🇲🇲 In Myanmar, armed ethnic group warns of ‘Muslim militias’

Online accounts affiliated with the Arakan Army (AA), a Buddhist-dominated militant group fighting junta forces in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, have accused the junta of “training and arming radical Muslim terrorist militias” as a means of sowing ethnic conflict in the state. 

A media report on 15 April quoted local Rakhine residents as stating that the AA had clashed with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a group of Rohingya Muslim militants, in Buthidaung township.

The report claimed that the junta had, in recent weeks, provided training to ARSA, enlisting the latter’s help in fighting the AA, which has captured six of 17 townships in Rakhine following an offensive it launched in November 2023.

AA statement

An online statement by AA spokesman Khine Thu Kha, dated 13 April, accused ARSA and another Rohingya militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA), of “collaborating” with the junta to attack AA forces in Buthidaung.

Kha also accused the junta of attempting to stir ethno-religious hatred in Rakhine, claiming it was behind “slogans of hatred [being chanted] toward Rakhine people.”

The AA spokesman added that “Muslim militias” had murdered two local Rakhine men and were destroying houses in the region as a means of intimidating the local community. He said the AA would take action to protect civilians and “respond firmly according to our rules of engagement”.

Pro-ARSA reactions

There was no comment from ARSA’s official account on claims it was working with the junta. Suggestions of such alleged collaboration appear outlandish, given that ARSA has frequently stated its opposition to the junta, which it has consistently labelled as a “genocidal” and “terrorist” regime. 

However, ARSA supporters have reacted to the recent claimed clashes in Rakhine. Online posts by ARSA supporter accounts have accused the AA of attacking Muslim villages in Buthidaung, and of having an “evil intention to eradicate the entire Rohingya population” in Rakhine. Another pro-ARSA account rejected Kha’s 13 April statement, suggesting the AA spokesman was “taking drugs”.

Junta’s conscription programme

Claims of the junta enlisting Rohingya militant groups to fight its cause follow the junta’s introduction of a conscription law in February. The move is an indication of how the junta is struggling to contain nationwide resistance to its rule, not only in the form of myriad armed ethnic groups like the AA, but also from a network of non-ethnic armed groups known as the People’s Defence Forces (PDF).

The conscription drive has seen the junta attempt to conscript Muslim Rohingya, an unusual move given the junta’s historical opposition to the presence of the Rohingya in Rakhine. In 2017, Myanmar security forces targeted Rohingya in Rakhine with an ethnic cleansing campaign in response to attacks mounted by ARSA on border posts and police stations displacing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya. Even prior to this campaign, the Rohingya were not an officially recognised ethnic minority in Myanmar and were viewed as illegal “Bengali” immigrants, despite living in Rakhine for generations.

In this context, the junta’s conscription of Muslim Rohingya may well be a “divide and conquer” strategy, sowing ethno-religious division in parts of the country like Rakhine, as a means of weakening forces that oppose its rule.

Rohingya activist groups, such as the Arakan Rohingya National Alliance (ARNA), take this view. ARNA published a statement on 23 March claiming that anti-AA protests in Buthidaung had been orchestrated by the junta, which had “forced” Muslim Rohingyas to participate. ARNA said it wanted to work with the AA and Myanmar’s government-in-exile (which was deposed by the junta’s 2021 coup), and urged the AA to declare its support for the Rohingya’s right to reside in Rakhine.

The AA and ARSA have a recent history of clashing in Rakhine, with a reported clash in July 2023 resulting in the deaths of five ARSA militants. In September 2023, the AA said it had detained several individuals whom it suspected of being ARSA members.

Given that the AA seeks to portray itself as a credible governing force in Rakhine, it is unlikely to want to tolerate the presence of other armed groups in the state, including groups like ARSA, who it has previously viewed as a “criminal gang”.