Real victory in Rakhine State means defeating the Myanmar junta’s divide-and-rule tactics

For more than a decade, most of the Rohingya Muslims still living in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State have faced extreme poverty and profound uncertainty. Displaced by violence and denied even the second-class status conferred upon other ethnic minorities in the country, they are acutely aware of the fact that they live at the mercy of a military that regards them as less than human. Over the past month, however, we have witnessed something that few would ever have expected to see: large numbers of Rohingya gathering in towns and cities in the state still under regime rule, loudly making political demands. Of course, what they are demanding is not their own rights, but an end to a conflict that the junta appears to be losing. Carrying signs and shouting slogans denouncing the Arakan Army (AA), the protesters would seem to be enjoying unprecedented freedom of expression. The reality, however, is that they are still being treated with a total disregard for their safety and well-being. Like other Rohingya who have been forcibly recruited into the military in recent months, the protesters are part of a desperate bid by the regime to resist the AA’s ongoing and highly successful offensive. The junta’s obvious goal is to reignite tensions between the state’s Rohingya and Rakhine communities in the hope of stalling the AA’s advance. In northern Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township, there have been reports of arson attacks on the homes of Rakhine residents who have fled the recent fighting there. While this is a common practice of junta troops in combat zones, the fact that many Rohingya remain in these areas means that they are also suspected of involvement. This is not the first time that the military has tried to play one side off against the other. In August 2017, when a murderous rampage by soldiers and Rakhine vigilantes forced some 750,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, the military used Rakhine resentment of the Rohingya to turn its “clearance operations” against militants into a full-scale campaign of ethnic cleansing. This also played into its image as a defender of Buddhism, the religion of both the Rakhine and Myanmar’s ethnic Burman majority. But the current situation shows that when it suits its purposes, the military will also at times favour the Rohingya, at least ostensibly. However, by “empowering” this maligned minority, which has spent years cowering in army-controlled camps or vulnerable villages, the regime is also trying to stoke Rakhine fears of Muslim domination. In its propaganda, the Myanmar military has long claimed to be the only thing preventing “Bengali” invaders from taking over Rakhine State. By raising the spectre of a threat that is, in the minds of many Rakhine Buddhists, even worse than Burman rule, the military is also trying to undermine the AA’s stated goal of restoring Rakhine sovereignty. In due course, the junta will almost certainly turn against the Rohingya again. In the meantime, however, it has even started referring to the Rohingya simply as Muslims rather than as Bengalis, a term used to imply that they are illegal interlopers from Bangladesh. And in a further show of its sudden turn to a more open and tolerant attitude, it has also reportedly donated land for the construction of a mosque in Naypyitaw, its seat of power. But these are just the usual machinations of a military that has never shown a sincere regard for any religion, including the one that it professes. (Its torture and killing of Buddhist monks during the 2007 Saffron Revolution was sufficient proof of that.) The real danger now is that the AA, with its Rakhine nationalist aspirations, will fall into the junta’s trap by seeing the Rohingya as the enemy. There have already been reports that it has carried out targeted assassinations against Rohingya it suspects of collaborating with the regime. It may be that some Rohingya, scarred by memories of past atrocities and oppressed by their present plight, are willingly taking part in protests that allow them to vent their frustration. But it is important for the AA leadership, and the wider Rakhine community, to remember that the Rohingya are not the ones who have deprived them of their security and sovereignty. It is therefore crucial for the AA, which now has the upper hand, to act with restraint and exhibit genuine tolerance towards a group that has arguably suffered more than any other during Myanmar’s long era of military rule. If it wishes to do more than merely replace one brand of ethnic nationalism with another, it will have to see that the real enemy is a junta that regards cultural difference as nothing more than a source of division that it can exploit to its own ends.

Real victory in Rakhine State means defeating the Myanmar junta’s divide-and-rule tactics

As its offensive continues, the Arakan Army will have to avoid falling into a trap set by a regime intent upon exploiting tensions between the state’s Rakhine and Rohingya communities

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