka Tribune
REUTERS
March 23rd, 2021

The group condemned the current actions by the Burmese Army and police calling it 'cruel' and 'unacceptable' 

The Arakan Army (AA), a major ethnic militia in Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state, on Tuesday joined other ethnic groups in condemning last month’s military coup and the ensuing violent crackdown on protesters.

While several other armed groups fighting long-running wars in Myanmar's borderlands have signalled their support for pro-democracy protests, the AA, which had agreed a ceasefire with the government ousted on February 1, had not commented publicly.