Sebastian Strangio
December 07, 2020
The most important obstacle – a ceasefire – is now in place, but many more challenges remain.
One least heralded developments to have taken place in Myanmar since the country’s election on November 8 is the lull in fighting in Rakhine State in the west of the country. Until last month, fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA), which is fighting for greater autonomy from the central government, had raged in Rakhine since 2018. During that time, it had killed or injured hundreds and forced some 226,000 people to flee their homes.
Sasakawa Yohei, Japan’s special peace envoy to Myanmar, helped broker the ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army.Credit: Flickr/ Palácio do Planalto
The conflict followed the army’s brutal assault on Muslim Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine, which caused thousands of civilian deaths and drove more than 700,000 people over the border into Bangladesh.
The fighting also prompted the Union Election Commission (UEC) to cancel the elections in nine townships of northern Rakhine State, in addition to other conflict-torn parts of Myanmar, claiming that these regions were “not in a situation to hold free and fair elections.” But now, an informal ceasefire between the AA and the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, has opened the door to supplementary elections in Rakhine, and beyond that, to the glimmer of a lasting solution to the civil war.
