Myanmar moved closer to civil war in
recent weeks after fighting broke out in Kachin
State, a former ceasefire area in the remote
northern region. Myanmar's newly elected
government now faces ethnic insurgencies on three
separate fronts, threatening internal and border
security.
There is also the potential for
more insurgent groups to take up arms and push
their claims against the government. The
escalating conflict is not going all the
military's way and risks further stunting
Myanmar's development and international confidence
in its supposed democratic transition.
In
the southeast, a revolt by formerly allied troops
of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) on
November 7, 2010, election day, resulted in the
temporary seizure of two important
border towns and the some
20,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand. Although
the government was able to retake the towns,
fighting continued in the area and the group
allied itself with the Karen National Liberation
Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National
Union (KNU).
The operations of DKBA
commander Major General Lah Pweh, better known as
N'Kam Way or "The Mustache", have added new
energy to the Karen insurgency through stepped up
ambushes and attacks on army camps both in rural
areas and in towns and villages.
Hitherto,
fighting in Karen State was a largely low-key
affair with the occasional skirmish and heavy
reliance on landmines to deter army operations.
Lah Pwe's forces, together with the KNLA, have
attacked towns and army camps, interdicted supply
and reinforcement convoys and carried out "urban
guerrilla-style" bombings and shootings in towns.
In Shan State, increasing government
pressure against the 1st Brigade of the Shan State
Army-North (SSA-N) resulted in open conflict in
early March. The 1st Brigade was the largest unit
of the SSA-N and it refused to join the
government's Border Guard Force (BGF) plan to
incorporate the military units of the ethnic
ceasefire armies into the Myanmar armed forces
ahead of the 2010 elections. Other brigades of the
SSA-N also opted against joining the government's
scheme.
The Myanmar military apparently
believed it would be able to crush the 1st Brigade
in a few weeks of fighting. However, fighting
continues after three months and the 1st Brigade
has expanded its area of operations from central
Shan State into its pre-ceasefire area in northern
Shan State. Much of the Myanmar Army's operations
have been geared toward cutting off the SSA-N from
support from the neighboring area of control of
the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and its
connections to China.
On May 21, the SSA-N
combined with former adversaries in the
still-insurgent Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) to
form the Shan State Army (SSA). The move creates a
zone of insurgent activity from the Thai border
north through central Shan State to just south of
the important city of Lashio.
A third
front opened up on June 9 when negotiations over
the release of several Myanmar Army soldiers
captured by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in
Kachin State broke down amid army moves into KIA
territory. The fighting was initially localized
near the sites of two hydropower dams being
constructed by the China Datang Corporation on the
Taping River.
Fighting has since expanded
into areas west and south of the dam sites as KIA
units carried out attacks and destroyed strategic
bridges to prevent army reinforcements reaching
the area. On June 22, the conflict spread to
northern Kachin State when fighting broke out in
the Putao area.
The KIA, like the SSA and
the DKBA, have proved resilient and any hopes by
Myanmar army officers for a repeat of their swift
victory over Kokang insurgents in August 2009 have
been dashed. Instead, the conflict has expanded as
former ceasefire groups have allied themselves
with existing insurgent armies.
In Karen
State, meanwhile, the BGF plan appears to be
unraveling with several battalions taking over
their former headquarters of Myaing Gyi Ngu on May
24 and reverting to their old DKBA uniforms. They
have allied themselves with Lah Pwe's fighters and
the KNLA.
Indications are that if the
government chooses to continue pushing these
conflicts fighting could continue for years.
Myanmar army casualties, if insurgent and exile
media reports are accurate, have been high while
insurgent casualties remain low.
Although
the KIA's and SSA-N's forces have not fought since
their ceasefires 17 years ago, they have clearly
used the time to re-equip and stock ammunition and
other supplies. Morale reportedly remains high
among the Kachin, Karen and Shan, who see
themselves as fighting against an outside
oppressor.
Popular fighters They also remain popular among the local
civilian populations in the border areas who
perceive the new government as simply a new
manifestation of the previous military
dictatorship.
Those counter-insurgency
campaigns were often accompanied by gross
human-rights abuses, including burning of
villages, forced labor and forced relocations. The
Kachin Women's Association Thailand has already
accused the army of raping 18 Kachin women in four
different townships during the recent fighting.
Shan and Karen human-rights monitoring groups have
reported similar abuses.
Many Myanmar Army
units have not seen combat in many years,
especially those from the regional commands
responsible for the ceasefire areas. Low morale is
a major problem among government troops and the
subject of several leaked secret army documents.
Units are hugely under resourced and desertion is
rife.
Although it has rearmed in recent
years, much of the emphasis has been on artillery,
tanks and armored personnel carriers that are all
but worthless in the mountains and jungles where
the insurgents operate. The army will also be
stretched thin to fight against three widely
geographically distant groups, while keeping up
pressure on the UWSA and NDAA and providing
security in the towns and cities of central
Myanmar against possible civil unrest.
To
continue operating, the insurgent groups will
require safe havens and access to supplies and
ammunition either through the direct or tacit
approval of neighboring governments and militaries
in China and Thailand. Thailand has increasingly
turned its back on the ethnic groups along its
border as it has emerged as Myanmar's top trading
partner.
Formerly accepted as buffers
against an ostensibly socialist Myanmar, since
1988 successive Thai governments have placed more
importance on commercial relations with the
country, including rising shipments of natural
gas. In moves to discourage fighting in Karen
State, both the DKBA and the KNLA have been warned
by Thailand about fighting near the border.
Recently arrived refugees have been quickly
repatriated once the shooting in their areas has
stopped.
China's involvement is more
complicated. It has a historic connection with
many of the groups along its border from their
days as part of the Burmese Communist Party (BCP).
Chinese support for the BCP declined in the 1980s
and the group imploded in a mutiny in 1989.
However, Beijing maintained relations with
the ethnic mutineers who subsequently formed the
UWSA, National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) and
other groups. The groups were viewed as a way of
maintaining leverage against the Myanmar regime
and provided a buffer in case of unrest in the
country.
This relationship, too, may be
changing as China's investments in Myanmar expand,
including strategically important energy projects
such as the Shwe gas project and a vital oil and
gas pipeline scheduled to run from the Indian
Ocean to China's southern Yunnan province across
Myanmar. Chinese government statistics indicate it
has become Myanmar's largest investor with
investments totally US$12.3 billion in 2010.
Beijing has also become the country's
second-largest trading partner after Thailand.
Beijing has played host to several senior
Myanmar officials since the formation of the new
elected government in March, including a visit by
President Thein Sein in late May. During that
visit, Thein Sein and Premier Wen Jiabao forged a
"comprehensive strategic partnership of
cooperation".
However, some analysts see
the Kachin conflict as part of a larger plan by
Naypyidaw to seize control of areas where there is
substantial Chinese investment and influence.
Speculation is rife that China may have given its
approval to these operations in order to safeguard
its investment interests and an unknown number of
Chinese working on projects in Kachin areas and
elsewhere in Myanmar.
Chinese and Thai
attitudes may be influenced by the historic
inability of ethnic armies to forge productive
alliances or to effectively link up with the
opposition in central Myanmar. To Beijing and
Bangkok, the government in Naypyidaw offers better
guarantees for their rising trade and investments.
A succession of ethnic alliances since the 1970s
have foundered or become impotent over issues of
trust, competition for leadership, and an
inability to cooperate across the long distances
that separate the groups.
A new alliance
of 15 insurgent and former ceasefire groups,
including the KNU, KIA and the SSA, offers new
hope. Formed in February 2011, the so-called
United Nationalities Federal (UNFC) is a military
and political alliance. It remains to be whether
they can coordinate operations on the battlefield
or maneuver politically with internal ethnic
political parties or internationally.
Continued military operations, especially
if they result in a spread of hostilities,
threaten to destabilize Myanmar and the border
areas. Army operations threaten large-scale
displacement as villagers flee their homes and
abandon fields, livestock and personal belongings.
The economy of the areas will be severely affected
through the destruction of infrastructure, travel
restrictions, and the heavy regulation of trade
routes to prevent support for the insurgents. The
KIA has already destroyed several bridges
including a railway bridge connecting Myitkyina
with Mandalay.
Should the insurgency
spread, diminished border trade could affect
central Myanmar's already fragile economy. The
country is largely dependent on outside supplies
of consumer goods as well as high-tech items for
construction and manufacturing. It may also deter
investment in ethnic border areas where lucrative
natural resource extraction takes place and
several multi-million dollar hydropower projects
are scheduled for development.
Failed
experiment A spreading civil war also
raises the political risk of an early end to the
military's experiment with "disciplined democracy"
for reasons of national security. It wouldn't be
the first time: Ethnic Shan pressure for
discussions on instituting a formal federal system
were a major factor contributing to the military
coup of 1962 and the 48 years of military rule
that followed.
Recent calls by several
ethnic parties for a second Panglong Conference to
discuss a federal system have been supported by
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her
National League for Democracy party, but have been
derided by the military. Rising hostilities could
provide the military with an excuse for
reinstating direct military rule, which is allowed
for legally through a provision enshrined in the
2008 constitution.
Security risks are fast
internationalizing. Kachin sources estimate around
10,000 people have recently fled to internal
refugee camps set up by the KIA along the border
with China. Beijing has so far been wary of
allowing them into China, accepting only some of
the elderly and children. China is keen to avoid
accepting a large refugee population which could
have potentially destabilizing effects on its
ethnically mixed Yunnan province.
Around
30,000 refugees fled to China in the wake of the
Myanmar army's offensive against the Kokang in
2009. Thailand is also unwilling to allow the
expansion of refugee camps on its border which
currently hold some 100,000 refugees. Fighting
around Myawaddy in November 2010 drove some 20,000
refugees into Thai territory, most of whom were
quickly repatriated when the fighting subsided.
Fighting close to the border also brings
the risk of stray artillery shells and spillovers
of fighting as insurgent and army forces maneuver
for advantage. Neither Thailand nor China want to
see their border areas morph into battlefields.
Several Thai soldiers have been killed or
wounded by mortar shells and landmines along the
border since November. During the late 1990s there
were repeated incursions into Thailand by army and
allied ethnic militias resulting in the looting of
shops, deaths of several Thai citizens and the
burning of several refugee camps.
Another
destabilizing influence could be an increase in
narcotics and black market smuggling as insurgent
groups attempt to finance their struggles and
replenish stocks of weapons and ammunition. The
UWSA and NDAA have been blamed for an influx of
narcotics into Thailand since last year, flows
believed to be inspired by a need to prepare for
war.
The United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime in its recently released World Drug
Report 2011 noted a 5% increase in poppy
cultivation in Myanmar. Jane's Intelligence Review
in April reported a large shipment of weapons and
ammunition originating in Cambodia to the United
Wa State Army (UWSA) and the possibility of the
purchase of weapons stolen from Thai army armories
in March 2011 and September 2010.
As
Myanmar's conflict widens, the stability and
development promised by Thein Sein in his
post-inauguration speeches in April now seem a far
way off from reality. Unless his elected
government can come to a sincere agreement with
ethnic insurgents, the country seems poised to
spiral into the type of widespread civil war not
seen in its ethnic territories for over two
decades.
Brian McCartan is a
freelance journalist. He may be reached at
brianpm@comcast.net.
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