During these few days, the country has again been burdened by more woes, as international rights groups accused the Burma Army troops of human rights violations on "Rohingya", which the government dubbed as being "Bengali", in Arakan State; the face-saving effort, reportedly to limit the damage stemming from the Burma Army (Tatmadaw) attacks on Restoration Council Of Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA), which is one from eight of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) signatories; and the recent so-called four Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) – made up of Myanmar National Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Arakan Army (AA) and Kachin Independence Army (KIA) – that called itself
Northern Alliance-Burma's (NA-B) offensive on Tatmadaw and police positions.
While the issue of accusation from human rights violations facet on the Rohingya would be more likely within the international arena, involving the UN, the effort to limit the damage, regarding the Burma Army's attacks on NCA-signatory RCSS and the recent NA-B offensive on the government troops positions would have a tremendous effect in the making or breaking of the peace process, that has been dragging on for some five years now.
But let us look at the RCSS-Tatmadaw conflict last month and the recent NA-B offensives on government positions, to determine whether these occurrences would lead us to positive or negative outcome.
RCSS-Tatmadaw October conflict
According to the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF), on October 1, about 40 Burma Army troops from IB 292, based in Nawng Wo, Lawksawk township, arrived without warning in the village of Pang Poi, about 25 miles north of Mong Kung town, and released 24 people being kept in the RCSS's local detention center for drug offenders. When RCSS troops based nearby came to intervene, fighting broke out from 4 to 7.30 pm.
The next day, about 200 Burma Army troop reinforcements were sent in from the Na Boi army base in Laikha township, leading to further clashes with RCSS near Koong Sar village, about one mile northeast of Pang Poi. Two Burma Army helicopters also flew over the area. This caused over 700 villagers from Pang Poi (including 15 pregnant women), as well as about 200 villagers from the nearby villages of Nar Loi, Wan Mong, Hoi Jik and Koong Sar to flee to seek shelter in temples in Tong Lao, about 1 ½ miles east of Pang Poi. About 1,000 Tong Lao residents also went to sleep at the temples at night as they were afraid that fighting would spread to their village.
On October 3, the IB 292 troops retreated from Pang Poi village, escorting the 24 detainees and two warders to the LIB 505 base in Namlan, about 20 miles north. The Burma Army troops then fired mortar shells at Pang Poi village, damaging housing and vehicles. The detainees, including six women, were made to walk between the Burma Army troops, apparently as human shields to prevent RCSS attacks.
The detention center in Pang Poi was set up by RCSS at the request of the local community, who were concerned at the increasing availability of drugs and high rates of drug addiction in the Mong Kung and Namlan areas. Methamphetamine ("ya ba") pills are cheap and easily available, meaning that even children as young as 10 years old are taking them. The cost of a methamphetamine pill is only 150 kyat (about USD 0.12). Adult drug dealers and users have been detained at the centre for 5-6 months.
On 9 June 2016, Tun Tun Win, the 21-year-old son of the Burma Army IB 292 commander, had been arrested at an RCSS gate for carrying about 20 methamphetamine pills and placed in the detention center. However, he had broken out of the center on September 22, 2016. This appears to have been a reason why the IB 292 commander authorized the raid on the detention center on October 1, 2016.
According to Ceasefire Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC), last month clashes that left two Burma army troopers wounded, in Shan State's Mong Kung township were due to the misunderstanding between the Tatmadaw and the RCSS/SSA.
The JMC team recently traveled to Nam Lan, Tong Lao and Pang Poi for a seven-day trip, during which they interviewed troops from both sides.
The clashes were taken as a serious set back as the RCSS is a signatory of the NCA. According to the JMC guidelines, NCA has to be adhered, which if violated could be termed as breaching it, leading to question of sustainability of the treaty, even though no enforcement tribunal were included in the treaty to handle the dispute.
However, Col Wunna Aung, a Tatmadaw representative on the JMC, downplayed the situation by saying the small-scale conflict was a minor infraction under the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA).
"There was no collaboration [between the two sides] and so we decided that was an infraction of the NCA," he said.
"We reached one solution in today's meeting – that is, it is necessary that ground-level teams have a very good understanding about the NCA," said JMC member U Maung Maung Nyein, according to Myanmar Times report of 21 November.
Earlier, the JMC shortly after its investigation to the conflict concluded that it was an accidental occurrence and stems from two factors.
One is regarding the drugs related clash, which it said that the people in the area asked for help both to the Burma Army and as well the RCSS, which led to misunderstanding and confusion between the two armed forces. And the other, while the Burma army considered the area as being a military operational one, the RCSS took it as its turf or territory.
The JMC investigation team is said to be formed with two civilian, two Tatmadaw and two RCSS representatives. Reportedly, it has suggested that aside from generally promoting better understanding between the RCSS and the Tatmadaw, drugs related crimes should be tackled cooperatively in coordination and the need to draw up demarcation lines for both troops to observe.
Northern Alliance Burma offensives
On 20 November Sunday, the ethnic militias launched a joint military operation against Burmese government outposts and police stations in the Muse Township villages of 105 Mile, Mong Koe and Pang Hsai, as well as in Namkham and Kutkai areas.
On 21 November, the AA, KIA, MNDAA and TNLA released a joint-statement, signed as Northern Alliance (Burma), requesting civilians in the area to take precautions.
The second paragraph of the statement emphasized: "The Burmese armed forces have been launching offensive attacks in the ethnic territories of Kachin, Kokang, Ta'ang, Arakan and Shan and military pressures are increasingly mounted. The Burmese armed forces have also intensified not only shelling 105 – 120 mm heavy artillery targeted at innocent civilians but also arresting, torturing and killing indigenous peoples."
Col Tar Bong Kyaw, a TNLA spokesperson, when questioned by The Irrawaddy recently on the reason for launching the joint offensive in northern Shan State said: "We launched it because it was necessary. Clashes continue and the joint military operation [aims] to make the government think more practically about armed conflicts in order to solve them as soon as possible."
He further explained: "The main objective is to [make the government] solve political problems through political means. We hate that the [military] urges ethnic groups to sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement [NCA] on one hand and attacks the Kachin [Kachin Independence Army-KIA] on the other hand. We launched the joint offensive to [pressure the military] to cease fire and to solve the root cause of the problem through political means."
He also made his disappointment known, when he said: "We had to make hard choices in the face of Burma Army attacks and we think [the offensive] is the best option. The so-called democratically elected civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been silent about the Burma Army's massive offensives [in ethnic regions]. We don't think forcing us to join the NCA through military offensives will solve political problems. Inevitably, we had to launch joint military operations."
Meanwhile Zaw Htay, the deputy director-general of the President's Office, told the Radio Free Asia that attacks by the EAOs have taken place on seven different locations in a concerted manner and that the government is responding the situation with three undertakings of reinforcing the mountain outposts, going after the attackers and safe-guarding the civilian.
He also questioned the EAOs if their purpose of highlighting their concerns by attacking civilian and economic facilities are the appropriate way of doing courting attention and visibility and stressed that they are just disrupting the government's peace process.
Perspective
Of the two ethnic conflict scenarios, one is the restructuring and refining the NCA and JMC code of conduct so as to avoid further armed clashes and the other, the NA-B military offensives on the government positions, that could either derail the nationwide peace process or bring logical approach to end the debacle.
The remedy thought out by the JMC, including the National League for Democracy-Military (NLD-Military) regime, to at least accept that understanding the ceasefire code of conduct, cooperation and coordination between the RCSS and the Tatmadaw are good approaches, especially if meeting these challenges would be viewed within the concept and context of shared-sovereignty, that addresses the ethnic aspirations, and not sole ownership of the military and the government.
However, this remedy although a positive approach might be a little too late, as military positions between the EAOs and the Tatmadaw are becoming hardened and more polemic, with each passing day of ongoing armed conflict.
The NA-B offensive, which is a deliberate move to pressure the powers that be into recognizing the participation of the excluded EAOs, could go both ways.
The regime could either accept the reality that groups that are actively being in armed conflict have to be in the peace process or go for an all-out retaliation and heightened war of attrition to the already tensed conflict situation, as has mostly been the case where the Tatmadaw is concerned and is well known for knee-jerk reaction.
But this time around, the NLD would need to woo its military coalition partner to be more accommodating and should bring in the excluded EAOs into the fold, rather than just siding with the military's hard stance of "negotiated surrender" demand from the EAOs, as there is no other way than to talk to your enemies, if peace is ever to be achieved.
