Arakan Army gains ground in Rakhine conflict, seizes control of Paletwa and other towns

BORDER LENS
The Borderlens Desk
February 20, 2024 

Reports emerging from Myanmar on Thursday have indicated that an ethnic army in the country has launched an attack on yet another major city in the west, with the state’s capital not far behind. The Arakan Army (AA), a rebel group, has intensified its fighting against Myanmar’s army in the strategically significant city of Sittwe in Rakhine province. This area holds particular importance due to India’s construction of a port for connectivity to its northeastern states via the Bay of Bengal.

Myanmar junta in a make-or-break Rakhine fight

ASIA TIMES
Anthony Davis
February 1, 2024

Arakan Army poised for all-out Rakhine war but replication of recent insurgent successes in Shan state is far from guaranteed 

Arakan Army insurgent fighters take aim in their conflict against Myanmar state forces in Rakhine state. Photo: YouTube / Arakan Army promotional video

 

As the tempo of conflict in Myanmar’s northeast slows after months of dramatic insurgent advances, the civil war’s center of gravity has shifted decisively to the western seaboard state of Rakhine.

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

Is ICJ genocide case legitimising junta?

The Bangkok Post

Published : 23 Feb 2022 at 04:00

Following the military-led "clearance operation" that forced 750,000 Rohingya to flee neighbouring Bangladesh, the West African nation of Gambia brought a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in November 2019 accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Secondary photo File photo dated Dec 11, 2019 shows then Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi defends Myanmar government on the alleged genocide against the minority Muslim Rohingya population, at ICJ, The Hague, the Netherlands. The Myanmar junta recently appointed replacement as Suu Kyi, has been jailed since Feb 2021's coup.

In response to the court's unanimously indicated and legally binding provisional measures to protect the Rohingya from further atrocities, Myanmar's then-civilian government filed a preliminary objection to the jurisdiction of the court and the admissibility of the application in January 2021.

 

Myanmar junta’s role in Rohingya case at ICJ is troubling

ASIA TIME

Parvej Siddique Bhuiyan
February 17, 2022

By allowing the coup regime to present a defense at upcoming genocide hearings, the court risks legitimizing the junta  

The Palace of Peace in The Hague, the official residency of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Photo: AFP

 

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) recently announced that it will hold a fresh round of hearings from February 21-28 into the Rohingya genocide case.

After the military-led “clearance operation” that forced 750,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, the West African nation The Gambia in November 2019 brought a case to the ICJ accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Myanmar’s Democratic Vision Depends on Including Rohingya, Other Ethnic Minorities “We will never be free until all of us are free.”

THE I DIPLOMAT

Wai Wai Nu
June 25, 2021

“We will never be free until all of us are free.”

Since the February 1 coup in Myanmar, the military has unfurled a brutal nationwide crackdown targeting protesters and civilians who oppose their unlawful rule. Indeed, last week’s stinging rebuke of the military coup by the United Nations General Assembly — only the fourth such resolution since the end of the Cold War — offers a stark reminder of what’s at stake.

Myanmar people’s army aims wishfully at Tatmadaw

ASIA TIMES

DAVID SCOTT MATHIESON
JUNE 8, 2021

National Unity Government will be hard-pressed to form a force that can credibly challenge the 350,000-strong Tatmadaw

A screen grab from a video provided to AFPTV from an anonymous source and taken on May 23 shows a People’s Defense Force fighter shooting during clashes in Moebyel in Shan state, in which dozens of Myanmar security force members were killed and a police station seized, according to rebel fighters. Photo: Handout via AFP

If Myanmar’s security landscape was devilishly complicated before the February coup d’etat, the growing national-level armed resistance to the military-formed State Administration Council (SAC) junta has rendered it almost incomprehensible.

In recent weeks, veteran ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) such as the Karen National Union (KNU) and Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) have ramped up attacks on the military, or Tatmadaw. Peasant revolts using flintlock rifles and muskets in the hills of Chin state have likewise seen locally raised defense forces inflict major casualties on army units.

After Working With Myanmar’s Regime, Rakhine’s Major Party Remains Divided

THE IRRAWADDY
7 May 2021

An Arakan National Party meeting at the headquarters in Sittwe in 2018.

Rakhine State’s voters and some senior party members have questioned the convictions of the Arakan National Party (ANP), the largest ethnically Rakhine party, as it begins to cuts ties with Myanmar’s regime three months after taking a seat on the military’s governing council.

ANP policy leadership committee member and spokeswoman Daw Aye Nu Sein joined the State Administrative Council (SAC), on Feb. 3 in the wake of the military coup.

However, its central executive committee meeting in Sittwe on Tuesday decided to end the party’s association with the military council.

The Arakan Dream: The Search for Peace in Myanmar’s Rakhine State on the Verge of Civil War

TERRORISM MONITOR
Jack Broome
April 9, 2021

  Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 19 Issue: 7

On March 23, the Arakan Army (AA)—an ethnic armed organization (EAO) based largely in Myanmar’s Rakhine State—finally released a statement condemning the military’s seizure of power in the February 1 coup. AA spokesperson, Khine Thu Kha, said that the AA was “together…with the people” and would “continue to go forward for the oppressed Rakhine people” (Dhaka Star, March 23).

Up until this point, the AA had held back from issuing any kind of response to the coup, despite an increasing number of EAOs having already declared their support for the civil disobedience movement (CDM). Some groups, such as the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which is one of the AA’s alliance partners, have even begun to carry out attacks against the military in retaliation (Kachin News, March 12). Similarly, when the State Administrative Council (SAC), Myanmar’s new military government, announced on March 10 that it had removed the AA from the list of terrorist organizations, the rebel group made no formal acknowledgement of the move (The Irrawaddy, March 11).

The rebels who will and won’t fight Myanmar’s coup

ASIA TIMES

DAVID SCOTT MATHIESON
MARCH 31, 2021

Karen and Kachin rebels have launched attacks but other ethnic armed groups are lying in wait or even quietly collaborating with the coup makers

A Karen fighter holds a rocket launcher while standing guard at Oo Kray Kee village in Kayin state near the Thai-Myanmar border in a file photo. Photo: AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul

Myanmar’s multi-sided civil war, now more clearly than ever a war waged by the military against all segments and ethnicities of society, saw its bloodiest day on March 27’s Armed Forces Day.

Notably absent to this theater of the absurd were senior officials from Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations (EAO), who boycotted the event and have issued stern statements of opposition to the February 1 coup and the new State Administration Council’s (SAC) murderous rule.

Many are now calling on the nation’s various EAOs to escalate their attacks against the military, or Tatmadaw, and alleviate pressure on and express solidarity with the many unarmed urban opponents of the coup.