Kyaw Hsan Hlaing

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Arakan Armed Conflict

Reading through our in-depth and featured reports, you will comprehend the recent intensive armed conflicts between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar Military, and the current affairs of the Arakan (Rakhine) State.

The Diplomat Magazine •

Fighting in Maungdaw: A Strategic Turning Point in Western Myanmar?

On the morning of September 16, around two months after intensive clashes resumed between the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar military in northern Rakhine State, Bri. Gen. Dr. Nyo Twan Awng, the AA’s deputy commander in chief, shared a message to the Rakhine people through his social media accounts. The message described the return to war against the junta as “a final war and decisive war” for building “the state of the Arakan.” The AA, the armed wing of the United League of Arakan (ULA), was
United States Institute of Peace •

Myanmar’s Rakhine State: Parties Split, Rebels Rise, and the Junta Schemes

As the coup regime plots a sham election for next year, the volatile political and military conditions in Rakhine could decide its fate. Myanmar’s military regime has a plan for trying to establish its governing legitimacy next year: In August of 2023, the dictatorship, which overthrew a democratically elected government in early 2021, intends to hold sham elections. A critical piece of this strategy involves maneuvering Myanmar’s welter of small ethnic parties into taking part in the electoral
United States Institute of Peace •

In Myanmar’s Rakhine State, a Fraying Truce May Hold Key to Anti-Regime Fight

A potent ethnic armed group, tied to the resistance, appears to be inching away from a cease-fire and back to the battlefield. Myanmar has been crippled by growing political turmoil and militant resistance since the army overthrew the elected civilian government on February 1, 2021. Today, most of the country is engulfed in a virtual civil war. In Rakhine State, however, home to one of Myanmar's most powerful ethnic armed organizations, a tenuous peace still prevails under a cease-fire reached
Frontier Myanmar •

Can the Arakan Army achieve its confederacy dream?

The AA’s demand for confederacy status seems a bridge too far for either the National Unity Government or the junta, but the group says it will achieve its goal through any means necessary. More than a year since the military seized power in Myanmar, anti-coup resistance groups and their ethnic armed organisation allies continue to fight the junta with no victory in sight for either side. The military regime has been unable to crush the opposition or to take full control of administrative mecha
the Diplomat Magazine •

Relief Agencies Should Push for Independent Access to Myanmar’s Rakhine State

Since February, when Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, staged a coup against the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, Rakhine State in the west of the country has stood out. While other states witnessed massive peaceful demonstrations, followed by deeply troubling indiscriminate violence at the hands of the police and the military, Rakhine remained relatively tranquil. In November 2020, three months before the coup, the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army (AA), a powerful ethnic armed organization
Al Jazeera •

Myanmar’s military coup prolongs misery for Rohingya in Rakhine

Bangkok, Thailand – In early August, military officials assigned to Rakhine State by Myanmar’s generals summoned leaders from the mainly Muslim Rohingya community in Buthidaung township to a meeting on the banks of the Mayu River. The officials came with a warning: Rohingya villagers should cut off any ties with the Arakan Army (AA), an armed rebel group fighting for self-determination for ethnic minorities in the country’s northwest. “Currently we are participating all-together in the AA’s ad
Al Jazeera •

Rumbles in Rakhine amid strains between Myanmar military, rebels

Recent skirmishes between Arakan Army and the military have raised concern about the stability of an informal year-long ceasefire. Since Myanmar’s military staged a coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government on February 1, triggering mass unrest, the formerly restive far-western state of Rakhine has remained relatively peaceful. But recent skirmishes have raised concern that an informal ceasefire agreed in the long-troubled area in November last year is starting to break down, even as
the Diplomat Magazine •

Relief Agencies Should Push for Independent Access to Myanmar’s Rakhine State

Since February, when Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, staged a coup against the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, Rakhine State in the west of the country has stood out. While other states witnessed massive peaceful demonstrations, followed by deeply troubling indiscriminate violence at the hands of the police and the military, Rakhine remained relatively tranquil. In November 2020, three months before the coup, the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army (AA), a powerful ethnic armed organization
the Diplomat Magazine •

Arakan Army Seeks to Build ‘Inclusive’ Administration in Rakhine State

Seven months since the military coup in Myanmar, the political wing of the rebel Arakan Army (AA) has significantly expanded its administrative and judicial mechanisms across Rakhine State in western Myanmar, with hundreds of its personnel now effectively administering the region independently of the military junta that rules in Naypyidaw. The group is also attempting to involve the state’s entire population, including the Rohingya Muslims, in the governance of what it hopes will become an auton
Frontier Myanmar •

ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်တွင် အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးအာဏာကျယ်ပြန့်လာသည့် ရက္ခိုင့်တပ်တော်

စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုအလွန်တွင် ရက္ခိုင့်တပ်တော်သည် ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်အတွင်း အုပ်ချုပ်မှုယန္တရားတစ်ခုကို တည်ထောင်၍ အခြေကျလာစေရန် ကြိုးပမ်းနေသည်။
Frontier Myanmar •

Arakan Army extends administrative grip on Rakhine State

The Arakan Army and its political wing, the United League of Arakan, have unveiled a political dispute mechanism and plans for a judiciary in Rakhine State as part of their moves to “bring justice to all people living in Rakhine.” The United League of Arakan is advancing steadily towards its objective of assuming administrative control in Rakhine State, and has seen a high level of compliance from the state’s residents with the stay-at-home order it issued on July 20 in response to the third wa
the Diplomat Magazine •

The Myanmar Military is Trying to Divide and Terrorize the People. We Must Resist.

Since seizing power on February 1, Myanmar’s military has inflicted terror across the country. As a youth, seeing my country fall under military rule is not only psychologically disturbing, but crushing when I consider the potential impact on my future and that of my generation. Military and police forces have shot dead more than 200 people as of March 16. Soldiers are firing teargas, water cannon, and slingshots at protesters and beating people up, while some have been tortured. At night, they
Tea Circle •

The Military Coup Destroyed Independent Media in Myanmar, but in Rakhine State, It Wasn’t There to Begin With

Kyaw Hsan Hlaing and Emily Fishbein argue that Myanmar’s media climate is dire under the junta but press freedoms in Rakhine State had already unraveled. Since the February 1 military coup, independent media has faced a crisis in Myanmar. Yet, even before the coup, journalists and rights advocates had decried a diminishing space for independent media, especially media reporting on armed conflict and humanitarian crises in Rakhine State. In early January, we interviewed seven journalists and ed
The Diplomat Magazine •

After Myanmar’s Military Coup, Arakan Army Accelerates Implementation of the ‘Way of Rakhita’

On March 11, 39 days after Myanmar’s military seized power from the civilian government, it removed a terrorist designation from the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed organization in the country’s westernmost Rakhine State, with which it had been engaged in violent conflict for most of the past two years. While many ethnic Rakhine people welcomed the step, many from the Bamar majority accused the AA of collaborating with the junta and blamed the Rakhine people. This response highlights a longsta
Rest of World •

Facebook is still censoring groups fighting the military coup in Myanmar

Nyo Twan Awng was an early adopter of Facebook in Myanmar. A doctor, he joined the social network in 2013, and said he used it to source medical information, as well as to share his poems and articles about art and literature. Alongside his artistic pursuits, he ran another channel: the Arakan Army Info Desk, a propaganda stream for the Arakan Army (AA), an armed group fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. As the AA’s conflict with the national military, known as t
Al Jazeera •

In Myanmar’s Rakhine, families of the disappeared seek answers

One evening, as Ma Nway* and her family were having dinner, soldiers from Myanmar’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, came to her house and asked for her husband. According to her account, they blindfolded him, took out their guns and beat him in front of her. “At the time, I could only cry,” said Ma Nway, an ethnic Arakanese from Myanmar’s westernmost Rakhine State, who prefers not to reveal her identity for fear of reprisals. “I feared they would shoot me, so I held my tongue … I felt like they were the most brutal people in the world.”
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