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An ethnic minority insurgent force in Myanmar has said it is ready to talk to the junta, while acknowledging China’s efforts to end hostilities, in what an analyst said was the latest sign that Chinese pressure on Myanmar’s rivals to end their war was paying off.
China has extensive economic interests in its southern neighbour including energy pipelines and mining projects and is keen to see an end to the violent turmoil that has engulfed Myanmar since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021.
China backs the military but also maintains contacts with rebel forces, particularly those based on its border. It has been calling on all sides to talk while pressuring the insurgents by closing the border and cutting off essential supplies such as fuel.
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, based in Shan state, announced in a statement on Monday that it was ready to engage in talks with the military.
The group was positive about China’s mediation and said it was committed to cooperate until favorable conditions were achieved. It highlighted its belief in a federal union that ensures the right to self-determination for all ethnic groups.
Radio Free Asia was awaiting further details from the TNLA’s spokesperson on the possibility of talks with the military.
One analyst said Chinese pressure was working.
“It appears that China is exerting pressure on both sides,” said Hla Kyaw Zaw, a China-based analyst on Myanmar affairs.
“The TNLA is also taking into account the impact of the conflict on civilians in its region.”
The TNLA is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance of rebel groups who went on the offensive on Oct. 27 last year, and made stunning gains, putting the military under the most pressure it has faced since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948.
Offers of talks
The junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has recently made several offers of talks to the insurgents, including once while in China this month, on his first visit there since the 2021 coup.
In his latest call for peace, in a message for National Day on Monday, Min Aung Hlaing said political issues had to be resolved through political means not through armed struggle, and if not, Myanmar risked disintegration and the loss of solidarity and sovereignty. The military has long seen itself as the only institution capable of holding the diverse country together.
While calling for talks, the junta has also been stepping up airstrikes on rebel zones, with a rising toll on civilians, U.N. rights officials say.
Insurgents groups, including the TNLA, have asked China not just to press them to make peace but to also tell the junta to stop its airstrikes on civilians. They say China has not responded.
The rebels dismissed Min Aung Hlaing’s first offer of talks as window-dressing for a foreign audience, made at China’s insistence.
Then in September, a Shan-state-based ally of the TNLA in the three-party alliance, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, said it would stop attacking big towns and cities and would no longer cooperate with the National Unity Government, or NUG, which was set up by pro-democracy politicians after the 2021 coup.
The MNDAA announcement came days after it said China had warned it to stop fighting and had closed off the border. China gave the TNLA the same warning in late August.
Analysts say China regards the NUG as under the influence of Western governments and wants it isolated.
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‘Stop the money’
For its part, the NUG, which commands the loyalty of militia forces set up by pro-democracy activists, has been skeptical of the junta’s calls for talks.
It said in its National Day comments that the population was united in the effort to overthrow the military dictatorship and begin a new chapter.
The NUG stresses the need for concerted international pressure on the junta, including cutting off supplies of jet fuel for the air force.
“If regional countries stop the flow of money to the military regime, it will suffer,” said NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw. “Sanctions should target companies that supply jet fuel and shipping lines which transport jet fuel for the junta.”
Political analyst Than Soe Naing was also not optimistic about the prospects for talks given the bad blood between the two sides.
“Only when the people have some weapons and power in their hands can they begin to talk about peace,” he told RFA. “As long as the people are oppressed and killed, peace talks will be impossible.”
Myanmar affairs analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said there was nothing any other powers could do about China’s intervention in Myanmar and its support for the junta: “Neither the U.N. nor the United States has the capacity to stop it. ASEAN has also failed to implement effective measures.”
China’s intervention on behalf of a deeply unpopular junta looks bound to inflame public anger. A small bomb recently went off outside the Chinese consulate in Mandalay city.
“China is actively interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs,” said a Myanmar citizen in the South Korean capital, among a couple of hundred people protesting outside the Chinese embassy.
“We, as members of the diaspora, are opposing China for recognizing the military council.”
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
Translated by Aung Naing, Kalyar Lwin.
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It now appears to be a question of “when, not if” Chinese security personnel will arrive in Myanmar, with Beijing looking to secure its strategic interests in the war-torn country and those of its ally, the military junta that has lost large chunks of the country since the 2021 coup.
The Irrawaddy online news outlet reported that the junta formed a 13-member working committee on October 22 to prepare the groundwork to establish a “joint security company” with China.
According to the report, the committee, chaired by Major-General Toe Yi, the junta’s deputy home affairs minister, is currently tasked with “scrutinizing the importing and regulating of weapons and special equipment” until Beijing signs a drafted MOU on forming a “security company.”
After that, according to the narrative from Beijing and Naypyidaw, Chinese personnel would join a “company” — more like a militia — alongside junta troops, which would be tasked with defending Chinese strategic and economic interests in the country.
I’m told that China will send troops from the military and police in a “private” capacity, giving the fiction of detachment.
Yet this would not be a joint venture in anything but name.
Soldiers of Chinese People’s Liberation Army fire a mortar during a live-fire military exercise in Anhui province, China May 22, 2021. (Reuters) Does one seriously think that Chinese troops or police are going to listen to the Myanmar generals who have lost battle after battle to ethnic armies and ill-trained civilian militias over the past four years?
Moreover, there is no reason to think that the China-junta “militia” will stick to merely protecting Chinese nationals and Chinese-owned businesses in Myanmar.
Chinese projects delayed
It is true that Chinese assets have come under increased levels of attack from anti-junta forces in recent months.
There is some logic, if you’re sitting in Beijing and Naypyidaw, in wanting to allow Chinese forces to help command most of northern Myanmar, giving junta forces a better chance of mopping up rebel forces elsewhere.
The civil war has delayed key Chinese projects in the country, such as the long-planned China-Myanmar Economic Corridor between China’s Yunnan province and Myanmar’s Indian Ocean coast.
Chinese soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army sit on the back of a truck on the highway to Nyingchi, Tibet Autonomous Region, China, October 19, 2020) Strategically key for Beijing is a port it wants to build in Rakhine state, allowing China to import oil and gas from the Middle East without ships needing to pass through the Malacca Strait, a potential chokepoint.
This would be essential in the event of a conflict in the South China Sea, during which the Philippines or Taiwan could try to blockade Chinese trade, including oil and gas imports on which China’s economy depends.
My sources say that the majority of the PLA contingent will be deployed to Rakhine state.
According to statements released by Beijing, almost certainly intended to construct a peace narrative ahead of the deployment, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told junta leader Min Aung Hlaing in August that he hoped “Myanmar will earnestly safeguard the safety of Chinese personnel and projects.”
When Min Aung Hlaing visited China earlier this month, his first visit since the coup, Chinese Premier Li Qiang instructed him to “take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals, institutions, and projects in the country.”
The reality, as Beijing knows well, is that the junta cannot ensure these things.
That’s the entire reason why the “security companies” are deemed necessary by the Chinese government.
Offensive operations
Once Chinese security personnel are on the ground in Myanmar, the fiction that they’re just standing guard outside a few industrial compounds or pipelines will become difficult to maintain.
Indeed, they’re likely to have no choice but to mount offensive operations.
The most obvious reason to expect this is that many Chinese-run enterprises are in territory currently controlled by resistance groups that will presumably need to be taken by Chinese forces.
If not, why would Beijing make a u-turn on its existing policy, which had been to cajole and pay the ethnic militias to leave Chinese entities out of their fight with the junta?
Ethnic rebel group Ta’ang National Liberation Army patrol near Namhsan Township in Myanmar’s northern Shan State. (AFP) Secondly, after years of dallying, Beijing now clearly thinks that it cannot trust the anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG), presumably because it’s too pro-Western, nor most of the anti-junta ethnic militias – even those who have taken money from Beijing.
Chinese authorities reportedly detained Peng Daxun, the leader of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), a militia that has inflicted heavy casualties on the junta, after he was summoned to Yunnan for a parlay last month.
This may be a temporary detention pour encourager les autres, or it may be Beijing trying to dismantle disloyal militias more permanently.
Yet, in essence, Beijing has now thrown its weight behind the junta because it presumably believes China’s interests would be best served by an outright junta victory.
So if Beijing thinks the ultimate way of protecting Chinese business interests in Myanmar, for now and in the long term, is for the civil war to be ended and for junta forces to win the conflict decisively, the difference between Chinese security personnel conducting defensive and offensive operations is paper thin.
Why wouldn’t Beijing use its troops to bring about its overarching goal? Why would Beijing overlook the opportunity to end a civil war that it wants over?
Anti-China sentiment
Why would Beijing merely send personnel to defend Chinese factories and pipelines for a few months or years if it thinks there is the possibility that forces hostile to Chinese interests could eventually take power nationally?
Under these circumstances, Chinese personnel would think it justified, under the narrative of “safeguarding the safety of Chinese nationals, institutions and projects in the country,” to wage offensive assaults against anti-junta forces across Myanmar.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a meeting with Russia’s President in Saint Petersburg on Sept. 12, 2024. (AFP Photo/Kristina Kormilitsyna) Granted, the junta is touchy about being seen as a lackey of Beijing — or about Myanmar becoming a protectorate of China.
That is why Beijing has offered platitudes of a joint “security company,” a fiction to get around Myanmar’s constitution that forbids the deployment of foreign troops.
But what position will the junta be in to dictate what Chinese personnel can do or where they can go once they are in Myanmar?
Lastly, does one imagine that anti-junta forces won’t retaliate against Chinese intervention, especially when that intervention is so clearly on behalf of the regime?
Anti-China sentiment is running high in Myanmar and will boil over once Chinese troops and police step foot in the country.
One can very easily imagine an escalating campaign of attacks by anti-junta forces on Chinese interests – increasing the incentives for Chinese security personnel to launch offensive operations.
Once Chinese boots are on the ground in Myanmar, this means direct intervention by China – not merely an economic peacekeeping effort by joint “security companies.”
And Chinese personnel will have to conduct offensive operations – not just stand guard at Chinese-run factories and pipelines.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
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Insurgents in western Myanmar have captured a town on a road junction leading to a Chinese-funded deep sea port, which is bound to raise new concern about the fate of an extensive development that includes energy pipelines running from the coast to southern China.
The Myanmar junta that seized power in a 2021 coup has in recent weeks been reinforcing its defenses at the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast of Rakhine state, where China is building a port and energy facilities, including its cross-country natural gas and oil pipelines.
Insurgents of the Arakan Army, or AA, which is fighting for self-determination in Rakhine state, have made significant advances against the military over the past year, leaving junta forces confined to ever smaller pockets of territory, including Kyaukpyu.
On Wednesday, AA fighters captured the town of Toungup, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Kyaukpyu on the main road links to central and southern parts of the country, after nearly a month of fighting.
“The AA has captured Toungup town and surrounding battalion bases,” a resident of the town, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals, told Radio Free Asia.
“In the city, the soldiers deserted and the AA is evacuating residents,” said the resident.
Junta forces were attacking Toungup with aircraft and artillery and some houses were ablaze, residents said.
Residents had no information about casualties. RFA tried to contact both the junta’s spokesperson in Rakhine state, Hla Thein, and the Arakan Army’s spokesperson, Khaing Thukha, to ask about the situation but neither responded by time of publication.
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The AA has dealt the military some of the most devastating setbacks since the 2021 coup, seizing over half of state’s townships, naval and military bases and stretches of coast including foreign development projects.
The AA had been fighting for control over Toungup township since Nov. 4.
The town was home to the military’s last operational command headquarters in Rakhine state, as well as the headquarters of several battalions, including an engineers battalion.
The capture of the town represents the removal of a major obstacle for the AA if it decides to try to capture Kyaukpu, a hub in China’s Belt and Road network of energy and infrastructure projects.
The military has recently been sending reinforcements to Kyaukpyu, insurgent sources and residents said.
The AA is also attacking the military in its last important bases in Rakhine state’s Ann and Gwa towns.
Of Rakhine state’s 17 townships, the AA has captured 10, in addition to one in neighboring Chin state.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
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Children make up nearly 40% of the more than 3.4 million people displaced in Myanmar due to the civil war, UNICEF said Thursday.
The findings from United Nations Children’s Fund came as an organization that monitors conflict in Myanmar said the ruling junta and affiliated groups have killed more than 670 children since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat, sparking the conflict.
In a statement on Thursday — a day after World Children’s Day — UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said that the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is “reaching a critical inflection point,” with escalating conflict and climate shocks “putting children and families at unprecedented risk.”
He said that approximately 1 million people have been affected by the country’s war, which was sparked amid public opposition to the military takeover, and devastation caused by late September’s Cyclone Yagi — Southeast Asia’s worst storm of the year.
Chaiban said that during a recent trip to Myanmar’s embattled Kachin state, he saw children “cut off from vital services, including healthcare and education, and suffering from the effects of violence and displacement.”
“[I] saw firsthand how vulnerable children and other civilians are in conflict-affected areas and the urgent need to uphold international humanitarian law to protect them from such brutal attacks,” he said.
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Chaiban noted that minors account for 32% of the more than 1,000 people injured and killed by landmines and other explosive devices since the start of the conflict.
“The increasing use of deadly weapons in civilian areas, including airstrikes and landmines hitting homes, hospitals, and schools, has severely restricted the already limited safe spaces for children, robbing them of their right to safety and security,” he said, adding that “the situation is dire.”
Chaiban called for all stakeholders in Myanmar to guarantee safe and unhindered aid, especially for children and families in conflict zones, to remove administrative barriers and ensure minimum operating standards and to protect children from grave violations.
“International humanitarian law must be upheld, with a focus on protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure – including schools and hospitals – and ensuring safe passage for those fleeing from violence,” he said.
Additionally, he urged the international community to increase its support for the country’s children through funding and advocacy.
“The cost of inaction is far too high — Myanmar’s children cannot afford to wait,” he said.
Hundreds of children killed
Also on Thursday, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners – Burma reported that, as of Nov. 20, the junta and its affiliate groups had killed at least 671 children in Myanmar since the coup nearly four years ago.
The group said that the number showed a year-on-year increase in child mortality rates, attributable to the conflict.
In 2021, AAPP said, 101 children under the age of 18 were reported killed, followed by 136 the following year. By 2023, the number had increased to 208 and, by the end of 2024, had reached 226 child fatalities.
In one of the worst incidents since the coup, the junta bombed Konlaw village in Kachin state’s Momauk township on Nov. 15, killing nine displaced people, including seven children, the group said.
Amid an escalating toll of child casualties caused by airstrikes, Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, the shadow National Unity Government’s Minister of Women, Youth, and Children’s Affairs, called for urgent measures to ban the sale of aviation fuel to Myanmar’s military.
“We urgently request the cessation of aircraft fuel sales to the military regime, as it is being used to carry out brutal attacks that result in the killing of children,” she said during remarks delivered at a World Children’s Day event in Myanmar on Wednesday.
Attempts by RFA to reach junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for comment on the situation facing children in Myanmar went unanswered Thursday.
According to the AAPP, junta authorities have killed at least 5,974 civilians since the military coup.
Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
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The most powerful insurgent group in northern Myanmar had captured the last crossing in its region on the border with China in defiance of Chinese efforts to press it and other Myanmar rebel forces to make peace with the junta that seized power in 2021.
The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, has been fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin state on and off for decades and has made significant advances against the military over the past year.
KIA and allied fighters launched a final push for Kan Paik Ti town, 75 kilometers (46 miles) east of the state capital, Myitkyina, early on Wednesday and captured it by around 7 p.m., a resident and a source close to the KIA said.
“The junta soldiers fled to the border fence or to the Chinese side,” said a town resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “Employees of the junta administration have also been fleeing from the border gate to China.”
Junta forces initially sent an aircraft to fire at insurgent positions but the town was quiet on Thursday, the resident said. The source close to the KIA said junta forces had launched attacks in other areas after the fall of Kan Paik Ti.
Residents had no information about casualties in the latest fighting.
Kan Paik Ti town on the China-Myanmar border in Kachin state on Nov. 20, 2024. RFA tried to reach Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, and the KIA’s information officer, Naw Bu, for information but neither responded by time of the publication.
The KIA and allied forces in northeastern, western and eastern Myanmar have made stunning gains over the past year, putting the army under the most severe pressure it has faced since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948.
But the insurgents’ success has alarmed giant neighbor China, which has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, including energy pipelines running up from the Indian Ocean and mining projects.
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China has thrown its support behind the junta, promising to back an election next year that the junta hopes will bolster its legitimacy, and putting pressure on the KIA and other insurgent groups to respond positively to junta offers of talks.
The junta leader, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, renewed a call to insurgent forces to talk peace while on a visit to China on Nov. 6, telling Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang that stability was crucial for economic development and trade.
But the insurgents have dismissed the junta’s offer as a trick and reject the planned election as a sham when Myanmar’s most popular politician, Aung San Suu Kyi, and hundreds of other opponents of military rule are in prison.
Over the past year, the KIA has captured jade and rare earth mines that export to China, and both sides have at different times sealed the border, partly to put economic pressure on the other side.
China recently closed the border to civilians seeking shelter from fighting and has also shut off supplies reaching KIA-controlled areas leading to shortages of fuel and medicine.
The KIA responded by suspending exports of rare earths to China, and the group now controls every border crossing through which the minerals vital to a range of Chinese manufacturing pass.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Burmese.
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During his recent visit to China, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing promised top Communist Party officials that his regime will complete a census by the end of the year — then hold “free and fair elections,” he revealed on Tuesday.
Min Aung Hlaing said he will invite international observers to monitor the vote — which opponents and rebel leaders have said would be a sham, and a way to legitimize the military’s grip on power.
On Nov. 6, he traveled to Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan province, where he met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of a regional summit. The trip marked his first trip to China since Myanmar’s military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
On Tuesday, the junta leader told his Cabinet that he informed Li and other Chinese officials that his regime has collected census data covering 63% of Myanmar’s population and plans to complete the census before the new year.
A census enumerator, right, asks questions to a family in Naypyitaw, Myanmar Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 as the country holds a national census to compile voter lists for a general election. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo) The census, aimed at tallying potential voters ahead of the 2025 elections, has met strong opposition from the country’s ethnic armed groups who say preparations for a nationwide vote are impossible while they battle a regime that continues to arrest and kill its critics.
Since the country’s coup, the junta has been under pressure from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to hold elections.
But the regime has continued to extend a state of emergency across the country and brought in tough new registration laws that disqualify many parties from standing, including the National League for Democracy, or NLD, deposed after winning a landslide victory in the 2020 election.
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Despite opposition from Myanmar’s ethnic groups, Min Aung Hlaing said Tuesday that he told Chinese leaders they are willing to participate in an election to pursue their collective interests through legal means.
‘No victory without popular support’
Aye Mya Mya Myo, who was elected as a lawmaker to the Yangon Region Parliament in 2020, dismissed the junta chief’s promises, telling RFA Burmese that “no matter what propaganda he employs,” the ballot will never enjoy widespread support.
“No country that values human rights can believe that a regime responsible for widespread killing and oppression is capable of holding a fair election,” she said. “While some nations that disregard democratic principles and human rights, despite promoting peace and stability, may back the junta, it will never achieve victory without the support of the people.”
Tun Kyi, a former political prisoner, told RFA that the junta is determined to hold elections “by any means necessary.” He also criticized the Chinese government’s support of the junta’s actions, which he said “encourages criminal behavior.”
“The Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party are collaborating with the criminal leader Min Aung Hlaing, contributing to the problems in our country,” he said.
Myanmar’s junta chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing inspects officers during a parade to commemorate Myanmar’s 78th Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo) “The public will likely face various forms of pressure to vote. By supporting the junta forces responsible for violent attacks on civilians, the Chinese government and Communist Party are, in effect, endorsing and aiding criminals.”
No mandate for junta
Most people in Myanmar object to the military’s 2021 coup and the junta’s plans for an election, and are fighting to restore the results of the country’s 2020 vote, which saw the NLD win a sweeping victory.
But despite popular sentiment, Min Aung Hlaing said he told Chinese leaders during his trip that the 2020 ballot was rife with voter fraud and that the junta had “taken effective action” against the party to prevent any meddling in the upcoming election.
He also said that next year’s election will be conducted using an electronic voting system, divided by region “for security reasons.”
The junta has repeatedly said that it will ensure voter lists are accurate ahead of the ballot, but the claim has been widely dismissed by observers.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wai Mar Tun for RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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BANGKOK – Myanmar has for the first time recorded the most casualties in the world from antipersonnel landmines, with 1,003 victims in 2023, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, or ICBL, said in its annual report launched in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Myanmar has been embroiled in conflict since the military ousted an elected government in an early 2021 coup, with pro-democracy activists taking up arms and linking up with ethnic minority insurgents to fight to end army rule.
Both sides are using landmines in their battles, the ICBL said, though the anti-junta forces are more likely to deploy crudely made booby traps, with villagers the most likely victims.
“Myanmar’s armed forces have repeatedly used antipersonnel mines since seizing power in a coup,” said the Geneva-based group, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its campaign to ban the weapons, in its report.
“This use represents a significant increase on use in previous years, including use around infrastructure such as mobile phone towers, extractive enterprises, and energy pipelines,” it said.
Myanmar recorded 545 landmine victims the previous year, it said.
At the global level, at least 5,757 casualties, 1,983 people killed and 3,663 injured, from landmines and unexploded ordnance were recorded for 2023 and the numbers are increasing, the group said. Around the world, 58 countries are plagued with landmine contamination.
The second-highest tally of casualties over the past year was in Syria, with 933, down from 2,729 the previous year when it had the world’s worst tally of landmine casualties.
Afghanistan had the third most this year with 651, but a sharp drop from the 1,824 casualties it reported in 2019 when its toll was the world’s worst. War-torn Ukraine was fourth this year with 580 casualties.
Reflecting the surge in fighting in Myanmar since the military seized power, the ICBL said most of the casualties reported there during 2023 and 2024 appeared to be from mines planted within the past two years.
“The Myanmar armed forces have previously admitted … that they use antipersonnel mines in areas where they are under attack,” the group said.
“Mine casualties are often recorded on the outskirts of Myanmar army camps, which is another indicator of new use.”
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‘Extensive contamination’
The group said it had reports of the Myanmar army threatening that farmers must pay for antipersonnel mines detonated by their livestock. It said it had also found evidence of the army “using civilians as ‘guides’ to walk in front of its units in mine-affected areas, effectively to detonate landmines.”
“This is a grave violation of international humanitarian and human rights law,” it said.
The group said it also had numerous reports of villagers falling victim to mines planted by anti-junta forces.
“The extent of landmine contamination is not known, but is likely to be extensive given the ongoing use and production by both Myanmar armed Forces and NSAGs,” it said, referring to non-state armed groups.
As of September 2023, suspected contamination by landmines and unexploded ordnance was reported in 168 of Myanmar’s townships, or 51% of all townships, it said.
The ICBL launched its report days ahead of the Fifth Review Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, as the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty is formally known. Parties meet in Cambodia on Nov. 25.
The group called for an immediate halt to the use of the weapons and for all countries to sign up to the treaty that it championed.
“This flagship report records a shocking number of civilians killed or injured by antipersonnel mines, including children,” said Tamar Gabelnick, director of the ICBL.
“Any use of antipersonnel mines by any actor under any circumstances is unacceptable and must be condemned. All countries that have not yet done so should join the Mine Ban Treaty to turn back this tide and end the suffering caused by these vile weapons.”
Edited by Mike Firn
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denied reports that the leader of an ethnic rebel army was being held under house arrest in Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar’s Shan state.
Peng Daxun, the leader of the insurgent Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, traveled to Yunnan last month for medical treatment and was still receiving care, spokesperson Lin Jian said at the ministry’s regular news conference.
Lin did not provide details about Peng’s condition or his exact whereabouts.
Sources close to the MNDAA told Radio Free Asia on Monday that Peng was being prevented from returning to Myanmar after meeting with Deng Xijun, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs.
A source close to the military junta regime told RFA that Peng was being held at a hotel in Yunnan that’s owned by his father.
The MNDAA captured Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city, on Aug. 3. Since then, Beijing has put pressure on the rebel army to withdraw from the city, an important commercial gateway near the Chinese border.
Over the last year, the rebel army has seized control of more than a half dozen other towns in the area that serve as significant border trading hubs.
Border gate backlog
Also in Shan state, Chinese authorities on Tuesday morning reopened the Hsin Phyu border gate in Muse, allowing more than 300 delivery vehicles stuck in China’s Kyegong town for more than a week to enter Myanmar. Muse is about 170 km (108 miles) north of Lashio.
“Trucks loaded with potatoes and a variety of goods have entered this morning unexpectedly and immediately, while the road was repaired near the gate,” a border trade merchant told RFA.
Muse’s two other border connections with Kyegong remain closed to vehicles, merchants said.
China’s restrictions on small-scale, informal trade with northern Myanmar over the last few weeks increased in the wake of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing’s early November visit to China, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the two were linked. The recent border closures have resulted in price hikes in the region.
The military junta has yet to release any information about the status of the border gates.
The conditions under which Hsin Phyu – also known as the White Elephant gate – was reopened were unknown, another border trader said.
“It is not clear whether only the trapped cars will be allowed into Myanmar, or if the gate will be opened normally,” he said. “However, cars from the Myanmar side are not allowed to enter China.”
‘Kyaukpyu has been surrounded’
On the other side of the country, armed conflict between ethnic Arakan Army insurgents and junta troops has intensified in Rakhine state’s Kyaukphyu township, a seaside city where Chinese-funded projects include a deep sea port complex, a special economic zone and energy pipelines that could eventually stretch across Myanmar to the Chinese border.
Additionally, a 620 km (1,000 mile) high-speed railway and road network known as the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor is planned to run from Kunming city in Yunnan province through Myanmar’s major economic hubs and on to the port.
The corridor would ultimately give China crucial access to the Indian Ocean at Kyaukphyu.
The military junta has been reinforcing troops and tightening security in some neighborhoods and nearby areas of Kyaukphyu township, residents said on Tuesday. Junta authorities also ordered the closure of all private banks on Nov. 15.
“They have set up the defensive walls with concrete structure,” one Kyaukphyu resident told RFA. “These junta forces are not from the bases in Kyaukphyu, but from other battalions.”
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The AA has blocked all land routes up to 10 kilometers (six miles) away from Kyaukphyu as fighting has taken place in nearby Taungup and Ann townships, residents said. Ann township is home to the junta’s Western Region Command headquarters.
An analyst on Rakhine military affairs who asked for anonymity for security reasons told RFA that the AA is expected to eventually advance toward Kyaukphyu town once it takes control of Toungup and Ann townships.
“Kyaukpyu has been surrounded for quite a long time,” he said.
The Arakan Army, or AA, has been fighting the junta for control of Rakhine state. The group is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies that also includes the MNDAA and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. The alliance launched an offensive against the junta in October 2023.
Attempts by RFA to contact Hla Thein, the junta’s spokesman and attorney general for Rakhine state, were unsuccessful on Tuesday.
Translated by Kalyar Lwin and Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Myanmar military airstrikes in northern Shan state and Mandalay region have killed about 30 civilians over the past week, an insurgent spokeswoman and residents said, as the military intensifies its attacks in a bid to re-capture territory lost over the past year.
Ethnic minority guerrilla groups and their pro-democracy allies went on the offensive this time last year, achieving unprecedented gains against the military junta that seized power in an early 2021 coup and raising questions about the long-term sustainability of military rule.
But the military has said it is intent on recovering lost territory and anti-junta forces are expecting offensives as the army takes advantage of the dry season now beginning, when it can send its trucks along dried-out roads into remote, rebel-held areas.
At the same time, the air force is increasing its raids on areas under insurgent control.
A spokeswoman for the Shan state-based Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, ethnic minority insurgent force said Kutkai town in northern
Shan state, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) northeast of the city of Mandalay, was among the towns hit hard in recent days.
“Since November 12, military council airstrikes have killed over 30 civilians and injured 46,” said Lway Yay Oo, spokesperson for the TNLA.
“More than 30 houses have been destroyed in the attacks. The military council has primarily targeted densely populated areas, including buildings such as shops where civilians tend to gather.”
RFA tried to contact the main military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, but he did not answer his telephone.
Human rights groups and analysts say the Myanmar military has a long record of attacking civilians as part of its anti-insurgency strategy known as the “four cuts”, aimed at depriving rebel forces of food, funds, information and recruits.
But a former military officer and political analyst said it was inevitable that the military would use its air power and it was not deliberately targeting civilians.
“In war, unfortunately, casualties are inevitable. Cutting off the enemy’s communication lines is extremely challenging. The side with air superiority will naturally use it, that’s how it works… [but] we’ve never seen civilian casualties on this scale before,” said the analyst, who declined to be identified as talking to the media.
‘We’re not safe’
A Kutkai resident told Radio Free Asia that the air force dropped bombs near Yay Htwat Oo Garden Market and a church on Sunday night .
“A two-month-old baby, his mother and an elderly grandmother were killed instantly,” said the Kutkai resident, who declined to be identified because of security fears.
Ten people were wounded, seven of them critically, the resident said, adding: “The airstrike caused widespread destruction, with houses, shops and cars blown apart. The area targeted is densely populated.”
“We’ve dug bunkers, but by the time we hear the sound of planes and try to get to the bunker, the bombs have already fallen. How can we feel safe? No matter how much we try to protect ourselves, they are deliberately targeting us. We’re not safe,” said the Kutkai resident.
The TNLA-controlled towns of Nawnghkio and Mongngawt, in Shan state, and Mogoke, in the neighboring Mandalay region had also been attacked by the air force over the past week, residents there said.
Captain Zin Yaw, a former military officer who has joined the opposition, told RFA that the military has been relentlessly bombing areas controlled by allied insurgent forces to keep them on the back foot, while the army had set its sites on retaking the town of Lashio, which allied rebel fighters captured on Aug. 3 in one of their most significant victories.
“The military council is attempting to advance into Lashio from Mongyai and Tangyan,” said Zin Yaw. Mongyai is about 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Lashio and Tangyan is about 85 kilometers (53 miles) m to the southeast.
“It appears they are trying to hinder the Kokang and Ta’ang forces from preparing for further military action, aiming to render them incapable of mounting an offensive,” he said, referring to another rebel force, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, by the name of the Kokang region where it is based. The MNDAA holds Lashio.
Edited by RFA Staff and Kiana Duncan.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The leader of an ethnic rebel army was being held under house arrest in China’s Yunnan province in the latest move by Beijing to pressure it to withdraw from Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city, a source close to the army told Radio Free Asia.
The insurgent Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, captured the junta’s military headquarters in Lashio in July. In August, it took full control of the town, which serves as an important commercial gateway near the Chinese border.
The MNDAA’s leader, Peng Daxun, traveled to Yunnan province in late October for medical treatment and was later detained by Chinese authorities, according to the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Armed police walking past people at a market area in Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan state on Sept. 10, 2024, after the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) seized the town from Myanmar’s military in August. (AFP Photo) “He is under detention to negotiate withdrawal of his troops from Lashio,” the source said.
The detention followed a meeting in Yunnan in late October between Peng Daxun and Deng Xijun, the special representative for Asian Affairs at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, according to another source.
A source close to the military junta regime told RFA that Peng Daxun was being held at a hotel in Yunnan that’s owned by his father.
China’s interests
The MNDAA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a group of three ethnic minority insurgent forces that launched its highly effective Operation 1027 offensive in October 2023, which has since captured vast swathes of junta-held territory.
A renewal of the offensive in June led to the capture of the junta’s northeastern command headquarters near Lashio – the only one of 14 such regional military command headquarters to fall into rebel hands.
The MNDAA took control of Lashio on Aug. 3, one of the most significant victories for the three-party alliance. Junta efforts to recapture the town have focused on frequent airstrikes and shelling.
China has since tried to protect its interests in the region by brokering several temporary ceasefires between the junta and alliance members.
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army ethnic armed group flags and Alliance flags raised by the welcome archway to Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan State on Aug. 10, 2024. (AFP Photo) On Aug. 27, Deng Xijun invited Zhao Guo-ang, the vice-chairman of the United Wa State Party – Myanmar’s largest ethnic army – to Yunnan province to ask for help pressuring for the withdrawal of MNDAA forces.
The UWSA vowed last year to remain neutral as the Three Brotherhood Alliance began its large-scale operation against junta forces. But in July, its troops entered Lashio without incident after MNDAA forces had taken over most of the city.
China has also cut off shipments of fuel, medicine and food items through its border into the MNDAA-controlled areas in Shan state.
In September, the MNDAA said it had cut ties with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government. It said it would work with China to bring peace, but days later the junta bombed Lashio and peace talks never took place.
Beijing has recently stepped up its support for the military junta, and earlier this month, junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming – the capital of Yunnan – for talks with provincial officials.
RFA has reached out via email to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and the MNDAA’s information team for comments but neither immediately responded.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The leader of an ethnic rebel army was being held under house arrest in China’s Yunnan province in the latest move by Beijing to pressure it to withdraw from Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city, a source close to the army told Radio Free Asia.
The insurgent Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, captured the junta’s military headquarters in Lashio in July. In August, it took full control of the town, which serves as an important commercial gateway near the Chinese border.
The MNDAA’s leader, Peng Daxun, traveled to Yunnan province in late October for medical treatment and was later detained by Chinese authorities, according to the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Armed police walking past people at a market area in Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan state on Sept. 10, 2024, after the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) seized the town from Myanmar’s military in August. (AFP Photo) “He is under detention to negotiate withdrawal of his troops from Lashio,” the source said.
The detention followed a meeting in Yunnan in late October between Peng Daxun and Deng Xijun, the special representative for Asian Affairs at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, according to another source.
A source close to the military junta regime told RFA that Peng Daxun was being held at a hotel in Yunnan that’s owned by his father.
China’s interests
The MNDAA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a group of three ethnic minority insurgent forces that launched its highly effective Operation 1027 offensive in October 2023, which has since captured vast swathes of junta-held territory.
A renewal of the offensive in June led to the capture of the junta’s northeastern command headquarters near Lashio – the only one of 14 such regional military command headquarters to fall into rebel hands.
The MNDAA took control of Lashio on Aug. 3, one of the most significant victories for the three-party alliance. Junta efforts to recapture the town have focused on frequent airstrikes and shelling.
China has since tried to protect its interests in the region by brokering several temporary ceasefires between the junta and alliance members.
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army ethnic armed group flags and Alliance flags raised by the welcome archway to Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan State on Aug. 10, 2024. (AFP Photo) On Aug. 27, Deng Xijun invited Zhao Guo-ang, the vice-chairman of the United Wa State Party – Myanmar’s largest ethnic army – to Yunnan province to ask for help pressuring for the withdrawal of MNDAA forces.
The UWSA vowed last year to remain neutral as the Three Brotherhood Alliance began its large-scale operation against junta forces. But in July, its troops entered Lashio without incident after MNDAA forces had taken over most of the city.
China has also cut off shipments of fuel, medicine and food items through its border into the MNDAA-controlled areas in Shan state.
In September, the MNDAA said it had cut ties with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government. It said it would work with China to bring peace, but days later the junta bombed Lashio and peace talks never took place.
Beijing has recently stepped up its support for the military junta, and earlier this month, junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming – the capital of Yunnan – for talks with provincial officials.
RFA has reached out via email to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and the MNDAA’s information team for comments but neither immediately responded.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Myanmar’s military dictator, Min Aung Hlaing, returned from a five-day trip to China, his first since the February 2021 coup, with promises of further Chinese assistance, in a desperate attempt to shore up his flailing regime and bankrupt economy.
Min Aung Hlaing was invited to attend the 8th Greater Mekong Subregion Forum, and was kept confined to Kunming, the capital of neighboring Yunnan province.
Though he failed to get the legitimizing meeting with Xi Jinping that he had hoped for, he held talks with Prime Minister Li Qiang.
The junta chief had one overriding priority: securing additional Chinese military assistance.
The junta leader pledged that he was ready to sit down and talk peace with the opposition, but only “if they genuinely want peace” – i.e. stop fighting.
There were other matters on his agenda.
Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, left, shakes hands with China’s Premier Li Qiang during the Greater Mekong Subregion Summit in Kunming in China’s Yunnan province, Nov. 6, 2024. Min Aung Hlaing met with the prime ministers of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It was the first time since the coup that the State Administrative Council – as the junta is formally known – enjoyed such diplomatic legitimization.
The junta chief also met with Chinese businessmen and state-owned enterprises, promising an array of tax holidays in return for investments in energy, infrastructure or electric vehicle projects.
So desperate for investment, Min Aung Hlaing promised that all projects could be funded with yuan, rather than U.S. dollars. Despite traveling to China with a large contingent of military-backed businessmen, he returned home with no firm commitments of investment.
China continues to push for a ceasefire and has backed progress towards national elections.
At the same time, Beijing has stepped up support for the military, which may have been the justification for the Oct. 18 grenade attack at their consulate in Mandalay.
Anti-Chinese sentiment has never been higher among the opposition and citizenry.
Military personnel stand guard as hundreds of refugees crossed over the river frontier between Myanmar and Thailand in Mae Sot, Tak province, Thailand, April 2024. Border trade, railway construction
Li Qiang had two inter-connected priorities in his meeting with Min Aung Hlaing.
The first was the reopening of border trade, which China had shut to pressure the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Three Brotherhood Alliance, who control almost all border crossings, to stop their offensive.
The second was the start of construction of the rail line and highway from the Chinese border town of Ruili to the Chinese concession in Kyaukphyu, where Chinese firms are constructing a special economic zone and deep-water intermodal port.
In the face of potential tensions with the United States, the Andaman Sea port is a strategic priority for Beijing that fears the U.S. ability to block the Strait of Malacca.
The KIA and the Three Brotherhood Alliance continue to defy China, despite the economic damage to the local population, which is highly dependent on border trade.
As of now only one of five official border posts, Mongla, is open. China has not restored electricity and internet service to many of the border towns as punishment.
Under Chinese pressure, the Myanmar National Defense Alliance Army (MNDAA), had to publicly distance themselves from the National Unity Government (NUG), the shadow opposition government.
And yet they continue to defy Beijing, both continuing their military operations and coordination with the NUG.
People walk though a market area on Sept. 10, 2024, as it’s being rebuilt in Lashio in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, after the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) seized the town from Myanmar’s military in August. Since July, the KIA has captured 12 more towns and has started to establish administrative control over the entire border region, having taken the last border crossing after defeating a border guards force loyal to the junta in Chipwi.
Beyond the border region, the KIA continues operations around the jade mining town of Hpakant. It has also captured six towns in Sagaing and Northern Shan state.
Counter-offensive
The military has stepped up its counter-offensive in Northern Shan state. Communities have experienced intensified aerial bombing while there has been a growing ground offensive in Nawnghkio township, which is under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).
Nawnghkio puts the TNLA in the artillery range of the symbolically important city of Pyin Oo Lwin, the home of the elite Defense Service Academy, where all officers are educated.
There are reports of the military regime building up their defenses around the city, including new trenches and increased checkpoints.
Despite the increased fighting, the military has had a rough time against well-dug-in MNDAA and TNLA forces.
The military has put more effort into retaking lost territory around Loikkaw in Kayah state, taking advantage of diminished stockpiles of ammunition among the opposition.
In western Myanmar, the Arakan Army continues their assault on Ann township, the headquarters of the Western Military Region, which began on Sept. 26.
While the town has not fallen, the military has had to mobilize a lot of reinforcements. In the process they lost one of their few Mi17 heavy lift helicopters to ground fire.
Chin resistance forces in neighboring Chin state have reportedly captured some retreating military forces.
The Arakan Army has not seized Kyaukphyu but holds all the surrounding territory. The force currently controls 10 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships.
The junta military is now stockpiling men and equipment in Gwa, the southernmost city in Rakhine, for a counter-offensive north along the coastal highway to retake lost territory and take off pressure from their beleaguered forces in Ann.
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In early November, the Burma People’s Liberation Army (BPLA) and Karen National Liberation Army captured 17 soldiers and killed 14 more in skirmishes near Hpapun township in Karen state, after taking a military base on the Thai border the previous week.
Over-reliance on airpower
The brunt of the military’s operations has been in the ethnic majority Bamar heartland. With the BLPA expanding their footprint in the region, the military has acted with utmost barbarity, massacring civilians, arsoning homes, and leaving heads on stakes in Budalin village in Sagaing.
With improvements in their own drone technology, the junta’s forces are starting to grind back lost territory. Drones are now used in almost all operations, with improved effectiveness.
Despite the augmentation by conscripts, they are facing defections, surrenders with a growing number of people evading conscription altogether.
The regime’s number three, who is in charge of the conscription program, has publicly threatened punishments for those who evade mandatory service.
People gather around a destroyed building following an airstrike in Namhkham township in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, Sept. 6, 2024. The military is increasingly reliant on air power, which has led to the death of over 540 civilians and 200 schools in the first 10 months of 2024, alone. The most recent strike targeted the ruby-mining town of Mogoke, which the TNLA seized in July.
But opposition gains have put those airbases in range. On November 5, a drone dropped a bomb at the airport in Naypyidaw soon after Min Aung Hlaing and his delegation departed for Kunming. On November 11, opposition forces fired rockets into the Shan Te airbase in Meiktila township.
Meiktila is a major military hub with several bases and defense industries, and the airbase is the hub of Air Force operations in northern Shan, Kachin, Sagaing and Sagaing regions.
There is now satellite evidence that the military is making improvements to a small airfield in Pakokku, just across the Irrawaddy River to the southwest of Myingyan, a major logistic and energy transit hub in Mandalay province where opposition forces have stepped up attacks.
The regime appears to be moving to smaller airfields in strongholds, which would allow it to save fuel in operations. It also suggests that they are increasingly reliant on riverine transportation to get jet fuel safely delivered.
Now in the dry season, the military sees a window of opportunity to regain territory lost since Operation 1027 began a year ago. Min Aung Hlaing has secured additional Chinese assistance, despite Beijing’s misgiving about his competence.
But that support may be insufficient across so many distinct battlefields, against an opposition that has demonstrated their refusal to kowtow to Beijing.
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zachary Abuza.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Residents in northern Myanmar are facing shortages of food and other supplies as China imposes restrictions on small-scale, informal trade, Radio Free Asia has learned.
The restrictions are centered on three border crossings, two of which have been recently shut down, in the northeastern town of Muse, which lies across the border from China’s Ruili,
Video posted on social media showed fresh fruit sellers in China giving their product away because they could not get it across the border before it spoils.
More than 2 million residents in northern Shan state rely on Chinese foodstuffs and goods. The closures have resulted in price hikes.
At the Muse border, the price of one liter (.26 gallons) of gasoline has risen to more than 10 thousand kyats ($4.76), while a bag of low-quality rice has almost doubled, a resident there told RFA.
“Every item has been expensive due to the closure of border gates. Business is not good,” he said. “People are facing various challenges in their daily lives.”
The restrictions have increased in the wake of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing’s recent visit to China, but it isn’t immediately clear if the two are linked.
Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing shakes hands with China’s Premier Li Qiang at the Greater Mekong Subregion Summit in Kunming in China’s Yunnan province, Nov. 6, 2024. During his visit, he met with Premier Li Qiang and discussed control of border trade between the two countries, according to junta reports.
Junta spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun stated during a press conference following the military chief’s return from China that both sides discussed border stability and agreed not to allow opponents of the junta regime to operate on Chinese territory, and vice versa.
Vehicles stuck
The government announced closure of one of Muse’s three border gates last week, but now there are two gates closed.
The closures have blocked the crossing of more than 300 vehicles, including grocery trucks headed for Myanmar, and these vehicles are now stranded, a border trade merchant said.
Additionally, private vehicles hoping to cross the border with goods have become stranded, a Chinese driver told RFA.
The entry to the border town of Namtit is seen on Sept. 30, 2016. “The traffic-police from the Chinese side have recorded the number plates of vehicles stranded at Mang Wein gate,” he said.
“We do not see any significant development until now. Frozen seafood has been unloaded from the cars into garages. About 60 percent of trucks are loaded with potatoes. While Chinese officials allowed the use of Mang Wein gate, the junta officials do not allow the use of this gate on their side”
RFA attempted to contact the junta’s spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce but he was not available.
RFA emailed the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar on Thursday seeking comments on the further restrictions on small-scale informal cross-border trade. However, no response was recieved.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
Myanmar’s Ministry of Labor has issued a ruling allowing it to call back overseas workers for military service and has made the employment agencies that send workers abroad responsible for bringing them back if ordered to, an agency told Radio Free Asia on Friday.
Since the military ousted a democratically elected government in a 2021 coup, many thousands of Myanmar people have moved abroad to escape a crumbling economy, violent turmoil and, since early this year, the threat of being drafted into the military as it struggles against anti-junta forces.
While many try their luck and head abroad in the hope of finding work, many others find work through employment agencies, filling jobs overseas through deals Myanmar has struck with other governments.
The military’s ministry issued a regulation this week ordering job agencies to take full responsibility for their workers’ military service, and only to issue new contracts stipulating that workers and their foreign employers must agree that employees can be called back to serve, a member of staff at a Yangon-based employment agency told RFA.
“Agencies have been given responsibility for their conscription. After we take that duty, the junta has a lot of ways of calling them back. It’s a lot of pressure,” said the agency employee who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
“If the workers we send are called back, then the trouble will start. If they don’t return, are we going to take action?” he said.
Under the regulation, workers would only be called back after two years, the agency source said, while expressing concern that the time rule could easily be ignored. RFA was not able to determine the reaction of foreign employers to the regulation.
RFA tried to call the junta’s labor minister, Nyan Win, to ask about the rule but he did not respond by the time of publication.
The junta enacted a conscription law in February, making men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve for up to three years, after various insurgent forces battling to end military rule went on the offensive and made significant advances.
The law triggered an exodus of young people to places like Thailand. Myanmar authorities have detained and forcibly recruited people being sent back to Myanmar and turned to prisoners and even minors to fill gaps in the ranks, according to witnesses and residents of some communities.
Struggling with a crippled economy, the junta has already ordered that Myanmar workers in Laos and Thailand make payments from their salaries to bolster foreign reserves and employment agencies risk having their licenses revoked if those remittances are not collected.
Military authorities have also announced strict action against anyone caught trying to dodge the draft, state-run media reported on Nov. 7.
Nationwide, there are 21,000 conscripts at 23 training schools, the independent research group Burma Affairs and Conflict Study said in a report on Oct. 15.
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Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Thailand will grant citizenship to nearly 500,000 long-term residents, most of them members of ethnic minorities, with the aim of improving national security and the economy, officials said.
While immigration is a hot-button political issue in many countries, in Thailand, where its remote border lands have for centuries been populated by a patchwork of “hill tribe” communities, the plan has stirred little, if any, serious opposition.
Under a streamlined process agreed by the cabinet in late October, provincial authorities will be able to grant citizenship, cutting down on red tape and saving time, said government spokesman Jirayu Houngsub.
“It will bolster national security, enable those Thai citizens to access medical plans and support the economic drive,” he said.
New citizens will gain the right to work freely, buy property, open bank accounts, get domestic rates for tuition fees and apply for university scholarships.
A retired government official familiar with the issue said security worries were at the root of the decision, and a fear stateless people were more likely to get mixed up in “illicit” activities.
“They must gain Thai citizenship so the government knows who they are, and they can have a legal career and contribute to society,” said the former senior Thai official who declined to be identified commenting on the sensitive issue.
“Recognizing them helps Thailand earn their loyalty.”
While who precisely will qualify for citizenship has yet to be announced, a member of a parliamentary committee on ethnicities involved in the plan told Radio Free Asia that the focus was long-term members of ethnic minorities and tribal people, such as members of the Hmong ethnic group, as well as those settling from Myanmar and Laos, and long-term migrants from Cambodia and Vietnam.
A Myanmar migrant worker passes the time on his balcony in a workers’ dormitory in Bangkok, May 22, 2021. Former members of the Chinese nationalist Kuomintang party, who fled from China after the 1949 communist victory there and settled in Thailand, will also be granted citizenship, said Surapong Kongchantuk, secretary of the house committee on the ethnicities.
“In a nutshell, the eligible people are ethnic and tribal people who have been surveyed and registered for a long time,” Surapong told RFA.
“The new system will take effect after the Ministry of Interior declares a ministerial act in around the next two months – a New Year gift,” he said.
Path to opportunity
But Surapong said those eligible would not include “new migrants.”
He declined to go into details of exactly who he was referring to but applicants must be able prove they arrived in Thailand before 1999 and remained here for at least 15 years.
That means no path to citizenship for the many thousands of people from Myanmar who have fled from their country’s latest round of bloody turmoil and repression since a 2021 military takeover there.
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It is also not clear if about 100,000 members of the Karen ethnic group from Myanmar living in border camps after fleeing fighting beginning in the 1980s, will be eligible.
But many people from Myanmar are hopeful after years of insecurity, temporary permits and endless scrutiny by the authorities.
“I have to submit information about where I’m going, what I’m doing and who I’m going to meet,” said one man from Myanmar, who asked to be identified as Maung Maung, who fled repression in his homeland and has been living precariously in Thailand for 27 years, most recently with a 10-year temporary permit.
For Maung Maung, citizenship would open up a new world, not so much for him, but for his children.
“My wife and I aren’t at the age to study anymore but for my son and daughter, if they want a better education in Chiang Mai or Bangkok, as a citizen they would have the opportunity,” he said.
Thailand’s Minister of Social Development and Human Security Varawut Silpa-archa said 130,000 stateless children born in Thailand would get citizenship.
Health benefits
Citizenship would also mean people can also get access to health insurance and the state health system, and relieve an immense strain on hospitals in border regions that operate under a humanitarian oath to provide care to anyone who needs it.
“Health insurance is really really important, especially for elderly people,” said Brahm Press, the director of the Migrant Assistance Program in Thailand.
“Migrants aren’t allowed to work after age 55, which means they’re not really entitled to any health insurance either, but that’s the age when you really start to need it.”
Myanmar migrant worker families pass their time under barricade lockdown at Samut Sakhon Shrimp in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, Jan. 26, 2021. While there has been no public outcry about the prospect of nearly half a million new citizens, there has been some grumbling among online posters, with some questioning if all of the likely applicants were “really Thai.”
A Bangkok-based businessman who identified himself as Somchai told RFA he agreed that hill-tribe people who had been in Thailand for many years should get citizenship: “They feel Thai even though they’re living in remote mountains.”
But Somchai said he’d then draw the line.
“I disapprove of granting people from Myanmar, or other nationals, the right to resettle here. That isn’t right. What benefits do Thai people get out of this? Why is the government thinking about that?”
Edited by Taejun Kang.
Khet Mar contributed to this report.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan, Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA and RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read RFA’s coverage of this topic in Burmese
Fierce fighting between junta troops and rebels in central Myanmar’s Sagaing region over the past week has driven nearly 10,000 residents to flee their homes, sources said Thursday.
The fighting in Sagaing, along the borders of Mandalay and Magway regions, marks the first bid by rebel forces to take Pale, a key town in Myanmar’s “dry zone” region – the country’s breadbasket and a stronghold of the military since its February 2021 coup d’etat.
On Monday, the Bamar National Revolutionary Army or BNRA and allied forces launched an attack on a unit of some 40 junta troops stationed at the Pale Township General Administrative Office and police station, according to residents and rebel officials.
The military responded with airstrikes and artillery, as well as reinforcements, and anti-junta forces were unable to capture the town as of Thursday, said Saya Naing, the station officer of the rebel Black Leopard Army, which is aligned with the Bamar National Revolutionary Army.
“They drop soldiers with four or five helicopters every day,” he said, adding that on Thursday, as many as eight helicopters had brought reinforcements. “Our forces are surrounding them, but a Mi-35 helicopter attacked part of the town this morning, destroying about 50 houses.”
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Nearly 10,000 people have fled the fighting since Monday and are in need of aid, said a member of the Supporting Network for People in Sagaing relief group.
“More than 2,100 households from 11 [nearby] villages and the town of Pale have fled from the intense fighting,” said the aid worker who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “As of [Wednesday], the number of displaced persons has exceeded 9,500.”
The aid worker said that among the displaced are those suffering from seasonal illnesses, pregnant women and the elderly.
Four days of airstrikes
The junta has carried out at least 20 airstrikes over the past four days, killing some civilians, according to a member of the Pale Township Public Administration aid organization.
“Fighting is still escalating between the [rebel] forces and the junta forces,” he said. “We are evacuating as many of the residents as possible. We have taken out more than 200 people.”
The aid worker said his organization is still fielding requests to help evacuate civilians who were left behind as others fled the attacks, including the paralyzed and the blind.
“Many buildings were destroyed in the town,” he said. “As far as we know, three people were reportedly killed, while the actual number may be higher.
People displaced by fighting huddle under tarps in Pale township, Sagaing region, in March 2024. A resident of Pale township who also declined to be named told RFA that everyone in her village had fled since the fighting began.
“We fled our homes since Monday amid frequent bombardment by the junta,” she said, adding that the military was “scattering bombs” around the village. “Entire villages are fleeing on cattle carts, by foot and by motorcycle. We are facing a shortage of food supplies.”
Casualty numbers unclear
A military analyst and former army officer who did not wish to be named told RFA that the BNRA would likely face higher casualties fighting urban warfare in Pale town.
“This is largely a tactical move rather than a full-scale operation [by the BNRA],” he said. “Due to Pale town’s proximity to the Northwestern Military Command, the junta frequently conducts airstrikes, which has prevented them from fully securing the town.”
The analyst said reports indicate that “many BNRA soldiers have been injured” in the fighting, although he could not provide details.
Allied rebel forces told RFA that the extent of casualties on both sides of the conflict remains unknown.
Attempts by RFA to contact Nyunt Win Aung, the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for Sagaing region, went unanswered Thursday.
According to residents, the military bombarded Pale’s Aing Ma village on Nov. 5, killing four civilians.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read RFA’s coverage of this topic in Burmese
Fierce fighting between junta troops and rebels in central Myanmar’s Sagaing region over the past week has driven nearly 10,000 residents to flee their homes, sources said Thursday.
The fighting in Sagaing, along the borders of Mandalay and Magway regions, marks the first bid by rebel forces to take Pale, a key town in Myanmar’s “dry zone” region – the country’s breadbasket and a stronghold of the military since its February 2021 coup d’etat.
On Monday, the Bamar National Revolutionary Army or BNRA and allied forces launched an attack on a unit of some 40 junta troops stationed at the Pale Township General Administrative Office and police station, according to residents and rebel officials.
The military responded with airstrikes and artillery, as well as reinforcements, and anti-junta forces were unable to capture the town as of Thursday, said Saya Naing, the station officer of the rebel Black Leopard Army, which is aligned with the Bamar National Revolutionary Army.
“They drop soldiers with four or five helicopters every day,” he said, adding that on Thursday, as many as eight helicopters had brought reinforcements. “Our forces are surrounding them, but a Mi-35 helicopter attacked part of the town this morning, destroying about 50 houses.”
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Nearly 10,000 people have fled the fighting since Monday and are in need of aid, said a member of the Supporting Network for People in Sagaing relief group.
“More than 2,100 households from 11 [nearby] villages and the town of Pale have fled from the intense fighting,” said the aid worker who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “As of [Wednesday], the number of displaced persons has exceeded 9,500.”
The aid worker said that among the displaced are those suffering from seasonal illnesses, pregnant women and the elderly.
Four days of airstrikes
The junta has carried out at least 20 airstrikes over the past four days, killing some civilians, according to a member of the Pale Township Public Administration aid organization.
“Fighting is still escalating between the [rebel] forces and the junta forces,” he said. “We are evacuating as many of the residents as possible. We have taken out more than 200 people.”
The aid worker said his organization is still fielding requests to help evacuate civilians who were left behind as others fled the attacks, including the paralyzed and the blind.
“Many buildings were destroyed in the town,” he said. “As far as we know, three people were reportedly killed, while the actual number may be higher.
People displaced by fighting huddle under tarps in Pale township, Sagaing region, in March 2024. A resident of Pale township who also declined to be named told RFA that everyone in her village had fled since the fighting began.
“We fled our homes since Monday amid frequent bombardment by the junta,” she said, adding that the military was “scattering bombs” around the village. “Entire villages are fleeing on cattle carts, by foot and by motorcycle. We are facing a shortage of food supplies.”
Casualty numbers unclear
A military analyst and former army officer who did not wish to be named told RFA that the BNRA would likely face higher casualties fighting urban warfare in Pale town.
“This is largely a tactical move rather than a full-scale operation [by the BNRA],” he said. “Due to Pale town’s proximity to the Northwestern Military Command, the junta frequently conducts airstrikes, which has prevented them from fully securing the town.”
The analyst said reports indicate that “many BNRA soldiers have been injured” in the fighting, although he could not provide details.
Allied rebel forces told RFA that the extent of casualties on both sides of the conflict remains unknown.
Attempts by RFA to contact Nyunt Win Aung, the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for Sagaing region, went unanswered Thursday.
According to residents, the military bombarded Pale’s Aing Ma village on Nov. 5, killing four civilians.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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COX’S BAZAR and DHAKA, Bangladesh — The 16-year-old Rohingya boy said he was kidnapped from southeastern Bangladesh and forced to fight in Myanmar’s civil war – a story shared by others who were able to return to Cox’s Bazar, where they face additional terror in the refugee camps.
The boy, who like other Rohingya in this report are not identified because of concerns for their safety, said he was one of about 80 Rohingya who were abducted from their camp and forced to cross the nearby border into Myanmar.
“We were blindfolded and led to a boat. I don’t know where exactly they (the kidnappers) delivered us in Myanmar, but it was a military base,” he told BenarNews.
“They (the junta) posted pictures of us with firearms online. They didn’t give us ammunition but put us on the front lines” he said, adding that he and other Rohingya were not trained to fight.
In September and October, BenarNews spoke to several Rohingya who had returned from Myanmar, where the Arakan Army and other insurgents have been fighting Burmese junta-aligned forces to gain control of Rakhine state.
A 16-year-old Rohingya, whose face was blurred by BenarNews over safety concerns, is interviewed at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, after he was kidnapped and forced to fight in Myanmar’s civil war, Sept. 29, 2024. About 740,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine and settled in Bangladesh refugee camps in the months that followed a brutal military crackdown in 2017. Both the insurgents and the junta have kidnapped and forced Rohingya into battle.
“(The Arakan Army) said you will be trained and receive 10,000 taka (U.S. $83) monthly. All you have to do is kill the army,” a 25-year-old Rohingya returnee told BenarNews.
“The firearms didn’t work. If you pull the trigger five times, it will fire twice. We discarded guns jammed with bullets. But it was risky to dispose of these firearms – even if you appear unarmed, the attacker will kill you,” he said.
The man said he saw about a dozen Rohingya die in battle.
A 42-year-old Rohingya who volunteered to fight for the Myanmar government speaks to BenarNews, which blurred his face over safety concerns, after returning to a Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, refugee camp, Oct. 10, 2024. “After four months, I wanted to return. Then they didn’t let me go. When I tried to escape, they locked me up,” he said.
Recounting his time in Myanmar, the 25-year-old said members of the Arakan Army forced him and others to burn down a Rohingya neighborhood.
“There, they seized all of our guns. Then, when army drones attacked, we had a chance to run,” he said.
The man said he and seven others stayed at a house overnight where they were fed before paying 12,000 taka ($100) each to charter a boat to return to Bangladesh.
Some fought for six months
BenarNews interviewed Rohingya who fought in Myanmar and returned to the Kutupalong-Balukhali Mega Camp in Ukhia, the world’s largest refugee camp. Some said they were able to escape after a month while others said they were trapped for six months.
The Rohingya said they had been kidnapped from refugee camps by men who claimed they were members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), an armed group. After they returned, the Rohingya said they were beaten by RSO members who threatened to kill them.
Md. Zahirul Haque Bhuiyan, an assistant superintendent of police near the camps, said sources were providing information about Rohingya leaving Bangladesh and returning after fighting in Myanmar.
“We have this information. However, there is no particular complaint. If we receive any complaints, we will address them legally and take proper action,” Zahirul said.“ Every few days, we carry out joint operations,” he said.
When militants with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and RSO are operating within the camps, “we execute raids, arrest them, prosecute them and acquire their weapons,” he said.
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A human rights activist, meanwhile, called on fellow Bangladeshis to treat the Rohingya fairly.
Activist Nur Khan Liton, a lawyer, said people should remember that Rohingya fled to the camps in and around Cox’s Bazar because they feared for their lives in Myanmar.
“And those who attempt to use these individuals against their will are committing a serious moral crime,” he said.
People returning from the conflict are being hunted down by RSO and ARSA, Liton said, referring to the RSO and ARSA.
“They are committing increasingly severe crimes and putting our country’s security in jeopardy.”
He also called on the Bangladesh government to take positive action regarding the Rohingya.
“The government and many people in our country know that Rohingya are being forcibly taken – this news has been in the media several times. Regretfully, the government hasn’t taken sufficient steps in this field,” Liton said.
Rohingya gather at the Kutupalong-Balukhali Extension Camp in Cox’s Bazar, known as the world’s largest refugee settlement, Sept. 29, 2024. Some were willing to fight
While most Rohingya who spoke to BenarNews told of being forced to fight, not all who went to Myanmar were abducted.
“We weren’t forced to go. We willingly went to battle for the nation,” a 42-year-old Rohingya told BenarNews. “We went after hearing such a request from the Myanmar government.”
He said some volunteers were in their 50s while others were in their 30s or 40s.
“Those firearms are vintage Myanmar-made G3 guns. All are old scraps, utterly useless due to abandonment,” he said.
“The Myanmar government didn’t take us to fight. They used us as (human) shields – they have misled the world and fooled the Rohingya.”
Mohammed Jubair, leader of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), said both sides were trying to get rid of the Rohingya.
“Let the Rohingya be wiped out anyway. What will the world hear? They fought, they died fighting on both sides,” Jubair told BenarNews.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Abdur Rahman, Sharif Khiam for BenarNews.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
An ethnic minority insurgent group in Myanmar has closed crossings it controls on the border with China, cutting off exports of valuable rare earths in response to recent closures of the border by China, residents of the area said on Thursday.
The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, which has been fighting on and off for decades for self-determination in Myanmar’s northernmost state, has made significant gains against junta forces over the past year, capturing territory, including some major rare-earth mines, and 10 border checkpoints.
Rare earths are used in the manufacture of numerous items, from electric cars to wind turbines and cell phones, in Chinese factories, but the mining of the minerals essential for the green transition causes significant pollution.
China, which the environmental group Global Witness said in a recent report had effectively outsourced its rare earth extraction to Myanmar, has also been trying to press insurgent groups battling the Myanmar junta to make peace by sealing the border to trade.
The KIA had responded by sealing the part of the border under its control, cutting off cross-border shipments of inputs needed for rare earth mining and the export of the minerals back to China, residents in the border region of Kachin state told Radio Free Asia.
“China keeps opening and closing the gates. Now, the KIA has closed them,” said a resident of Mai Ja Yang town, which is on the border with China, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southeast of the state capital, Myitkyina.
The resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons, said the KIA had closed the border there and at crossings at Lai Zar and Pang War on Tuesday.
“As for rare earth mining, that’s all been closed because we don’t have the materials we need to extract them,” the resident said, referring to fuel and chemical inputs.
RFA tried to contact KIA spokesman Naw Bu for information about the situation but he did not respond by the time of publication.
RFA was not able to contact Chinese authorities or rare earth processors for comment and China’s embassy in Myanmar has not responded to inquiries from RFA.
Economic pressure
China has extensive economic interests in resource-rich Myanmar including energy pipelines that traverse the Southeast Asian nation, from the Indian Ocean to southern China’s Yunnan province, and several mining projects.
While China backs the Myanmar military it also has contacts with anti-junta insurgent groups, especially those in northern and northeastern Myanmar, including the KIA, and has called on the rival sides to negotiate.
In late October, China shut six border gates, causing shortages and price surges for fuel and household goods along Kachin state border towns, residents there said.
As well as closing border crossings to put economic pressure on the insurgents, China has also closed its border to civilians fleeing fighting.
At the Pang War border crossing, about 160 km (100 miles) northeast of Mai Ja Yang, China has sealed the border to traders and civilians but was allowing trucks hauling rare earths from the Kachin state mines to enter China.
So the KIA, which recently captured the border post, stopped the trucks, a person affiliated with the KIA said.
“As for the gate, China closed it so the KIA did too,” said the person, who also declined to be identified for security reasons.
“The KIA blocked the road with wood and barbed wire.”
Global Witness said in a report this year that there are more than 300 rare earth mines in Kachin state’s Chipwi and Pang War townships exporting to China, which the group said controls nearly 90% of global rare earth capacity.
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Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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One year after renewed fighting in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, the rebel Arakan Army controls some 80 percent of the state while the military junta’s airstrikes and its blockade of trade routes have left residents worried about their safety and food shortages.
The ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, began its offensive on Nov. 13, 2023, and has since captured 10 out of the state’s 17 townships, as well as one township in neighboring Chin state.
The group is battling for self-determination for the mostly Buddhist Rakhine people. It would be the first Myanmar rebel group to take over a state if it seizes – as it has vowed to do – all territory under military control in Rakhine state.
Myanmar’s military, which took control of the country in a 2021 coup, has been battling various rebel armies and militias across the country, and has faced some of its biggest setbacks in Rakhine.
The AA’s battlefield successes over the last year has been unprecedented since the fall of the Arakan Kingdom to the Burmese in 1784, according to Pe Than, a former member of parliament from Rakhine state.
“Our Arakan people lost our sovereignty about 240 years ago,” he told Radio Free Asia. “Throughout this period, the successive generations in Rakhine have engaged in revolutionary efforts, yet we did not achieve victory.
“Now, during the era of the AA, we have found success,” he said. “It is believed that the national dignity of the Rakhine people can be restored along with that of the AA, as it has been a great achievement.”
Arakan Army leaders gather with other rebel leaders and representatives at a conference in Mai Ja Yang in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state on July 26, 2016. The AA has repeatedly vowed to capture Sittwe, the state capital and one of the last important military holdings in Rakhine. Last month, AA fighters advanced on the junta’s Western Command headquarters in Ann township, about 120 km (75 miles) southwest of Sittwe.
Additionally, there have been heated battles for control of Maungdaw township near the Bangladesh border since July.
Junta air attacks
In the townships where it has won control, the AA and its political wing, the United League of Arakan, have been operating civilian administration, judicial and development sectors, AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha said during an online news conference on June 8.
“We will diligently follow our roadmap to build a society prevailed with justice, peace and human dignity for the Arakan people,” he said. “We are also committed to establishing a future that guarantees equality and rights for all communities residing in Arakan state.”
But the threat of junta airstrikes remains a significant concern for locals, and many towns and homes have yet to be rebuilt because of financial constraints and difficulties obtaining supplies, he said.
Additionally, the fighting has severely hindered children’s ability to get an education, he said. The junta had already closed many of Rakhine state’s schools, and in some areas children aren’t allowed to walk to school that remain open because of the threat of air strikes, which often target civilian buildings.
“Parents are hiring private teachers for their children,” Khaing Thu Kha said. “It has been a form of self-reliant education.”
People flee from a village after fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army in Pauktaw township in western Rakhine state on Nov. 19, 2023. Junta air attacks and artillery targeted at Rakhine state’s civilian populations have left 486 people dead and 1,043 injured over the last year, according to the records of the AA and the statements from residents.
“Over the past year, the military junta has carried out excessive airstrikes, destroying religious buildings, hospitals, clinics, residential areas, villages and refugee camps,” said Wai Hin Aung, a volunteer helping war displaced persons in Rakhine.
Rakhine civil society organizations have estimated that more than 600,000 people have been forced to flee their homes due to the fierce fighting between the junta and the AA.
RFA was unable to reach junta spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun on Wednesday to ask about the current situation in Rakhine state.
Refugees eye return
Across the border in Bangladesh, where some 1 million stateless Rohingya refugees live in tightly packed border camps – including more than 50,000 who have fled the fighting in Rakhine this year – there is some hope that refugees can return once the AA gains full control of Rakhine.
Groups of Rohingya Muslims cross the Naf River on the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Nov. 1, 2017. “The AA has a visionary approach, and I believe their governance would not mirror the harsh policies of the military council,” one refugee who has been living in Bangladesh since 2017 told RFA.
“If the AA succeeds in capturing Maungdaw and gains international recognition, I believe they would engage in dialogue with the Rohingya,” he said.
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Another refugee who identified himself as Kairo thought that international recognition of the AA as a legitimate government was unlikely.
“I believe our chance of returning to Rakhine state will be very slim if the AA takes control now,” Kairo said. “I don’t think UNHCR will hand us over to an unrecognized organization,” referring to the U.N refugee agency.
“Even if they gain control of 17 townships, it could take at least two to three years for them to achieve international recognition.”
Translated by Aung Naing and Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
Myanmar’s junta has announced that passports renewed “illegally” in South Korea would be canceled, the latest step in its efforts to crack down on its opponents abroad and to force citizens to return home, where they are liable to be conscripted into the military.
At the heart of the wrangle over passports is the question of who has the legitimacy to represent Myanmar – the deeply unpopular military that seized power in a 2021 coup, or members of the elected government it ousted who have set up a shadow administration in exile.
Radio Free Asia’s Burmese service reported on Tuesday that there has been an increasing number of Myanmar citizens renewing their passports in the South Korean capital at the representative office of the government-in-exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG.
But the junta-appointed Myanmar embassy in Seoul warned that passports renewed that way would be canceled and their bearers would be blacklisted.
“We are taking action against those who renewed their passports with illegal stamps, in accordance with South Korean law,” said the embassy.
“The embassy is discussing the issue with the South Korea government ministries concerned to take action,” it added.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said it is aware of the matter and was checking the facts and legal aspects.
“If necessary, appropriate measures will be reviewed in consultation with relevant ministries,” the ministry told RFA on Wednesday.
RFA contacted the junta’s main spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment but did not receive a reply by publication time.
A file photo of a Myanmar passport. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted a government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, ending a decade of gradual reforms that had raised hopes for an end to decades of poverty and repression under the military.
People of all ages and walks of life took to the streets across the country to protest against the coup.
The military responded with bullets and large numbers of people fled to places such as Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, either in fear of prison or looking for opportunities as the upheaval crippled the economy.
More fled military conscription enforced this year as junta forces struggled against ethnic minority insurgents and their new pro-democracy allies.
Thousands hope for new passports
Many of those who fled are now holding passports that are expiring, which junta-controlled embassies often refuse to renew, or only do so after detailed family background checks and if applicants sign pledges not to participate in politics.
Those without valid passports find it nearly impossible to renew visas to stay on in the countries where they are living.
So instead of relying on embassies, an increasing number of people in South Korea are turning to the NUG for passport renewals, a source close to the shadow government’s office in Seoul said.
“More than 500 people from Myanmar have renewed their passports through the NUG office. The number is expected to reach into the thousands,” said the source who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue.
“More people are contacting the NUG office every day to prepare their documents for passport renewal. The number of applicants is growing steadily.”
In the weeks after Myanmar’s coup, South Korea created what is known as the G1-99 visa, allowing Myanmar people to stay on humanitarian grounds. But the Myanmar embassy initially refused to renew passports with that visa, said one Myanmar national in Soul.
“Later, they accepted this visa for an extension but applicants need to sign a pledge (not to engage in politics) to get the passport. So we opted for NUG’s passport renewal service,” said the Myanmar citizen who declined to be identified.
The NUG office in Seoul said on Sunday that it was protecting Myanmar citizens who opposed the junta as much as it could, in addition to working for the release of Myanmar people arrested in South Korea for violating visa rules.
The office said the passports it renewed were only valid to stay in South Korea.
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Those facing no option but to go home, or being deported back, risk being forced into the military, numerous people have reported.
A Yangon-based job agent helping workers go to South Korea told RFA that the NUG’s passport renewal would only be a temporary fix and anyone hoping to return to Myanmar would face problems.
“The NUG passport will not be accepted by the junta. Having said that, it depends if individuals are staying long-term in South Korea,” he said.
“Those holding NUG passports can’t legally return home, as long as we’re under the military regime, but they can stay overseas.”
More than 70,000 Myanmar citizens are in South Korea under labor agreements between the two countries, according to media reports.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.
RFA Korean’s Lee Jeongeun contributed to this report.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.