How India Betrayed the Rakhine People – And Why It Matters Today – The Diplomat

Twenty-five years in the past this week, India’s authorities betrayed the folks of Rakhine State in western Myanmar, when its armed forces smashed a nascent Rakhine revolutionary group in a distant a part of the Andaman Islands. Within the years since, the Indian authorities has by no means referred publicly to the incident, nevertheless it continues to resonate among the many Rakhine folks, who bear in mind it as Gen. Khaing Raza’s Day, or Betrayal of India over Rakhine Revolution Day. In a 2009 e-book, the distinguished Indian human rights lawyer Nandita Haksar described the incident as “notorious.”

On the morning of February 11, 1998, the Indian navy launched a brutal operation codenamed Leech, wherein it raided Landfall Island within the Andaman Sea, arresting a minimum of 73 folks, and killing a minimum of six rebels. These included the Arakan Military commander Gen. Khiang Raza and Maj. Soe Tun and two leaders of the Karen Nationwide Union.

Because the India-based information outlet Quint reported in 2019, 35 of the 73 folks arrested have been fishermen and have been launched after a yr of detention on the island; two have been Thai boatmen who have been additionally launched; two extra reportedly tried to flee and went lacking. The remaining 34 folks have been Rakhine and Karen rebels from Myanmar. Their trial befell in secret, they usually have been held in jail for 13 years, six-and-a-half of these years with out cost. The 34 males have been solely launched in 2011, after they have been granted refugee standing by the United Nations refugee company and resettled within the Netherlands.

The violent incident dropped at a untimely finish the primary critical try to kind a Rakhine nationalist resistance towards Myanmar’s navy junta. The Arakan Military (AA) was initially fashioned in February 1991 by a gaggle of patriotic Rakhines together with Gen. Khaing Raza, with assist from the Karen Nationwide Union (KNU), on the Myanmar-Thailand border. Shortly after its formation, a minimum of 60 AA rebels tried to journey from southeast Myanmar to Rakhine State on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in early Could 1991. The group confronted clashes for a month with the Myanmar navy, and solely 40 of them arrived on the border safely. In 1992, and 1993, the group despatched a pair extra consignments of troops and weapons from the Myanmar-Thailand border to the Bangladesh border space.

In January 1994, a minimum of 4 Rakhine revolutionary teams made the historic choice to merge right into a single group: the Nationwide United Occasion of Arakan (NUPA), with an armed wing, often known as the Arakan Military (AA). The group’s objective was dwelling rule for the Rakhine. The AA was at this level re-formed beneath the management of seven commanders, together with Gen. Khaing Raza and Maj. Noticed Tun. By 1997, the energy of the military had grown to 500 troops armed with some 200 rifles, and it had established a small naval drive.

Having fun with this text? Click on right here to subscribe for full entry. Simply $5 a month.

India’s Betrayal

After the Arakan Military (AA)’s formation in 1991, Khaing Raza established a superb relationship with officers from the Analysis and Evaluation Wing (RAW), India’s international intelligence company, with whom he frequently shared info. Three years after the Rakhine revolutionary teams merged in 1994, these relations improved additional and RAW officers finally launched Khaing Raza to quite a lot of Indian navy commanders and intelligence officers. Chief amongst these was the navy intelligence officer Lt.-Col. Biswajit Singh Grewal, who notably had been born in Myanmar and studied on the College of Mandalay, and was fluent within the Burmese language. (He even had a Burmese title, Nay Win). In January 1995, Lt.-Gen. Pradeep Chandran Nair, commander in chief of the Assam Rifles, visited the NUPA/AA base alongside the India-Myanmar border, and met with Khaing Raza.

Former Rakhine marine leaders (from left): Maj. Kyan Sein Maung, Maj. Khine Kyaw Khine, Gen. Khaing Raza, and Capt. Mra Aung. (Photograph courtesy of Maj. Khine Kyaw Khine)

In early 1997, the NUPA/AA and KNU high leaders determined to ascertain a base within the Andaman Sea, to supply them entry to the Ayeyarwady River delta in southern Myanmar. Maj. Noticed Tun spoke to Lt. Col. Grewal, who initially allowed the NUPA/AA to arrange a base first on Narcondam island, after which on Landfall Island, within the north of the Andaman Islands chain, round 300 kilometers from Myanmar’s coast.

A month later, Noticed Tun was taken to Landfall Island on an Indian Military flight, alongside Grewal. In Could of that yr, the NUPA/AA marine commander, Maj. Khaing Kyaw Khaing, and his group had tried to succeed in the island by sea, however they gave up because of a heavy storm within the space. Subsequent month, Grewal flew to Bangkok to satisfy with KNU and NUPA/AA leaders, and agreed that they may relocate to the island on February 11, 1998.

On February 8, 1998, a gaggle of 40 males – 27 from the NUPA/AA and 13 from the KNU – led by Khaing Raza and Noticed Tun departed for Landfall Island in two ships from the coast of Tanintharyi Area in southern Myanmar. They arrived on the night of February 10 and slept one evening there.

Then, early the subsequent morning, Indian navy officers, together with Grewal, launched Operation Leech, executing a minimum of 4 leaders from the NUPA/AA together with Khaing Raza and Noticed Tun, two KNU leaders, and two different Myanmar rebels. As talked about above, the remaining 34 have been taken into custody.

The Indian navy knowledgeable New Delhi that Operation Leech had smashed a gaggle of “gunrunners” who had been aiding anti-Indian separatists within the nation’s northeast. Nevertheless, former Khaing Kyaw Khaing, previously considered one of seven founding commanders of the AA, instructed this creator lately that the leaders aimed to battle the navy regime in Myanmar, and went to Landfall Island trusting India’s promise that it might enable them a secure haven there. He mentioned that the Indian navy fully destroyed the embryonic Rakhine revolutionary drive, describing it as an unforgettable betrayal of “all of our Arakanese.”

Lt. Gen. Pradeep Chandran Nair, commander in chief of the Assam Rifles (middle, in blue shirt), throughout a go to to the NUPA/AA base alongside the India-Myanmar border, January 23, 1995. (Photograph courtesy Maj. Khine Kyaw Khine).

Certainly, DB Nandi, a former Indian intelligence officer and RAW deputy chief who labored in Myanmar, instructed The Guardian in 2007 that the Indian navy operation was explicitly meant to destroy the Rakhine revolutionary motion. In 2019, Grewal, now retired, instructed native information retailers that the operation was not carried out on the military’s personal initiative, and that it had approval from New Delhi.

Having fun with this text? Click on right here to subscribe for full entry. Simply $5 a month.

After the occasions on Landfall Island in 1998, few folks in western Myanmar believed {that a} Rakhine rebel towards the Myanmar navy might succeed, given India’s evident hostility to the trigger and the group’s incapacity to ascertain a base alongside the Myanmar-India border. It was solely for the reason that rebirth of the Arakan Military in 2009 that these goals of Rakhine dwelling rule have stirred again to life.

The New Arakan Military and Its Relations with New Delhi

Fifteen years after the Indian military smashed the NUPA/AA on Landfall Island, one other model of the Arakan Military was fashioned by Maj. Gen. Twan Mrat Naing and 25 comrades in April 2009 in Laiza, on the Chinese language border in Kachin State, with assist from the Kachin Independence Military (KIA).

Within the years since, the AA has grown significantly. It now has 30,000 troops beneath arms, primarily in Rakhine State, although a minimum of 6,000 troops are stationed in areas managed by the AA’s allies within the north and northeast of the nation. Not too long ago, the group’s political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), claimed that it loved de facto management over two-thirds of Rakhine. Throughout 2018-2020, analysts described preventing between the AA and the Myanmar navy because the fiercest Myanmar had seen in a long time.

Relations between the New Delhi authorities and the ULA/AA throughout the armed battle of 2018-2020 have been curious. Though India is the world’s largest democracy, its authorities has historically maintained good relations with Myanmar’s navy. From February 17 to March 2, 2019, amid preventing between the AA and Myanmar navy in Rakhine State, the Indian navy took half within the joint Operation Dawn with the Myanmar navy towards the AA within the India-Myanmar border space. Its operation was meant to remove the AA from the border area, the place India is hoping to implement the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Undertaking connecting Mizoram to Kolkata by way of Rakhine State’s capital Sittwe.

The Indian authorities seemingly believed that the armed motion of the ULA/AA was only a non permanent rebellion and that the Myanmar navy would finally be capable of eradicate the insurgents. Nevertheless, the armed battle of 2018-2020 ended with AA nonetheless accountable for its primary strongholds in Rakhine, which appears to have shifted opinion inside Indian decision-making circles about the necessity to negotiate with the ULA/AA. On August 11 of final yr, for example, the ULA/AA spokesperson mentioned in a web-based press convention that the group had taken half in negotiations with New Delhi on the implementation of the Kaladan mission.

Nevertheless, the Indian authorities nonetheless hasn’t overtly engaged with the ULA/AA, and with a view to keep good relations with the Myanmar navy, has remained largely silent in regards to the atrocities dedicated by the navy since its coup on February 1, 2021, regardless of the junta arresting over 17,000 and killing practically 2,900 of its personal residents, together with kids. As an alternative, the Indian authorities is attempting to finalize and implement the Kaladan transport mission. On January 9, India’s Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal mentioned the mission was “able to function.”

NULA/AA officers Khaing Mra Wa, Gen. Khaing Raza, and Maj. Khine Kyaw Khine after assembly with officers from the Indian intelligence company RAW, on the Vara Va camp within the India-Bangladesh-Myanmar border space, December, 22, 1995. (Photograph courtesy Maj. Khine Kyaw Khine)

Total, India’s present strategy towards Myanmar is puzzling. The native safety equipment in India’s jap provinces has often arrested not simply the members of the anti-junta resistance but additionally refugees who’ve fled throughout the Myanmar-India border because of Myanmar navy assaults. One other essential subject is the truth that the Myanmar junta forces have used Indian insurgent forces to stage assaults towards the resistance within the higher Sagaing Area, near India’s border.

Nevertheless, the rising energy of the Rakhine motion for dwelling rule, led by the ULA/AA, demonstrates that New Delhi’s technique towards the present junta is serving neither its nationwide curiosity nor the pursuits of the Myanmar folks. On the subject of the Kaladan mission in northern Rakhine State, a precedence for New Delhi, the federal government’s present strategy is generally counterproductive, given the ULA/AA’s affect over the Rakhine State.

Now’s the time for New Delhi to treatment the errors in its coverage towards the Rakhine battle and the nation’s anti-junta resistance motion extra broadly. An excellent place to start out could be to acknowledge India’s betrayal of the Rakhine revolution in 1998 and atone for its previous errors by forging a brand new cooperative path with the Rakhine folks.