- By Jonathan Head and Lulu Luo
- BBC News, Bangkok
November 9, 2023, 00:29 GMT
Updated 42 minutes ago
Image source: Getty Images
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Two years after seizing power, Myanmar’s military looks weak – and beatable
Myanmar’s military-installed president has warned that the country risks falling apart if the government cannot control fighting that has broken out in Shan State.
Former general Myint Swe, appointed after a 2021 coup, spoke at an emergency meeting of the ruling military council to address a series of coordinated attacks by anti-military insurgents that have inflicted heavy casualties on the armed forces.
Three armies of ethnic insurgents in Shan state, backed by other armed groups that oppose the government, have overrun dozens of military posts and captured border crossings and the roads that carry most of the land trade with China.
It is the worst setback the junta has suffered since taking power in February 2021. After two and a half years of fighting the armed uprising it provoked with its devastating coup, the military appears weak and possibly beatable.
The government responded with airstrikes and artillery attacks, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. But she was unable to bring in reinforcements or regain the lost ground. The hundreds of troops killed are believed to include the commander of government forces in northern Shan State, Brigadier General Aung Kyaw Lwin, the highest-ranking officer killed in combat since the coup.
What makes this attack even more significant is that it is the first time that the well-armed insurgents operating in Shan State have explicitly aligned themselves and their military operations with the broader campaign to overthrow the junta and restore democratic rule .
However, other factors also play a role. These three insurgent groups have long had the goal of expanding their territory. And crucially, China, which normally exerts a restraining influence on all groups along its border with Myanmar, did not prevent this operation from taking place.
This is likely due to their frustration with the military government’s inaction against the fraud centers that have proliferated in Shan State. Thousands of Chinese citizens and other foreigners were forced to work in these fraud centers. The insurgents say one of their goals is to close it down.
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On October 28, a rocket was fired during heavy fighting in Shan State
When peaceful protests against the coup were violently suppressed by the military and police in 2021, opposition activists decided they had no choice but to call for a nationwide armed uprising against the junta.
Many fled to ethnic insurgent-controlled areas along Myanmar’s borders with Thailand, China and India, where they hoped to gain access to training and weapons that most of them lacked.
Some established ethnic armies, such as the Karen, the Kachin, the Karenni and Chin, decided to ally with the Government of National Unity (NUG) installed by the elected government that was overthrown by the coup.
Others did not, particularly the various groups in Shan State, a vast, lawless region bordering Thailand and China.
Shan State, perhaps best known as one of the world’s largest producers of illegal drugs, has also recently begun to host a booming business of casinos and fraud centers.
Since Myanmar’s independence in 1948, it has been wracked by conflict and poverty and splintered into fiefdoms of various warlords, drug lords or ethnic rebels who fight each other and the army.
Two rival insurgent forces claim to represent the Shan, the largest ethnic group, but in recent years four smaller ethnic groups have built powerful armies.
The strongest of them are the Wa, with sophisticated modern weapons and around 20,000 soldiers supported by China.
Then there are the Kokang, an ethnic Chinese group with a long tradition of insurgency; the Palaung or Ta’ang, people from remote mountain villages whose army has grown rapidly since its founding in 2009; and the Rakhine, who actually come from Rakhine State on the other side of Myanmar. However, there is a large immigrant population in the east of the country, which helped build the Arakan Army, which is now one of the best-equipped military forces in Myanmar.
The Wa agreed to a ceasefire with the Myanmar military back in 1989 and have generally avoided armed clashes. They say they are neutral in the conflict between the junta and the opposition. However, they are suspected to be the source of many weapons going to anti-military resistance groups in the rest of the country.
The other three ethnic armies – the Kokang MNDAA, the Ta’ang TNLA and the Arakan Army – have joined forces to form the so-called Brotherhood Alliance. They have all repeatedly clashed with the military since the coup, but always over their own territorial interests and not in support of the NUG.
These three insurgent groups have discreetly provided refuge, military training and some weapons to dissidents from other parts of Myanmar.
But since they lie on the Chinese border, they also had to take into account China’s concerns of maintaining the stability of the border and the smooth flow of trade. China has supported the junta diplomatically and distanced itself from the NUG.
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The 2021 coup sparked massive protests that were brutally suppressed by security forces
In June this year, under pressure from China, the Brotherhood Alliance agreed to enter into peace talks with the military, but these quickly collapsed. But they still seemed to stay out of the larger civil war.
The operation they launched on October 27th changed that.
They have made dramatic progress. Entire army units surrendered without a fight. The alliance says it has captured more than 100 military posts and four towns, including the Chinshwehaw border crossing and Hsenwi, which is on the road to Muse, the main gateway to China.
They have blown up bridges to prevent military reinforcements from entering and surrounded the town of Laukkaing, where many fraud centers are run by families allied with the junta.
Thousands of foreigners are believed to be trapped in Laukkaing, where chaos is growing as people queue for the limited food remaining in the town. China has warned all its citizens to evacuate via the nearest border crossing.
The Brotherhood Alliance says its ultimate goal now, like that of the NUG, is to overthrow the military government.
The NUG, whose volunteer fighters waged a desperately unequal armed struggle against the full might of the army and air force, praised the alliance’s success and spoke of a new dynamic in their struggle.
Pro-NUG People’s Defense Forces, which are not as well-armed or experienced as the Shan insurgents, have launched their own attacks in areas near Shan State, exploiting the military’s apparent weakness, and have captured a district capital for the first time by government troops.
Image source: The Kokang Media
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The MNDAA has released images showing its flag flown in the border town of Chinshwehaw
The Brotherhood Alliance carefully planned its attack, immediately after an incident in Laukkaing that tested China’s patience with the junta.
For a year, the Chinese government has been urging the military government to do more to shut down fraud centers, most of which are run by Chinese syndicates. They have become an embarrassment to Beijing after the brutal treatment of human trafficking victims trapped inside them became widely publicized.
Chinese pressure persuaded many Shan groups, such as the Wa, to hand over people suspected of involvement in the scams to police in China. More than 4,000 people were sent across the border between August and October. But families in Laukkaing were reluctant to close a business that had brought them billions of dollars each year.
Sources in the region told the BBC that an attempt was made on October 20 to release some of the thousands of people held in Laukkaing, but failed.
Guards at the scam centers are believed to have killed several people trying to escape. This led to the city government of the neighboring Chinese province sending a strongly worded protest letter demanding that those responsible be brought to justice.
The Brotherhood Alliance saw their chance and attacked. She promised to close the fraud centers to appease China. China has publicly called for a ceasefire, but alliance spokesmen say they have received no direct request from the Chinese government to stop fighting.
But their longer-term goal is also to gain as much ground as possible in anticipation of a possible collapse of the military government. This would put them in the best possible position for negotiations on a new federal structure for Myanmar promised by the NUG if the junta falls.
Image source: Chinese Ministry of Public Security
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Suspects involved in the fraud centers were sent across the border into China
The TNLA has long wanted to expand the area it controls beyond the small self-governing Ta’ang zone allotted to it under the constitution.
The MNDAA wants to regain control of Laukkaing and the adjacent border, which it lost in 2009 in a military operation led by none other than Myanmar’s military chief General Min Aung Hlaing.
And everyone is watching the Arakan Army. So far it has only supported the fighting in Shan State. If it chooses to attack the military in Rakhine state, where it has most of its troops and already controls many towns and villages, the junta would be dangerously overstretched.
A TNLA spokesman told the BBC that his group no longer sees any value in negotiating with the military government because it lacks legitimacy.
Any deal they make would be voided by a future elected government. The Ta’ang, the Kokang and the Wa share the common goal of achieving constitutional recognition of their people’s statehood within a new federal system.
By joining the fight, these groups could help end military rule in Myanmar. But their aspirations, which inevitably conflict with the interests of other groups in Shan State, are a harbinger of the many challenges that will face those trying to chart a democratic future for Myanmar.