By Eric Vandenbroeck

Revisiting Myanmar

Resistance groups in Myanmar try to take control of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city and his former home. To date however the military retains the majority of major urban areas - home to crucial infrastructure and revenue. Revisiting Myanmar.

My encounter with Myanmar, that time still often called Burma, goes back many years when I initially received permission for a five-day stay whereby traveling beyond a limited parameter was not permitted.

This changed during a much later trip when traveling around through most of the country (even still not all, for example, two areas where wars were happening like in Karen area near the Thai border) was now permitted.

And I reported about in a five-part article the various stages of my rapid travels there (see part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5).

Today the once formidable Myanmar military is cracking from within - riddled with spies secretly working for the pro-democracy rebels.

 

The Burma Road

Early on of the American Volunteer Group, the famous `Flying Tigers', were also based at Rangoon's airport under the command of Claire Chennault. They flew missions to protect the Burma Road against the depredations of Japanese fighters. Though it had American government support, the AVG was a voluntary organization. They got a large bonus from Chiang Kai Shek for every Japanese plane they shot down.

The Burma Road was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Lashio, Burma, in the south, and Kunming, China, the capital of Yunnan province in the north. It was built in 1937–1938 while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Preventing the flow of supplies on the road helped motivate the occupation of Burma by the Empire of Japan in 1942 during World War II. Use of the road was restored to the Allies in 1945 after the completion of the Ledo Road. Some parts of the old road are still visible today.

Today (December 20, 2024) the military only has full control of less than a quarter of Myanmar's territory. The junta still controls the major cities and remains "extremely dangerous" according to the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar. But it has lost significant territory over the past 12 months.

More than 20,000 people have been detained and thousands killed, the UN says, since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021, triggering an uprising.

 

The Soldier Spies

Soldier spies are known as "Watermelons" - green on the outside, rebel red within. Outwardly loyal to the military but secretly working for the pro-democracy rebels whose symbolic color is red.

These spies are helping the resistance achieve what was once unthinkable. It is assessed the power balance in more than 14,000 village groups as of mid-November this year and found the military only has full control of 21% of Myanmar's territory, nearly four years on from the start of the conflict.

Ethnic armies and a patchwork of resistance groups now control 42% of the country's land mass. Much of the remaining area is contested. In 2015, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) an armed resistance group that existed since 1989 in the Kokang region of Myanmar.

The military now controls less than at any time since they first took control of the country in 1962.  Coordinated operations between ethnic armies and civilian militia groups have put the military on the back foot.  After heavy territorial losses earlier this year Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing made a rare admission that his forces were under pressure.

After heavy territorial losses earlier this year Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing made a rare admission that his forces were under pressure.

 

"Win Aung," a former intelligence officer, is one agent managing the network of spies

The leaked Watermelon intelligence from within the military is helping to tip the balance. Two years ago, the resistance set up a specialized unit to manage the growing network of spies and to recruit more. Agents like Win Aung [not his real name] collect the Watermelon leaks, verify them where possible, and then pass them on to the rebel leaders in the relevant area.  He is a former intelligence officer who defected to the resistance after the coup. He says they are now getting new Watermelons every week and social media is a key recruitment tool. Their spies, he says, range from low-ranking soldiers to high-ranking officers. They also claim to have Watermelons in the military government - "from the ministries down to village heads". They are put through a strict verification process to ensure they are not double agents.  Motivations for becoming a spy vary. While in Kyaw's case, it was anger, for a man we are calling "Moe" - a corporal in the navy - it was simply a desire to survive for his young family.  His wife, pregnant at the time, pushed him to do so, convinced the military was losing and he would die in battle.

He began leaking information to the Watermelon unit about weapons and troop movements. This kind of intelligence is crucial. The ultimate goal of the resistance unit is to take control of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city and his former home. But they are a long way off. The military retains the majority of major urban areas - home to crucial infrastructure and revenue.

Unable to physically penetrate the city, Daeva from his jungle base directs targeted attacks by underground cells in Yangon using Watermelon intelligence.

Underneath a resistance leader plans attacks on the military using Watermelon tip-offs

What is furthermore of interest is that Indian insurgent groups that took refuge in Myanmar and fought in its civil war have been streaming back across the border to Manipur this year, security officers said, inflaming the 19-month ethnic conflict there with weapons and battle-hardened cadres.

This has led to an increase in violence between the Meitei community and the Kuki tribes. Since May 2023, some 260 people have been killed in the fighting and more than 60,000 displaced.

Thus there is a conflict that is spreading to new areas as insurgents from the rival groups come across the border to Manipur.

Manipur, a hilly, forested region of 32 lakh people, is bordered by Myanmar. The fighting there was sparked last year by a court order that asked the state government to consider checking with the Centre whether the Meiteis, who mostly live in the Imphal Valley region, can be given the same government benefits as those given to the Kukis, who live in the hills.

Ironically the Rohingya initially came to be lumped in with Indian Muslims (specifically Chittagonians) in Burmese and Rakhine nationalist rhetoric in the 1930s and 1940s and thus the Muslim population came to be considered the colonizing other. This whereby Buddhist Rakhines in the colonial legislature in Rangoon post-1937 already began to differentiate themselves from their Muslim neighbors, but it was really in the Japanese invasion when the battle lines were drawn and the Muslims (who supported the British) and the Buddhists (who supported the Bamars & Japanese) separated into distinct communities.

The princely state of Manipur, which now shares over 300-km-long border with Myanmar, had trade and commerce with erstwhile Burma.  A Meitei king even married his daughter to a Burmese prince. The relationship soured after the Burmese invasion.

Indian militant groups that took refuge in Myanmar and fought in its civil war have been streaming back across the border to Manipur state this year, Indian security officers said, inflaming the bitter 19-month ethnic conflict there with weapons and battle-hardened cadres.

This has led to an increase in violence between Manipur's dominant and mostly Hindu Meitei community and the mainly Christian Kuki tribes - a conflict that critics say is the biggest law-and-order failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 11-year-old government. Since May 2023, some 260 people have been killed in the fighting and more than 60,000 displaced.

 

On Rival Sides

Security officers said Meitei groups have been fighting on the side of the junta in Myanmar's civil war and an estimated 2,000 of their cadres had been camping in Myanmar's Sagaing region, just across the border from Manipur, as of December.

They have fought anti-junta rebels like the People's Defence Force - Kalay (PDF-K) and the Kuki National Army - Burma (KNA-B) in Sagaing, Kachin and Chin areas of northern Myanmar, security officers and Kuki leaders said.

An armed Kuki man stands at a checkpoint at Kangvai village in Churachandpur district in the northeastern state of Manipur, India, July 23, 2023.

The Kukis, meanwhile, have support from the Kachin rebels and have bought weapons from Myanmar's semi-autonomous Wa state, according to three Indian officers, several Kuki leaders and a PDF-K source in Myanmar.

Some Meitei groups had operated from camps within Myanmar with the support of the military, but were now scattered along the frontier and going back into Manipur, said Sui Khar, vice chairman of the rebel Chin National Front, an anti-junta rebel outfit that operates in Chin state.

The Indian military and police officers said it was difficult to assess the number of insurgents who have returned to Manipur.

But more than 100 Meitei insurgents, including some intercepted by Indian authorities at the Myanmar border, were arrested in Manipur last year and more than 200 this year.

People who fled Myanmar carry their belongings across a bridge that connects Myanmar and India at the border village of Zokhawthar, Champhai district, in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram:

The Indian government has announced plans to fence the entire 1,643 km long Indo-Myanmar border, effectively ending the free movement regime between the two countries. The move aims to enhance surveillance and curb insurgencies, smuggling, and the drug trade in the region. The border currently has a free movement regime that allows people on both sides to venture 16 km into each other's territory without any documents. The decision to end the regime comes after an assessment by central intelligence and security agencies. No deadline for completing the fencing has been set yet.

 

 

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