The growing gains by the Brotherhood Alliance, made up of three powerful ethnic militias, are highlighting the difficulties of managing different territories. A challenge that may explain the difficulties in taking control of even Myanmar’s largest cities. China’s involvement is also becoming increasingly clear.
Yangon () – The advance of the three armed groups that are part of the Brotherhood Alliance is revealing that the control of the ethnic militias over the territory is no less authoritarian than that exercised by the military junta. On the contrary, their administration of parts of Myanmar is rekindling long-simmering ethnic conflicts.
In recent months, several abuses have been documented by the Arakan Army, which, on the verge of completely expelling the army’s troops from Rakhine, the Burmese region bordering Bangladesh, has created a proto-state, to use the definition proposed by the research group. International Crisis Group. Indeed, Rakhine remains dependent on Naypyidaw for electricity, communications, banking services and the supply of essential goods. But most of the territory, inhabited by more than a million people, is controlled by local militia.
The army, weakened by the conflict, has exploited the historical rivalry between the Buddhist Rakhine, who make up the ranks of the Arakan Army, and the Muslim Rohingya. The generals, increasingly weakened by the conflict, have recruited (partly by force) the Rohingya population (against which they themselves have attacked in the past), and the AA has responded by massacring hundreds of Rohingya in the northern parts of the state.
They are also demonstrating in areas under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). Like the AA, which originated in Kachin State, these are groups originating from a specific region that have spread to various Burmese states in recent years and even more so since the outbreak of civil conflict in 2021, also thanks to Chinese military support.
The TNLA, for example, is made up of ethnic Palaung fighters and originated in the hills around Namhsan in eastern Shan State. It has gone through phases and, like other ethnic militias, for some years respected the truce signed with the Burmese government. The modern version of the militia dates back to 2009, when the Arakan Army was also founded. Recruits from both groups received training from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), another ethnic militia active on the border with China.
The MNDAA, for its part, is made up of people of Han ethnicity (the majority in China) from the Kokang area. It emerged from the ashes of the Burmese Communist Party, dissolved in 1989, and immediately signed a ceasefire with the Burmese army. Fighting resumed in 2015, when the former democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi was in power. The Arakan Army also joined the fighting in Shan that year for the first time. According to the report, Bertil Lintnera Swedish journalist who is an expert on Myanmar, the TNLA and the AA now represent “a new type of rebel army led by younger and more dynamic people” than in the past.
While the MNDAA, unlike the other two, has always maintained a much stronger link with China and with what is considered the most powerful militia in Myanmar, the United Wa State Army (UWSA). A link that proved useful in the civil war that broke out in 2021 following the military-led coup, although officially the UWSA declared itself neutral. The MNDAA’s capture of the Shan town of Lashio on August 3 (a major turning point that foreshadowed for the first time a total defeat of the Burmese army) was made possible by the weapons that the UWSA acquires directly from China.
The Experts agree that Beijing wanted to teach the Burmese army a lesson for failing to close down scam centres on the China-Myanmar border. But they also agree that the situation now seems to have gotten out of hand for Chinese officials, who in January tried to convince Burmese generals – long supported diplomatically and militarily by China – and the Three Brothers Alliance (the AA, the TNLA and the MNDAA) to sign a permanent ceasefire. Attempts that have not yet been successful. The Kokang region, where the main casinos and scam centres are located, had long been administered by the MNDAA before the army installed a rival militia there between 2009 and 2015.
Ethnic militias have almost complete control of the border territories. According to local sourcesthe conquest of Lashio has allowed the redeployment of resistance troops, in particular the People’s Defence Forces (PDF), the armed wing of the Government of National Unity in exile, which is fighting alongside ethnic militias. The PDF are made up of young people from the Bamar ethnic group, the majority in Myanmar, who live in the central regions of the country and only organised themselves after the army coup in 2021. They received training from the Karen National Liberation Army and are apparently heading for Mandalay, the former capital, historic seat of Burmese rulers before the arrival of the British in 1885. On 3 September, the city was hit, for the third time this year, by a Chinese-made rocket launched by ethnic militias.
Internal sources The opposition is certain that Mandalay – and everything it represents – will fall to the resistance forces by the end of the year. But experts fear that this will lead to a new phase of the conflict rather than bringing peace: the TNLA and MNDAA are already perceived as outsiders in many areas, and Mandalay, a multi-ethnic city of 1.5 million people, could pose a new challenge to the Brotherhood Alliance militias. According to some, this is precisely why anti-coup groups are hesitant to retake Myanmar’s main cities.
Add Comment