Is Myanmar's military losing ground? | Inside Story

is myanmar's military losing control a series of Daring attacks by Rebel groups are seen as a turning point the country's been in turmoil since a coup 3 years ago so is Myanmar on a path to allout Civil War and what would that mean for the region this is Inside [Music] Story hello again I'm James Bay myanmar's Military government has suffered significant defeats at the hands of anti- cou opposition groups in recent weeks in the past week Kar and Fighters have seized a vital town on the border with Thailand and other resistance militia have attacked the capital using drones Laden with explosives so what's next for the military junter as it deals with these security challenges and do the recent gains Rebel groups have made represent a turning point for Myanmar will discuss all these questions with our panel of guests in a moment but first this report from Victoria gonb myanmar's military seized power in 2021 carrying out a coup against the democratically elected government of angang sui ever since the Jun has faced armed opposition to its rule but in the past 6 months the fighting has intensified and become more widespread most recently a strategically important town on the border with Thailand Has Fallen under Rebel control hundreds of government troops guarding mwadi have reportedly surrendered it's the latest in a string of losses for myanmar's military giving hope to the government in Exile that the J can be defeated this is a major blow to the Myanmar military hun this is the the largest most important of the six official Thai Burma border crossings give you an idea the perspective uh between April 20 uh 2023 and March 2024 over a billion US dollars in b atal trade was conducted through this checkpoint Karan Fighters and other anti-military groups United in October to seize territories in kachin state in the north chin in the west and mon in the South the highlighted regions were once Under full military control but have shrunk since the coup 3 years ago as the fighting increases so do the number of those seeking safety the UN says nearly 3 million people have been displaced and around 133 million don't have enough food that's almost a quarter of the population as the conflict continues to escalate as the humanitarian needs intensify and with the monsoon season just around the corner time is of the essence for the people of Myanmar they cannot afford for us to forget they cannot afford to wait many are concerned that after its recent losses myanmar's military will fight back with a ferocity that will not spare civilian lives Victoria gaten B aljazera for Inside Story well let's discuss all of this much more now with our guests today we have kin Omar the founder of progressive voice a policy research organization that advocates for a democratic Myanmar and an award-winning human rights activist in Bangkok Kim joliff an independent consultant who works towards peace security and human rights in Myanmar and The Wider region and in New York City is Nicholas Becka and visiting fellow at the Yale law schools Paul Sai China Center and a veteran specialist on human rights Asia thank you all of you for joining us so we are now more than 3 years after the military coup and if IID a year ago Omar said what was going on in the country I think most people would have said it was a depressing stalemate with the military junter controlling the majority of the country and armed groups battling just in certain areas but in recent months things seem to have really changed explain to me what's been going on well the nma military Hunter now has a very little control over the country effective control while the national Unity government and their Alliance the ethnic revolutionary forces they are all together winning more and more territorial control and administration setting up the uh services for the people so it's a very different landscape in Myanmar where many pretty much the whole world in the last three years thought this country is back under the Iron Fist of the military again but that's not the case and in fact actually the the Democratic revolutionary forces or the Democratic resistance movement is in fact winning and the military is at the very verge of about to be collapsing and again that's something that the world never thought this military will actually fall apart but that the military is so weak and they are actually at the verge of falling apart and collab so it it is the makeing break point also where the uh people's uh Democratic resistance movement is advancing with their uh uh political goal to set up to establish a new Democratic a federal Democratic Myanmar okay Kim if we look at the events of recent months and I've been looking through exactly what's been taking place but you've been following it much closer than me it seems that the date the 27th of October seems to be potentially a turning point because that's when an operation began operation 1027 named because of the date tell us about that operation and what it achieved yeah so operation 1027 was led by three ethnic revolutionary armies that until then had kind of maintained ceasefires or weren't fighting as extensively for a while um and then they initiated this operation where they took over huge parts of Northern Shan state which borders China and this happened with some degree of blessing from China this was planned over months they had to accumulate a lot of ammunition to undertake it um and the main reason was that they also took part in cracking down on these Pig butchering kind of cyber scam gangs that are run by uh Chinese Triads that Beijing opposes so that created space for them to do this operation but they've also repeatedly stated that their goal is to take down the military Hunter and they've also been coordinating a lot with other resistance groups groups that have been fighting since the coup and some of these ethnic armies have been fundamentally opposed to Myanmar military rule for many many decades um so a lot of different actors have found a common purpose and are coordinating much more extensively to take over huge parts of the country okay Nicholas just focus on that bit about the Cyber scams and pig butchering uh because China I think had been very very unhappy about what had been going on on its border tell me about that aspect and whether you think China actually helped these Rebel groups either tacitly or actively yeah Myanmar is a major headache uh for Beijing um and China didn't welcome uh the coup uh they sort of stay uh on the fence uh for a few months but after a year uh they decided that the military H was actually the government in charge and they had to engage with it the problem is that the Hun's control over myanmar's territory is um is very imperfect right there are three pillars of the power of of the Tado one is how much territory you control this has gone down significantly uh including in the north how much money you have in the cuffer this is going down significantly because they can't sell as much gas uh and they don't have as much investment from China as they used um and then how popular you are in the country or how fearful people are of your rule and this is also going down so China has seen instability in Myanmar as a major concern another concern as you mentioned is the fact that criminal gangs have settled across the border from China to run these cyber scams where they traffic people that trick people into working in these um cyber centers where they uh trick people run gambling operations and this has a huge cost for Chinese citizens and and people who are being scammed and lose a lot of money not to mention people who are sort of forced in so sort of modern slavery to work there so Beijing decided that something had to be done and um as Kim said created the space uh for um the ethnic group arm ethnic groups to sort of uh take over uh arrest a number of these gangs and send them back uh to China now the political side of this is that who is the person who actually gave control uh to this region and gave a safe heaven uh to this cyber criminal gangs it's Ming on Lang himself uh when he was a military he the leader he's the leader of the Juna just to be clear to our viewers and now and today is the leader of the hunda so I think you know politically this is very uncomfortable for the hun because uh it shows that Beijing will not protect Ming on Lang at all costs so staying Omar just for now we'll Bardon it out in a second but to the to the Chinese border China then forced a cear as I understand it between the Juna and these groups meaning these groups have locked in their control of this border area um how damaging is this for the Jun for the Jun given not just militarily what they've lost but also economically for them because this is a vital trade route as I understand it oh it is a great loss for sure and um also like let's also let us remember that this military Hunter actually is also facing enormous uh targeted economic sanctions from different parts of the world where they are actually losing a lot of you know like uh including the investment and um where there are major manyy flows to them are being cut so it's just it's It's a combination of the this you losing the trade route as well as these targeted economic pressure so it is definitely a great loss for them and um it is also it is where they become much M uh much more weaker when it comes to you know like uh also taking uh the taken control of how how they want to take control is become more and more far more impossible for them also because they are losing the trade route as well as the targeted economics Ted economic sanctions from like EU and US and Canada and as okay Nicholas if you can take the story on for us it widens out doesn't it the rebel groups in other parts of the country are now getting gains uh we've got in rakine state we've got uh recently on the Thai Myanmar border tell us what's happened recently well simply that the um Rebel Armed Force there have taken control of what is the uh second largest ports land ports uh for uh uh trades um with Thailand um is it not been completely formalized but the um the military um there has already agreed that it would surrender and that they know negotiating the terms as as as last as I checked in New York we have a a 12-hour time difference um and this is huge because this is an enormous amount of of Revenue that the and trade that flows through this border it will also allow um the armed groups to sort of um uh increase uh their operations that support their ability to uh provide Medical Treatments uh to the soldier W the soldiers were wed um and so on and so forth but it's symbolically it's also a huge uh blow uh to the military now we shouldn't overstate this either because I think this is a a particular um uh honorous war on civilians right we have 30,000 people killed probably since the coup in 2021 we have 8 to 10 to 15 is very hard to know civilians death the military basically tactic is to terrorize the civilians to bomb them uh from airplanes uh to torture and kill them in detention so this is a very very vicious War but the terror doesn't seem to be working I think that is something that ultimately uh uh could be a for line within the tatad itself which is um you know the only way that the the the the country can move forward is if there is a division within the Army uh unfortunately some of the regional actors uh do not want this so we mentioned China but Russia is also there and providing a lot of uh military weapon and support from Myanmar Thailand would not like to see too much chaos on his border uh India either um and none of these countries want to have the West coming back uh in the country so the problem with this conflict as many conflicts around the world is not so much the domestic situation which is pretty atrocious but it's the fact you have so many external actors that do not have stake in the welfare uh and of the population I think that's where the International Community and the UN have to step up uh it's been a neglecting uh Conflict for the last few years Kim how would you describe what is currently going on is this a civil war or is it a revolution against the military I think A revolution is perfectly AP term for this because the main things that's happening is that this has been driven from the bottom up this all began with mass strikes of the Civil Service huge numbers of elected politicians um and then they formed alliances with civil society groups women's organizations all kinds of different stakeholders that had been fundamentally opposed to military rule and absolutely could not bear the thought of going back um they fled to ethnic resistance organizations and alth those although those Eros as they're called are often characterized as just interested in their autonomy actually most of them have pretty ambitious revolutionary platforms focused on federal democracy achieving rights of the people and so on because they've also suffered for so many decades under military rule um so I think that really has created an Awakening which has been attempted in previous generations but now it's happened on social media and there's been a real uh change of heart for many different people um that this is now the time to really rise up and for a lot of the leaders particularly the elected politicians they never really chose to go into an armed Revolution as it were it really happened from the bottom up as so many people saw their lives being lost back Downs began on protesters um and just these extremely sadistic particularly evil kind of methods that were seen from the military have created a really strong response and I'd say for at least a year all of the main stakeholders have firmly firmly believed that they can win this time and I think that's been a really big change and that's what's brought all kinds of different actors into a common purpose even though some of them have different ideologies different backgrounds and in many cases different kind of national identity different languages and everything but there's a real belief that this time if they work together that the military can finally be removed so it's Absolut absolutely a revolutionary movement and I think if it's successful or even if it's not successful in all of its aims there's absolutely no way the country can go back to how it was before so I think we're seeing serious transformational politics underway uh which is in some ways more significant even than what we see on the battlefield Omar let me bring you in on that point so many different groups and you heard Kim then say they all have slightly different aims is this potentially a problem they all agree what they are against the military Juna but do they all agree what they are for and down the line could this be problematic well this is the first time uh our people from different background different ethnic different religion these communities ever had a chance to come together so it is actually the process of coming together so when they come together this is the time that they are also like you know already laying up their road map political road map what kind of federal democracy that we want to establish so I think this is not something to be worried because yes you're right um you know they all have a very common goal of removing this military and bring uh the uh uh like to like to hold this military uh to account and all of that but at the same time there is a very common political Vision that is already laid out in what we call as Federal democracy chatter and that is the Baseline where these different ethnic communities different minorities majorities alog together who've been uh oppressed under by this military for seven decades now have a chance to come together so a lot to discuss but this is really is the greatest chance that our people ever had where the people are actually already building this new Myanmar new federal Democratic Myanmar in the time of this active War uh the terror campaign that military is actually uh launching against against them so I'm not worried even though um there is a time that people need to actually come together in this uh nation building process but the chance that they are getting this is the most important thing that they are actually walk hands in hands in the much stronger coordination than that you will see in the last two years for example Nicholas battles all around the edges all around the borders which is very worrying for anyone who's trying to control a country as the Juna are one assumes these Rebel forces will now try to move to the center move to uh the urban areas tell us why the military aren't doing better here because they have more Firepower don't they they have more arms they have Superior artillery they have air dominance why are they currently losing I think one of the key issue is troops morale uh I think that the the morale in the in the Army is um you know very very uh shaky um they have lost the people are clearly on the sign I mean there are no constituency that is for the military anymore that really is the major difference with this this coup is that that no one is in favor the other thing is that in the previous era when the the recent era in which the H was in power they benefited from the gas boom there were new gas field that were found in the Indian Ocean in particularly in the Shue gas field in in chaoo in the Indian o ocean and they built a pipeline that put this gas from Chao in the Indian Ocean to China and that created enormous amount of Revenue foreign companies totel and others invested Thailand bought a lot of gas for northern part of the country and that sort of supported the hunas rule and they were able to distribute you know economic benefits to their cronies and and within the Army but it is not the case anymore uh the gas field is running out all the major companies have gone out um there are sanctions which are you know not all they're not what they should be uh because the generals are still able to put a lot of money abroad uh in Singapore in Dubai in Thailand and so on but it is a sort of hurting their operation and therefore they don't have enough money to uh keep people on on on their side and the biggest evidence we have of this is that they have now resorted to conscription which is hugely unpopular so they're going to round up people force them to fight poorly they've never shown any care for the food soldiers uh and this is why they sort of resort to this very violent tactics against civilians and also the use of a few crack troops right you have a few crack troops who are actually very well trained they're really killing machines they don't of course uh obey any of the international humanitarian law Provisions um but even this uh its limits and one group that has proved to be very able on the military front is this newish group in k um and and American talk about is is the arican Army in raan States U and they've been able to link up with the ethnic groups uh and build their military power and they're inflicting defeat after defeats in rakine states to the military hun which ultimately may also be a problem for a big component of the population here that we haven't mentioned yet the rohinga um and um and and so there you know the fracture lines among ethnic groups and that you mentioned J are you know they are a concern uh definitely something that should be addressed but at the moment the hunai really has nothing to offer in terms of of a way out uh and that's why the International Community has to step up and I think after you know good teres and the UN Secretary General um and the International Community were sort of um hoping that asan the regional group would try to help um and now I think we've run to a point where none of this has has worked and there need to be an agreement uh and a vision for the future at a higher level that uh involves you know China Russia um the UN Security Council uh India Thailand uh only if these actors sort of have a an a basic agreement uh we'll be able to to move forward and I think that's why gueris just named Julie Bishop the former uh foreign minister from Australia has it new special representative uh to try to sort of Notch up uh the The Diplomatic activity of okay what to do with let let me bring in Omar on that what would you like to see the International Community do right now what would you like to see Julie Bishop in her new role as an international Envoy do I would really like to see the UN Security Council adopt a new resolution a binding resolution under the UN chter chapter 7 to take action against this military because that's the way to really end this military tyranny and also end the people suffering on the ground where nma people will have a chance to start building this Federal democracy uh um much in much uh like you know sooner than later um while also the International Community will be actually saving the people's lives on the ground so that is exactly what we've been advocating for but it's been very challenging because as you can imagine China and Russia in the UN Security Council being the permanent member having the veto power always continue to be um supporting this military Hunter but also uh protecting the military hunter from uh being held uh accountable by international law so that's why we are approaching the International Community um governments individuals we're looking for the champions of the Democracy uh who actually uh want to protect the myma people to take step up to step up and really come together to uh put more pressure on this military Hunter particularly we're calling for the aviation fuel cut basically the we want the world to B all the aviation fuel and aviation fuel chain so that this military has no more uh you know uh no is so that this military Hunter cannot bomb the people anymore because that's the only thing that they have now uh the the only leverage the military Hunter has over the people's Revolution so that's what we want let me bring in Kim quickly on on those points because are you really going to get the International Community in in many ways it's the UN Security Council that can act when you've got China and Russia there I noticed at the security council meeting held about a week ago the Russian Ambassador described uh the Jun as our long-standing friend and close partner yes I think Russia in particular is a major block at the moment um I think that though I agree with Omar that you have to push from all angles for that to happen I think that the whole un system is realizing that their kind of negligence putting aan at the front of the situation despite as not being able to solve the issue has not worked and there really is a need for urgency among UN member states to push something through and yeah there's already a lot of pressure on aviation fuel some of the steps that have been taken but it's nowhere near enough so it really is a case of just closing down some of those remaining loopholes and taking the extra steps because as Omar says you know the Juno has been a rump state for over a year now it can't reach locations from the ground it has huge problems moving infantry troops around most of whom are you know uh veterans and and retired people a lot of them are poorly trained anyway or now Force conscripts as Nicholas said so we really are at a point where you just got a military that's becoming increasingly isolated and bombing wildly uh setting fire to markets uh obliterating hospitals wherever they lose control and much of the world is just kind of shrugging and hoping the whole thing goes away but some much more decisive action is needed because the writing has been on the wall for a long time now there's no way really no way that jent can reverse this um but the problem is that it's got this huge buildup of troops over many decades so it's extremely difficult to to defeat wholesale so you have this long extremely violent conflict thank you very much to all our guests today kin Omar Kim jolif and Nicholas Becka you can find plenty of background on the situation in Myanmar with reports video and Analysis on our website al.com we'd like you views too go to our Facebook page that's facebook.com AJ insidestory or if you prefer to message us on X just look for at AJ inside story from the team here in Doha please stay safe I'll be back here very soon bye-bye for now

Channel: Al Jazeera English

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Keywords: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, Armed Groups, Mae Sot, Military, Myanmar, Myanmar Army, Myanmar Conflict, Myanmar Crackdown, Myanmar Rebel Groups, Myanmar latest news, Myanmar mandatory military service, Myanmar military, Myanmar military drafting, Myanmar military service, Myanmars mandatory conscription, Thailand, al jazeera live, al jazeera video, aljazeera English, aljazeera latest, aljazeera live, aljazeera live news

Id: ebYwvSQ3XyM

Length: 28min 0sec (1680 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2024