Myanmar's military has long viewed resistance among its persecuted Rohingya as a threat to the existence of Buddhist majority in the country, but against the background of the significant successes of the rebel Arakan army, the junta and some of the Rohingya fighters are now facing a common enemy, the Reuters agency, quoted by BTA, notes exclusively in a comment.
In a once-unthinkable agreement, the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (ROS) claims its fighters have reached an "understanding" with the military not to attack each other as both sides are fighting the Arakan Army, the main rebel force in western Myanmar.
"The junta did not attack us and we did not attack them," Ko Ko Lin, head of political affairs for the OSR, said in an exclusive interview with Reuters.
"When they are not attacking us, why set two goals at the same time? This goes without saying," he added.
There is no formal agreement between the SDF and the Myanmar military, Ko Ko Lin said, adding that the two countries are not cooperating in the fight against the Arakan Army.
"Our guys fight with their own uniform, we use our own weapons,", he pointed out.
Ko Ko Lin did not say how long the "understanding" had been, but cited the movement of SDF fighters into the Bangladeshi border town of Maungdaw earlier this year, where the junta and SDF battled the Arakan Army.
Reuters was unable to independently verify what Ko Ko Lin said about the situation on the battlefield in Rakhine state, where Maungdaw is located. Myanmar's junta did not respond to the agency's request for comment by phone and email.
Ko Ko Lin said the predominantly Buddhist Arakan Army rejected the SLA's attempts to forge a battlefield alliance against Myanmar's military and targeted the Rohingya community in northern Rakhine state, forcing his group to raise weapon against her.
"They were buying time, avoiding talking to us, avoiding sitting together," he said. "We have also asked the Arakanese army not to attack the Rohingya. We often warned them, but they ignored us," Ko Ko Lin added.
The Arakanese army, which has previously denied targeting the Rohingya, did not respond to questions about what the OSR political affairs chief said. There are deep-seated tensions between the Buddhist community in Rakhine State, which supports the Arakan Army, and the Rohingya. Some Rohingya have been forcibly conscripted (mobilized under a never-before-enforced law - ed.) by the military to fight against the Arakan Army, which accuses parts of the Muslim minority, including the SDF, of collaborating with the junta.< /p>
In May, the Arakan Army set fire to parts of the town of Buthidaun in Rakhine state, until then the largest Rohingya settlement in Myanmar, after the town was also torched in an arson attack by the military.
OSR is just one of several Rohingya armed groups fighting for power in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, home to more than 1 million of their community, as well as in Rakhine state.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after a brutal crackdown by the junta in 2017, which the UN described as a "typical example of ethnic cleansing".
The military continues to maintain that the 2017 operation was a legitimate counter-terrorism campaign prompted by attacks by Muslim militants.
The fighting in Rakhine state is now part of a wider insurgency against Myanmar's junta, three years after it ousted the legitimately elected civilian government in a coup that sparked nationwide protests that turned into an armed uprising.
Lethal Attack
The Rohingya Solidarity Organization was established in 1982 with the aim of establishing an autonomous region for the Rohingya, but was long considered by analysts to be de facto non-existent.
Since 2022, however, the OSR has reorganized and expanded its activities from a group of about 1,000 activists to between 5,000 and 6,000 people, although not all of them are armed, Ko Ko Lin said.
Human rights groups accuse the SDF of forcibly recruiting Rohingyas from refugee camps in Bangladesh, a charge the group denies.
"Although many refugees dislike the Arakan Army because of its public statements and reports of human rights abuses, recruitment campaigns for SDF activists are generally very unpopular in the camps," the International Crisis Group noted in a report in August. a Brussels-based think tank.
Earlier this year, the SDF sent about 1,000 fighters to Maungdaw town to protect the Rohingya as the Arakanese army advanced in an attempt to push the military out, Ko Ko Lin said. He added that it was then that the OSR and the military discovered that they were facing the same enemy.
However, after operating in and around Maungdaw town for nearly three months, he said the SDF withdrew its fighters in early August after a deadly attack on civilians. About 180 people, including many women and children, were killed in artillery fire and drone strikes on the banks of the Naf River, which runs past the city, according to UN estimates of casualties from the attack.
The Arakan Army and the Myanmar military are blaming each other for the casualties.
The OSR was not involved in the incident but withdrew from Maungdaw to avoid further civilian casualties, Ko Ko Lin said.
"We are changing our strategy," he concluded, but declined to elaborate. "We will go in again to fight," said the head of political affairs for the Rohingya Solidarity Organization.
Seven years ago, one of the deadliest humanitarian crises in the world began, which this year has rapidly expanded, notes Mayu Ali, a Rohingya refugee, in an online commentary for the magazine "Policy Options" of the Canadian Institute for Public Policy Research, a Montreal-based think tank.
In 2017, Myanmar's military launched a deadly crackdown on the Rohingya in Rakhine State, killing at least 10,000.
Another 770,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh, where more than one million people are now sheltering in refugee camps, including thousands who have been there since the 1990s. These Rohingya, who survived the attempted genocide, have no particular prospects of returning to Myanmar, where in February 2021 the military consolidated its power with a coup, commented the Canadian magazine.
About 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar. They are now caught in the crossfire of fighting between Myanmar's military and the Arakan Army, a predominantly Buddhist and ethnic Rakhine insurgent militia seeking autonomy in the state, notes Policy Options magazine. On September 2, Myanmar's army declared the Arakan Army a terrorist group, the magazine said.
In October 2017, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Bob Rae as a special envoy to Myanmar to resolve the Rohingya crisis. Its 2018 report proposed 17 recommendations for action by Canada.
There is little done
Not much has happened since then, but the Canadian federal government can still play a key role in protecting the Rohingya with four steps: resettlement of Rohingya refugees in Canada; expediting international investigations into crimes committed by the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army; setting up a Rohingya task force as recommended by Ray; and appointment of a new special envoy.
Although the Rohingya are not combatants in the fighting between Myanmar's military forces and the Arakan Army, they have been purposefully manipulated and deliberately targeted by both sides, the magazine "Policy Options" wrote in its analysis.
Historically, the Rohingya Muslims and the Buddhist population of Rakhine state have coexisted together in this region. The region was formerly known as Arakan and is now Rakhine State. Mutual coexistence was shaped by their understanding, respect and friendship, with both communities contributing to the common heritage of the region.
Recently, the Arakan Army has made significant gains against the Myanmar military in those areas of Rakhine State where the rest of the Rohingya are concentrated. But the army chose violence and hostility towards the Rohingyas instead of restoring unity and harmony.
Arakanese army chief Tuan Mrat Naing is spreading hostility against the Rohingya. In March, he wrote on the social platform "X" that "there is nothing wrong with calling Bengalis 'Bengalis'".
These words are reminiscent of the language of Myanmar's military forces, which suggests that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and not a local ethnic group with legal roots in the region, commented the magazine "Policy Options".
For its part, the military has stoked tensions between Rohingya communities and the population of Rakhine State, including the recent forced recruitment of Rohingya men and boys to fight against the Rakhine Army.
On May 17, an arson attack by the Arkan Army set fire to and devastated the central part of the town of Buthidaun, the largest existing Rohingya settlement. At least 24 Rohingya were killed and more than 150,000 people were displaced.
Myanmar Crimes, Canadian Salvation
My wife's aunt's home was one of many destroyed in the fire. She and her four young children fled to the southern part of the region, where they faced daily threats from the Arcane Army, writes the magazine "Policy Options" the author of the analysis Mayu Ali, a Rohingya refugee - a young poet, writer and activist who now runs a youth center in a refugee camp near the city of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.
He said Butidown, once a bustling Rohingya town, has now been abandoned by its Rohingya residents. Abdullah's father, a Rohingya in Canada who lives in the Ontario town of Kitchener, is among those who have been subject to arbitrary arrests and detention by the Afghan Army, targeting educated Rohingya and community leaders. It is painful that Abdullah knows nothing about his father's fate.
On August 5, my hometown of Maungdaw was attacked, says the author of the analysis Mayu Ali in the magazine. The Arkanian army has reportedly carried out multiple drone strikes that have killed at least 400 Rohingya civilians trying to cross the Naf River into neighboring Bangladesh. My close friend Mohammed Salim, a Rohingya aid worker, tragically lost his four children when a drone attack hit the boat carrying his family, although thousands of other Rohingya managed to reach safety in Bangladesh, he says.
There are still thousands of Rohingya in the Maungdaw and Buthidaun areas, which are now controlled by the Arkan Army, which reportedly uses Rohingya men and boys for forced labour. They are facing starvation due to lack of food in the conditions of the ongoing fighting, notes the author in the magazine "Policy Options".
Canada has officially recognized Myanmar's military forces' crimes against the Rohingya as genocide, but the International Criminal Court has not yet finalized its ruling on the matter.
Many Rohingya advocates describe the current situation as "worse than in 2017," when the military first began a campaign against them. The Arcane Army seems intent on finishing what the military started, the Canadian magazine said.
The recent spate of extrajudicial killings, arson and mass displacement is a war crime as well as a crime against humanity and therefore requires independent investigation and accountability, concludes Policy Options.