In an exclusive
interview with Asia Times, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army said its August
25 attacks were staged in 'self-defense' and would continue until Rohingya
rights are restored
The surprise wave of
lethal attacks by Rohingya militants on police and army posts in Myanmar’s
western Rakhine State, their largest operation to date, was a defensive move
aimed at pre-empting an escalating security force crackdown on both the rebels’
military wing and Rohingya civilian communities, a senior militant official has
told Asia Times.
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Speaking in an
exclusive interview on the day after the attacks of August 25, the militant
official said the campaign of Myanmar military suppression and the rebel
counter-punch has now pushed the majority Muslim northern region of Rakhine
state into a state of “open war.” He vowed “continued resistance” until
Rohingya demands for the restorations of citizenship rights within Myanmar are
met.
In a wide-ranging
interview, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) representative who
identified himself simply as ‘Abdullah’, insisted that the military crackdown
had gathered pace following the reinforcement of security forces by an
estimated 400 troops of the crack 33rd Light Infantry Division on August 10-11.
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He said it had left
the militants no choice other than to strike back in defense of civilian
communities facing what he described as further killings and abuses by security
forces.
Involving what one
Myanmar military count estimated at around 1,000 insurgents, the coordinated
wave of attacks marked a dramatic improvement in ARSA’s tactical capabilities
when compared with its first attacks on October 9 last year.
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On that day, three
Border Guard Police posts were stormed leaving nine police dead and triggering
a weeks-long ‘area clearance operation’ by the military which international
organizations estimate left several hundred, mostly civilian, Rohingya dead,
entire villages burned and some 75,000 refugees pushed across the border into
Bangladesh.
It’s a security
operation the United Nations believes may have involved “crimes against
humanity.” The Myanmar government has consistently refused visas for a proposed
UN fact-finding team.
This time,
synchronized ARSA assaults launched at around 1:00 am on August 25 struck
between 25 and 30 police posts across the two northern townships of Maungdaw
and Buthidaung. An army base at Taung Bazaar in northern Buthidaung also came
under attack by as many as 150 insurgents, according to military sources quoted
by Reuters.
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In addition to storming
posts, militant teams also reportedly blew up bridges and mined roads with
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which were also used as hand grenades.
Against a backdrop
of recent reports suggesting that one or more consignments of assault rifles had
reached ARSA earlier this year, it remains unclear whether the small-arms used
in the latest assaults were more numerous or more modern than the small numbers
of firearms used last October. Abdullah denied that any new firearms had
reached the group.
According to
official figures, the death toll in the clashes has now reached around 100 with
at least 80 insurgents killed along with 10 police, one army soldier and an
immigration official. Six civilians were also reported to have been killed.
“In the two days
before the attacks the military was preparing to strike ARSA bases across the
region,” said Abdullah. “We had no choice but to take defensive measures.” He
claimed that military raids on villages in Maungdaw and Rathedaung, the third
majority-Muslim township in northern Rakhine, saw teenagers and men rounded up
and over 25 shot dead. Asia Times could not independently confirm the claim.
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Abdullah said one
major source of Rohingya alarm that drove the decision by ARSA commanders to
launch a counter-offensive was the sealing off of Zay Di Pyin village in Rathedaung
by security forces and Armed Buddhist civilians from surrounding hamlets.
Beginning in late
July, after the killing of a local Buddhist which was blamed on Muslims, the
Rohingya section of the mixed village of some 700 people was surrounded and
restrictions imposed on the movement of Muslim villagers seeking to work
outside the village as well as on food supplies going in. Parts of the village
were later reportedly burned down.
The interview with
Asia Times was given on condition that in the interests of militant security
its location not to be disclosed. However, Abdullah noted that he had been
directly authorized by ARSA “commander-in-chief” or “emir” Ataullah abu Ammar
Jununi to set out the militants’ current position and objectives. Asia Times
was able to confirm through reliable independent sources that the ARSA
representative and the rebel commander are indeed in daily contact.
An urbane,
middle-aged man with a polished command of English, who Asia Times understands
has been associated with the Rohingya cause for many years, Abdullah was
accompanied to the interview by two younger Rohingya associates in their late
twenties.
In discussing the
backdrop to the rebel offensive of August 25, Abdullah asserted that the
widening military crackdown and the blockade of Zay Di Pyin had been
deliberately timed to provoke clashes and undermine the findings of the
commission on the Rakhine crisis headed by former United Nations
secretary-general Kofi Annan.
“Knowing that Kofi
Annan was doing good work, the military had a clear plan to jeopardize it and
derail the report,” he said.
Nevertheless, the
specific timing of a complex and obviously carefully planned rebel offensive
within hours of the August 24 release of the commission’s final report clearly
suggests that ARSA also either sought to exploit the release of the report with
a dramatic show of strength at a time when international attention was focused
on the Rohingya crisis; or, at very least, did not see the report and its
likely findings as grounds for restraint in the face of mounting military
attacks.
The Commission’s
report urged the Myanmar government to loosen restrictions on citizenship and
movement of the stateless Rohingya community in Rakhine which are written into
the controversial 1982 Citizenship Act. The report criticized the restrictions
as not in accordance with international conventions to which Myanmar is a
signatory, while warning of the dangers of further violence in the region.
Turning to the
future of the conflict, Abdullah conceded that the stark disparity in military
capabilities between still poorly armed rebels and the Myanmar army, or
Tatmadaw, in a relatively small geographical region made any prospect of
protracted military resistance problematic. A political solution based on the
restoration of Rohingya citizenship and basic civil rights within Myanmar was
ultimately the only solution, he said.
“In the short term
our army is sending a message to the world that the injustice we have been
subjected to is deep-rooted,” he said. “We need justice and we are hopeful that
the international community will be there with political pressure. We are now
at the final stage before full-fledged genocide, so we have to defend our
civilian population.”
“We are not though
looking to develop a long-term guerrilla struggle. In the longer term, our
military and political wings will work together to push for dialogue. Even if
political reconciliation does not seem viable at the moment, we should not lose
spirit and stop our struggle. Our message to Arakan-born Rakhines is that we
can live together. Arakan must be enjoyed by Rohingya and Rakhines together.”
Throughout the
interview, Abdullah touched repeatedly on the historical record that details a
Muslim presence in the Arakan going back hundreds of years and the role of
Muslims in the court, army and civil bureaucracy of the Arakanese kingdom of
Mrauk U, which was overrun by Burman armies in 1784. “Mrauk U was built by
Rakhines and Muslims together,” he said.
Abdullah conceded,
however, that while the presence of an elected civilian government in Myanmar
served positively to balance off hard-line military policies, the position of
State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi was not in the short term likely to facilitate
political dialogue.
“She does not have
good, direct channels of information,” he said. “She’s trapped between the army
and Rakhine members of the (governing) NLD (National League for Democracy) who
are feeding her distorted information. She does though have a moral duty at
least to go and see for herself.”
For her part, Suu
Kyi called the rebel offensive “a calculated attempt to undermine the efforts
of those seeking to build peace and harmony in Rakhine state.” On August 27,
the government proscribed ARSA as a “terrorist organization”, while the Office
of the State Counsellor warned the media against “writing in support of the
group.”
Source: http://ati.ms/UdIsbU