TookBy the splendid morning sun, the flotilla carefully made its way around the coral reefs of the Clugh Passage, finally colliding against the silver fringes of the landfall island. Boats began unloading cases of weapons purchased from arms smugglers in Thailand to equip their new training base in North Andaman. Lieutenant-Colonel VJS Garewal, the Indian military intelligence officer who received him, also came armed: five bottles of rum, Witnesses were later recalledwere shared around a blazing campfire.
Then, on the morning of 10 February 1998, five rebel commanders—Arakan Army Chief Khing Raza, his lieutenants Pado Mulwe, and Thein Aung Khaw, and Karen National Army captain Myint Shwe—joined forces with radio operator Pho Cho. Forest towards island helipad. There, he was due to meet a top Indian military officer, to discuss India’s impending secret war in Myanmar.
Later that day, the shots started ringing: the sixes were never seen again. The men on the beach were surrounded by Indian soldiers, and entered the prison, where many would live. more than a decade,
The Arakan army, which was sacrificed three decades ago to reward the Myanmar government’s cooperation against India’s northeastern rebels, has however staged a spectacular resurgence. The fighting threatens a regional crisis, increasing tensions with Bangladesh. Even more dangerous for India, the success of the Arakan Army could empower other ethnic rebel armies based on India’s borders in Chin State, Sagaing and Kachin State.
Since the massacre at landfall, Myanmar’s military, Sit-Tat’s help, has been critical of demoralize the rebels across the North-East. However, the disintegration of sit-tat power could mean that it is no longer in a position to deny access to weapons and safe havens to northeastern rebels.
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Rebirth of the Arakan Army
Fierce fighting continues in Myanmar’s border town of Mongdaw just for weeks– Mortars and small arms shelling from across the border is regular in Bangladesh. Last month, sit-tat helicopters fired rockets One of the Arakan rebel strongholds – who accidentally – attacked the village of Tamru in Bangladesh. After bombing their camps, the rebels of the Arakan Army responded by capturing Myanmar border postsAnd the sit-tat column that was ambushed went into the area.
The Arakan insurgency has grown rapidly over the past decade – the result of chronic underdevelopment, as well as ethnic ambitions for autonomy being hindered by both democratic and military rule.
Economic and political reforms have been initiated by Myanmar’s military since 2011, but have done little for the Rakhine region. Foreign trawlers infiltrated their fishing waters. Even though there was massive investment by China – particularly in a free-trade zone in Kyuk Phu – poor local Arakanese were still forced to work as laborers in the jade mines of Yangon or Kachin State. Tens of thousands of people were employed in factories in China and Thailand.
“But the remittance didn’t lift their families out of poverty,” expert Jacques Leader has noted, Instead the diaspora became an important fundraising and recruitment pool for the rebellion.
Before the elections in 2015, Sit-Tat signed a peace deal with major ethnic rebel groups. Enthusiasm shocked supporters of the peace process in the West—but, as scholars Bertil Lintner has seen, groups representing some 80 percent of the rebels fighting the state refused to sign. The fighting expanded into new areas, such as heroin-heartland cocongo, In other cases, groups were excluded from negotiations – among them, the Arakan Army.
The rise of the National League for Democracy government in 2015 gave some Rakhine residents hope that broad regional autonomy could be achieved. The NLD, however, proved as immune to ethnic claims as its military predecessor. Foreign Minister and de facto head of government Aung San Suu Kyi Praised the sit-tat soldiers Fighting the Arakan army, arguing that the rebels were an obstacle to the country’s democratization.
Following the Rohingya crisis in 2016–2017, Sit-Tat sought a rapprochement with the Arakan Army, hoping that its predominantly Buddhist cadre would help. crush jihadist groups, The ethno-nationalist Arakan army, however, saw through the net, and ensured Rohingya security in the areas under its control.
As Sit-Tat engaged itself in ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, the Arakan Army expanded its reach, eroding the territorial power of the central government through campaigns of intimidation and assassination. The local administrators resigned en masse, and were replaced by recruits from the Arakan Army.
Sit-tat eventually joined the Arakan Army in an armistice in late 2020 – months after the coup that saw the army win peacefully. Since late last year, however, the military has moved to rein in the Arakan Army, fearing that its growing power would fuel other ethnic insurgency. Earlier this summer, the military bombed an Arakan Army base in southeastern Kayin state controlled by the Karen National Union. Since then, fighting has broken out in Rakhine and adjacent Pletwa in Chin State.
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bet on the loser
As happened on Landfall Island, New Delhi needs to support the winner—but the election isn’t easy. After the explosion of pro-democracy protests in 1988, and the massacres that followed, India cut her off with military rule. India’s intelligence also began secretly training and arming pro-democracy protesters who had fled across the border – many of them from Rakhine. For a time, New Delhi expected the generals to be dethroned by a wave of anger.
However, events showed that New Delhi had bet on the loser. generals turned to china, arms and securing economic funding. During the first years of his rule, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao reversed course, and sought to rebuild relations with the Myanmar military.
The benefits were substantial for counter-terrorism and intelligence gathering. India tacitly supported cross-border operations against north-eastern insurgents in 1995, targeting a column that was carrying weapons from Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar through the jungles of Mizoram. Then, the 57 Division of the Army, working in conjunction with the Myanmar Army, killed 38 insurgents and arrested 118 in the meantime. Operation Golden Bird,
Even though there were obstacles—among them, the Indian government’s decision to award the Peace Prize to Suu Kyi in 1995—military relations continued to grow. New Delhi sold controversially Swedish-made Rocket Launcher For the Myanmar military—then with surveillance aircraft, artillery and even an old submarine.
Finally, three naval ships shadowed the rebel flotilla with orders to arrest the commandos leading to the landfall. The rebels—a long-standing asset of the Research and Analysis Wing—claimed that they had received assurances that they would safe haven to operate from. Instead, in 1988 the young rebels backed by India were subjected to a ritual, public sacrifice.
Garewal operated a successful gems business in Myanmar, and retired from Chandigarh. Survivors of the rebels they targeted were released from prison in 2010 rare bargain,
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Anarchy ahead?
The dilemma posed by the rise of the Arakan Army, as well as by a revivalist insurgency elsewhere in the country, is evident. New Delhi fears losing the relationship it was born with the sit-tat. The relationship has enabled many functions like the famous cross border raids On Naga insurgent camps in Ponyo and Onjio, 2015. Sit-tat troops have also destroyed camps run by Naga and Manipuri insurgents, and reduced their ability to smuggle weapons from suppliers in Thailand and southern China.
However, rising insurgent violence shows that a long-term victory for the Myanmar Army is not inevitable – India may once again find the wrong horse it supports. For example, north-eastern insurgent groups may find shelter in emerging semi-independent areas created by Myanmar’s ethnic forces.
Failed ceasefires with ethnic groups are part of the fabric of Myanmar’s dysfunctional political life. Attempts made during 1958, 1963, 1980, and 1990 all failed because the military-dominated establishment was unwilling to share power with regional castes. Each failure plunged the country’s descent into anarchy, with rebel groups enriching themselves through drug-running and extortion.
India needs to accelerate long stalled talks There is a risk of undermining hard-won peace with rebel groups in the north-east—or further escalation of anarchy.
The author is ThePrint’s National Security Editor. He tweeted @praveenswami. Thoughts are personal.
(edited by Prashant)