At least 29 more Myanmar soldiers entered India on Thursday fleeing an attack by insurgents on their military base close to the Indian border, an Indian police official said, as rebels step up their assaults against the ruling junta .
Can someone more knowledgeable about the subject explain the ties between these anti-junta forces? Is there goodwill between them or could it end up like the Syria situation?
There is some cooperation but a lot of rivalry. Current offensive is coordination between only 3 out of a dozen or more guerilla forces called Brotherhood Alliance - Arakan Army (which is the ethnic Arakanese who are predominantly buddhist, recently formed in the past decade when the Rohingya militants became active in Arakan), MNDAA - which is Kokang based populated by ethinc Han Chinese who escaped the Manchurians (and Qing dynasty) and settled in Burma, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army who represents a small ethnic group numbering a few hundred thousand at most in Northeast Burma. Since WW2 many of them fight amongst themselves for control of drug trade, black market trade, and territory where they tax businesses and people for protection. The biggest independent militia in the world - the United Wa State Army with 30,000 soldiers are neutral to the current conflict, are aligned with the military junta to a certain extent, but are also supplying arms to these other militias. Now all the ones I’ve mentioned are called Ethnic Armed Orgs (EAOs) or non-Burman.
The government in exile formed by elected law makers from 2021 election who escaped abroad are supporting spontaneous civilian militias in various parts of lowland Burma, and also has a small armed group they have formed with civilian and student protesters from 2021. They are not well-organized, and thus are not coordinating with the Brotherhood Alliance, but are likely taking advantage of the situation. This government in exile has tried to arrange talks with all the EAOs into an alliance, but thus far have not been successful.
Can someone more knowledgeable about the subject explain the ties between these anti-junta forces? Is there goodwill between them or could it end up like the Syria situation?
There is some cooperation but a lot of rivalry. Current offensive is coordination between only 3 out of a dozen or more guerilla forces called Brotherhood Alliance - Arakan Army (which is the ethnic Arakanese who are predominantly buddhist, recently formed in the past decade when the Rohingya militants became active in Arakan), MNDAA - which is Kokang based populated by ethinc Han Chinese who escaped the Manchurians (and Qing dynasty) and settled in Burma, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army who represents a small ethnic group numbering a few hundred thousand at most in Northeast Burma. Since WW2 many of them fight amongst themselves for control of drug trade, black market trade, and territory where they tax businesses and people for protection. The biggest independent militia in the world - the United Wa State Army with 30,000 soldiers are neutral to the current conflict, are aligned with the military junta to a certain extent, but are also supplying arms to these other militias. Now all the ones I’ve mentioned are called Ethnic Armed Orgs (EAOs) or non-Burman.
The government in exile formed by elected law makers from 2021 election who escaped abroad are supporting spontaneous civilian militias in various parts of lowland Burma, and also has a small armed group they have formed with civilian and student protesters from 2021. They are not well-organized, and thus are not coordinating with the Brotherhood Alliance, but are likely taking advantage of the situation. This government in exile has tried to arrange talks with all the EAOs into an alliance, but thus far have not been successful.
Thank you for the informative write-up!
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