The battle for the border town of Maungdaw in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state between the insurgent Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) is nearing a bloody dénouement.
State Administration Council (SAC) regime forces have doggedly defended the town for several weeks of heavy fighting, but they are in almost terminal collapse almost everywhere across Rakhine. But the insurgent AA’s almost certain victory has come at a high cost for the state’s civilian population.
A deadly incident on the border with Bangladesh reportedly occurred on August 5, as hundreds of Rohingya fleeing Maungdaw by boat were targeted by drones dropping bombs.
Graphic film footage of the incident’s aftermath quickly surfaced on social media, showing scores of dead civilians who had been struck by explosions, whether on land waiting to cross into Teknaf, or who may have floated back after the boats had been targeted. Several survivors claimed the AA was to blame for the attack.
Reuters and other international media reported the incident several days after it occurred, but none could independently verify the perpetrator, the possibility of multiple perpetrators, or the number of civilian casualties, with estimates ranging widely between 70 to 200. A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) investigation in recent days contains harrowing survivor testimony but no conclusive evidence of the perpetrator of the attacks.
Both the MAF and AA widely used weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), increasingly so in the previous several months of fighting across Rakhine state. It is thus difficult to distinguish which drones are operated by which armed group, especially from civilians unversed in military tactics and weapons systems.
The AA may also be using heavy artillery captured from the Myanmar army. In several previous incidents this year, the AA have fired on vessels fleeing by river and sea, containing both MAF personnel and their families.
Compounding the confusion and raising tensions between Rakhine and Rohingya communities has been the SAC recruitment since February of thousands of Rohingya men who have been trained and armed to fight alongside MAF troops.
Three Rohingya armed groups have also infiltrated the Maungdaw area from refugee camps in Bangladesh: the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA).
Furthermore, the MAF commander has armed a notorious drug dealer called Dil Mamat to fight alongside regime forces, according to Border News Agency.
The AA’s political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), released a statement on August 7 claiming the group was “saddened to learn from social media that in recent days, many Muslims fleeing the town have reportedly died from artillery or small arms fire, bombings, drownings, airstrikes, or massive explosions near the coast of Maungdaw, causing great distress.”
“We respectfully announce that these deaths did not occur in areas under our control and are not related to our organization. We are investigating the details of these incidents and will promptly release information as soon as we have verified the facts,” it said.
The ULA statement then issued five directives for civilians to find safety in AA territory, or to shelter in place and display white flags, and to avoid the MAF and Rohingya armed groups.
On the same day as the ULA statement, The Global New Light of Myanmar regime propaganda organ reported that “AA terrorists massacred Bengalis, including children, who arranged to flee to other countries due to their attacks at a prawn pond west of Phawyazi village in Maungtaw (sic)…Women and girls were raped and killed. AA terrorists were anxious that the international community should know their terror acts, and so they brutally killed Bengalis who arranged to move to other countries.”
The AA’s public relations machine kicked into high gear. Photos and film footage were released by the AA of Rakhine soldiers in uniform carrying children, helping elderly people and other civilians out of harm’s way. One official ULA/AA video showed the reported evacuation of 500 Rohingya by boat from Kyar Yin Tan village on August 8, after reportedly being used as human shields by the MAF.
It is extremely difficult to independently verify the AA’s claims of providing civilian assistance. Yet it is possible that multiple realities can exist at the same time: that AA forces can perpetrate atrocities at one location whilst also aiding civilians elsewhere. But observers shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the MAF are committing crimes just like this across Myanmar against multiple communities.
Accusations of the AA targeting civilians have dramatically increased tensions since April, when the conflict reached Buthidaung, due east of Maungdaw. As the AA advanced on the town, allegedly staging arson attacks on rural Rohingya villages, reports of Rohingya and SAC forces burning down Rakhine sections of Buthidaung emerged.
A month later, as AA forces entered the town in mid-May, there were multiple reports of Rakhine forces burning down Rohingya neighborhoods, possibly as retaliation for the April arson.
There was a great deal of confusing and contradictory reporting accentuated by an internet and phone blackout, heightened acrimony and counter-accusations from exiled Rohingya activists and AA leaders, and the lack of access for many Myanmar and international reporters who have to rely on often traumatized eye-witness testimony of people who have reached Bangladesh.
Further confusion surrounds the burning down of a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) office and pharmacy in Buthidaung in mid-April and the arson attack and looting of a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse in Maungdaw in late June.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on August 12 produced the most credible reconstruction of the incidents around Buthidaung with multiple interviews with both Rakhine and Rohingya sources. HRW attributes culpability to both AA forces and SAC troops with their Rohingya auxiliaries.
But the accompanying satellite imagery of the HRW report is of such poor quality as to be inconclusive. Much of the “digital evidence” used in “remote control” rights reporting from Rakhine state since the 2021 coup has been of uneven quality, demonstrating the limitations of open source intelligence.
The AA is extremely sensitive to international criticism. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk issued a statement of “alarm” over the escalation of conflict and threats to civilians in Rakhine on April 19. That raised the ire of the AA, who responded in great detail and evident umbrage to many of his points in a four-page rebuttal.
“The statements…could lead to misunderstandings and suspicions between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities and cause disrespectful impressions of Arakanese among the international community. In fact, this kind of false statement harms the very notion of our nationwide movement and struggle.”
In a statement in June, Türk did cite the massacre of over 50 Rakhine civilians in the village of Byine Phyu north of Sittwe, as well as reports of sexual violence perpetrated by a joint force of MAF, Arakan Liberation Army (ALA) troops and Rohingya recruits.
It is the perceived bias of the international community that it is only concerned with the plight of the Rohingya that drives much of the Rakhine grievances.
How likely is it that culpability for the August 5 incident will be clearly established? Seeking clarity on deadly incidents in Rakhine state has always been immensely challenging. This is true of all Myanmar’s conflict zones, in Shan, Kachin, and Karen states, as well as in “new” post-coup battlefields in Sagaing and Magwe.
Yet Rakhine has been uniquely cursed by twisted facts and misreporting since at least the communal violence of 2012. The notoriously distorted Du Chee Yar Tan incident of early 2014 is just one example of the difficulties of reporting on violence against civilians.
An alleged massacre in a village close to Maungdaw reported by the UN and Western rights groups was eventually determined to be largely fabricated, resulting in significant aftershocks in relations between the then-Thein Sein administration and the UN and Western embassies.
While it was clearly the MAF who was responsible for the mass ethnic cleansing campaigns against the Rohingya in October 2016 and August 2017 that drove over 700,000 people into Bangladesh, not all the details of the horrific events could be verified.
The Rakhine conflict entered a new and even more confounding phase when the AA slowly expanded insurgent operations into Rakhine state in 2018. Six years of intense fighting has displaced over 300,000 civilians and seen multiple war crimes perpetrated by the MAF on Rakhine communities, as well as Rohingya, ethnic Mro, Daignet and Chin civilians.
The AA has also been implicated in multiple crimes against civilians. Its stated commitment to protecting all civilians equally has generated doubt for many years, doubts that have reached a new dangerous level.
Some of AA commander Major General Twan Mrat Naing’s Twitter/X commentary has been ugly racism that hasn’t served the ULA/AA’s cause.
But then the group is capable of issuing more politically deft messaging, as when they responded with carefully worded positions on recent allegations of human rights violations and inter-communal relations to The New Humanitarian in May.
The AA’s claim that it protects equal citizenship and human rights for all of Rakhine’s residents is laudable, but trust that it will be universally applied is unfortunately very low. The onus is on the ULA/AA to ensure they abide by their principles.
Yet it is crucial to establish evidence-based reporting on allegations of atrocities by all parties to the conflict. The “Rashomon Effect” of multiple competing perspectives on violent events can block paths to peace for all communities to coexist. This has been the vexed reality in Rakhine for over a decade.
Civilian protection, humanitarian assistance and aid to the war wounded must be prioritized. The reality is that the main agent of future peace, humanitarian and development assistance and trade in Rakhine will almost certainly be the ULA/AA, which makes marshaling the facts about war crimes imperative for future and lasting stability.
David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarian and human rights issues on Myanmar.