Myanmar' fall-out: Civil war impacting Bangladesh

By Arafatul Islam

NAYPYIDAW: Fighting between Myanmar’s junta and the Arakan Army (AA) rebel group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has intensified. Casualties have been recorded in Bangladesh, with two people killed by an errant mortar round this month and several injured by gunshots from across the border. Rebel fighters have recently taken control of the Myanmar border region, and are seeking to oust junta forces from elsewhere in the state. This comes as a heavy blow for the Myanmar’s ruling junta, which seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi to find itself embroiled in a wide-scale civil war.

The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority that seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It has been attacking army outposts in Rakhine state since November 2023.

Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country, which shares a 271-kilometer (168 miles) border with Buddhist-dominated Myanmar. Bangladesh is also the home of more than a million mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees, which have been fleeing Myanmar for decades, and especially after Myanmar launched a brutal “clearance operation” in Rakhine state against them in 2017.

Several Rohingya refugees in the coastal Bangladeshi town of Cox’s Bazar commented on the success of the AA rebels with skepticism. They do not believe that predominantly Buddhist rebel force is willing to do much to improve their fate, even if the rebels manage to oust the junta.

“Buddhists have indeed been fighting against the Myanmar government in Rakhine, but we want citizenship upon return,” Rashid, a Rohingya camp leader, told DW.

“We have never heard from [the AA] that they will take us back by providing us citizenship.” However, Bangladeshi security expert M Sakhawat Hossain is more optimistic. The retired general points to pledges made by Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) to ensure safe, voluntary and dignified repatriation of Rohingya from Bangladesh. The NUG is a shadow government comprised out of activists and elected ministers who were ousted by the military coup.

The body enjoys a good deal of international support and has plans of taking power in Naypyidaw after the junta is defeated. “The United League of Arakan (ULA), the political wing of the Arakan Army, will rule Rakhine state if the junta government loses its battles against the rebels and the NUG takes control of Myanmar. The NUG supports the ULA, which means that the Rohingya community has a better chance to get citizenship under the NUG and ULA,” Hossain told DW.

He thinks that Bangladesh needs to develop informal communication with key decision-makers in Rakhine for the future.

“I have been saying for years that Bangladesh needs to support the AA for its own interest. This support can be informal, like many other countries do. It’s not important for Bangladesh what is happening in the whole of Myanmar, but what is happening in Rakhine and Chin states are very important for us in terms of security and refugee issues,” he said. At the same time, Bangladesh must be cautious in reaching out to rebels in any way, according to Michael Kugelman, South Asia director of the Washington-based Wilson Center think tank.

“[Bangladesh] needs workable relations with the junta for the sake of border security cooperation and negotiations over the Rohingya. If Dhaka opens up channels with the rebels and the junta knows this, that could have deleterious implications for Dhaka’s interests,” he told DW.