Expert analysis reveals that ethnic armed groups and anti-coup forces have consolidated their positions seven months after launching a major offensive.
Myanmar’s military regime has lost control of more parts of the Southeast Asian country, especially along its borders, since anti-coup forces formed an alliance to mount a renewed offensive in late October last year, according to the latest update from a group of prominent international experts.
The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) said in a report released on Thursday that the general trajectory of the conflict in Myanmar since 2022 has been one of “expanding control of the resistance versus corresponding losses of the military junta”.
This process “increased rapidly from October 2023”, he stated.
Since armed ethnic groups and anti-coup fighters known as the People’s Defense Forces (PDF) began Operation 1027 last year, they have made significant advances, seizing military posts and border towns in the north and east, along the border with China and Thailand, as well as in the west, where Myanmar meets Bangladesh and India.
The SAC-M said the generals had lost full authority over the municipalities that cover 86 percent of the country’s territory and where 67 percent of Myanmar’s 55 million people live.
“Resistance to junta control remains strong, widespread and deeply rooted,” he said.
Army chief Min Aung Hlaing launched a coup in February 2021, seizing power from the elected government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has since been tried in a secret military court and imprisoned.
The seizure of power led to mass protests that evolved into an armed rebellion after the military responded with force. At least 5,161 civilians have been killed since the coup and more than 20,500 are being held in prison, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has been monitoring developments since the coup.
The SAC-M said that the military could be considered neither a legitimate (de jure) nor a de facto government.
“The military junta does not control a sufficient part of Myanmar’s territory to carry out essential state duties,” the report states.
Of the 51 municipalities with international borders, SAC-M said only one, with a population of 7,000 in the foothills of the Himalayas, was under “stable junta control”. Thirty municipalities were assessed as having at least 90 percent control by anti-coup forces, including 14 where opponents of the military had secured full control.
Fragmenting country
SAC-M’s assessment of the situation was shared by Crisis Group, a non-profit organization that monitors emerging and ongoing conflicts.
In a report released on Thursday, it said the main beneficiaries of events over the past seven months were ethnic armed groups, most of which have been fighting the military for years.
“Myanmar’s armed ethnic groups are securing on the battlefield the autonomous homelands they have long sought,” said Richard Horsey, Crisis Group’s senior Myanmar advisor, warning of the potential implications for a future federal democracy that is the goal of many of those in the PDFs and the National Unity Government (NUG) that established them.
He urged Myanmar’s neighbors and the international community to engage with the multiple groups vying for power “while keeping in mind the risks of conflict and human rights concerns.”
SAC-M experts, however, said the conflict required more to be done to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians whose lives had been turned upside down.
The United Nations estimates that more than three million people have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the fighting, and SAC-M has said more needs to be done to protect people from violence, much of it perpetrated by the military.
“The junta is by far the main source of violence and instability and of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law,” the report states. “It demonstrates no desire to meet the demands of the democratic revolution, only a commitment to more violence and repression.”
The military was accused of war crimes for the continued air raids on civilian villages and the deliberate burning of people’s homes.
Some of the armed groups have also been implicated in atrocities.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
