the tide of War appears to be turning

against the Myanmar military

regime within the space of a few days
several towns these were
captured
as myanmar's humanitarian crisis
continues 3 years since the military
takeover there have been over 2 million
people uh displaced when the dust
settles what will become of the baged
country we will see a lot of different
armed groups controlling their own
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territory
Karen State Eastern
Myanmar somewhere in the mountain
terrain these young people are out under
the stars keeping warm by the
campfire it's Christmas a time to gather
and be
merry while the holidays are a break
from school or work for most young
people here things are different
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these youths are Rebel soldiers from the
urban revolutionary front embroiled in a
deadly civil war against myanmar's
military
government whose forces are air 32 km
away
the URF is an armed resistance Group
which formed in
2021 the military toppled myanmar's
elected government in February of that
year on the grounds that it subverted
the
election
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the military took control forming a
government known as the state
Administration Council or
sac
since the coup the sac has waged deadly
battles against the armed resistance
groups throughout the
country one report estimated that almost
7,000 civilians have been killed and
another 2,600 injured in months after
the coup although numbers are likly
higher in fighting the jint resistance
groups like The URF have found
themselves
outgunned
the rebels and the military Trader blows
for over 2 years neither side gaining
much
ground then on October 27th 2023 a
dramatic Turning Point Rebel forces
launched operation
1027 so 1027 is a an offensive by the
three Brotherhood Alliance which
comprises the mymar national Democratic
Alliance Army the Tang National
Liberation Army and the arakan army so
these three ethnic armed organizations
have taken over hundreds of military
outposts and bases and taken over about
a dozen key towns in northern Shan State
uh and I think they've gained territory
at a quite a surprising rate uh since
the cool we've not seen anything like
this and uh within the space of a few
days uh several towns um District level
towns border uh I think uh the more
strategic locations along the uh the
trade route with China uh these were
captured Morgan Michaels of The
International Institute for strategic
studies leads to production of the
Myanmar conflict map which shows the
state of the armed conflict in the
country so 1027 was launched uh in
Northern sha State along the border with
China the Brotherhood Alliance so far
has been able to capture the cocine
self-administered Zone uh in this area
and the other is the palong self admin
Minister Zone in this area we saw also
saw intensified tax on the regime uh in
Sag and then of course one of the
members of the three Brotherhood
Alliance the iraan Army uh has launched
its own campaign here in rine
state to understand the offensive we
have to first understand the ethnic
makeup of Myanmar there are 135 ethnic
groups in the country divided into eight
main ones each concentrated in different
are areas the majority are the Bama or
burmes who live mostly in the irawadi
Basin then they are the chin the kachin
the Shan the rakine the Kaya the Ken and
the
mon many of these ethnic groups have
been fighting for autonomy even before
the
coup Myanmar has been embroiled in armed
conflict uh for the last 75 years prior
to the 202 C fighting was mostly
concentrated in the peripheries of the
country and then over the last uh decade
several groups Rose to prominence uh
these are the three Brotherhood Alliance
groups ethnic separatist groups are
collectively known as ethnic armed
organizations or
eaos after February 2021 they stepped up
their fight against the military what
made operation 1027 different was how
the these desperate Rebels came
together that that folks were actually
apparently working together in
communication coordinating their
military and tactics that is the
impression that we're getting is the
biggest change in the in the game the
key issue here was that it seemed that
these groups that are normally working
independently of of each other seem to
be working in coordination with each
other and that uh was a surprise and was
able to the combined numbers seemed to
overwhelm the the ability of these local
bases and the and the and the military
to to re to push these guys
away by the end of November 2023 the
Brotherhood Alliance claimed that over
220 military outposts and positions have
fallen to the rebels perhaps sensing the
Jin's vulnerability other resistance
groups join the frey launching operation
1111 on November 11th
operation 111's main objective is to
capture the kayos state capital of lyo
and so to do this uh hundreds if not
thousands of Ken Fighters uh pulled
themselves from the rural areas of the
state and converged on the city uh
launching a major urban assault and were
able to capture about half the city in
several
weeks then there is one other important
faction in the war when the military
took control in
2021 they oued the democratically
elected government mostly made up of the
national league for
democracy the deposed nldd leaders fled
Yangon and reformed as the national
Unity government or the
nug and so they formed their their
government and are in a sense a
government Exile but they have a lot of
support you know of many of the folks
who saw that their future in a sense had
uh been robbed you know by the actions
of the military when they enacted
emergency law in in
2021 and from the supporters of the nug
and armed resistance would
CIS these are the so-called people's
Defense Forces uh which rose up in
opposition uh to the military's power
grab uh people's Defense Forces are
mainly concentrated in the center of the
country in an area known as the dry Zone
this is uh where the Bama majority
lives from the captured city of Loy cow
28-year-old cortet a leader of the urban
revolutionary front is planning their
next
move
broadly United by a common foe the nug
and the ethnic armed organizations
appear to be on the same side but with
different goals and allegiances the real
picture is a complicated
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one of the 20 or so EOS there are some
that are explicitly aligned with the nug
and then there are some who keep quiet
about it but in in in spirit aligned
with the goals of the nug and then there
are others who have a are more
interested in safeguarding their own
autonomy and are less involved in the
contestations between the nug and the
SEC for the PDFs there are PDFs that are
hundreds of PDFs under the direction of
the n's Ministry of defense and there
are also lots of smaller local Defense
Forces that are inclined to stay in
their own area and protect their own uh
civilians from raids from the SA or the
mymar
military nonetheless According to some
reports the combined nug and ethnic
Fighters number over
200,000 this outnumbers the
military's 15,000
troops pretty much all of the groups
that are fighting the Myanmar military
regime uh share a common interest uh in
either defeating the regime or at least
seeing it significantly weakened or
removed from politics and so that is a
unifying uh Common Ground across the
broad opposition movement in the
country this common goal has given the
resistance success in the recent months
but how long can this
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last
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since operation 1027 the military Hunter
has been the back foot losing territory
to the
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rebels
well there are several significant
factors behind the Brotherhood Alliance
alliance's success uh first of all these
are not new armed organizations these
are experienced Insurgent outfits uh
that have been fighting the military off
and on for the past decade and a half so
there's a lot of experience that these
groups have uh also the Brotherhood
Alliance since the 2021 coup uh did not
openly join the armed opposition
movement uh to the new regime uh instead
they sort of abided by an informal
ceasefire with the regime uh and laid
low and during this time they uh were
arming recruiting uh preparing and
planning currently the junas might is
Consolidated in the central plains
around urban areas like gangan and napor
the rural parts of the country are where
the military is being pushed
back
sat
if the resolve is strong among the
Rebels the picture appears different on
the other
side since
10:27 thousands of jentle forces have
abandoned the fight some fled across the
border to neighboring countries While
others defected and joined the
opposition
so
in terms of the military of course
there's there's there stories of
dissension and and and changing in the
ranks and and and low morale when the
Army sees itself as being the Protectors
of the country and they're seeing that
many of the people of the country don't
see them that way it's got to be a very
difficult position to operate in the
military's uh it's being challenged
across the country so its forces are
overstretched and its strategy has been
to try to hang on to uh static
territories uh and so it's been unable
to Pivot to mobile operations or other
fighting styles that may have been more
successful from a broader perspective uh
the military seems very weak and it
seems potentially beatable uh probably
for the first time since the
coup in this battle of attrition who
comes out on top will depend on which
side can fill their War
coffers so where are the the rebel
groups getting their
funds the newer opposition forces are
relying on crowdfunding and donations uh
but the more established ethnic armed
organizations uh are more tied into the
the country's long-standing conflict
economies uh they operate a number of
businesses uh some of them could be
hotels uh even in in regime areas but
there's also a lot of resource
extraction in Myanmar uh and there are
also some illicit economies uh related
to the drug
trade a report by the United Nations
office on drugs crime say that since the
coup in 2021 there has been a surge in
synthetic drug production in
Myanmar The Yaba tablet trade used to be
about 2% a year that they would produce
of the total that was seized in the
region uh we're up almost to 30% since
the coup so it's been a really really
big Jump by small producers and it's
coming out of the same areas where the
armed groups or non-state armed groups
that are uh basically countering the
government happen to be based there's
chaos in those areas right now which are
perfect conditions for producing
traffickers there's money to be made in
the trade all along the value chain from
the production Point all the way through
to the borders of other
countries on the other side the military
regime has the advantage of the Central
Bank State economy and
taxes but it is also facing severe
challenges according to the World Bank
myanmar's GDP is expected to grow 1% in
2024 the US and EU have collectively
issued some seven rounds of economic
sanctions the value of the currency the
chat has plummeted inflation has
skyrocketed and foreign investment has
all but
vanished they are struggling right now
because the state is is weaker than it's
ever been they don't have U they're
trying to recover from the economic
crisis that Co brought around so they're
already operating at a disadvantage but
the second thing that we're also
operating in a disadvantage is also in
the sense that the the state itself the
Civil Service personnel has been
severely weakened with many of the civil
servants and so forth stepping away from
their offices and their roles either out
of protest or out of fear or whatever
and and so the state isn't operating
either at the at the capacity there have
been rising costs of living inflation
power Cuts have increased the cost of
fuel has skyrocketed as well in recent
months and behind the scenes one power
broker could tip the
balance
China when the military grabbed power in
the 2021 coup China was one of the first
countries to engage with the
regime China refused to condemn the coup
and called it a major cabinet reshuffle
in effect legitimizing the military
government
China has always played a role in
myanmar's conflicts uh it supports both
sides it provides diplomatic support and
weapons to the military regime and it
also provides diplomatic support and at
least indirectly weapons and Munitions
to some of the ethnic armed
organizations Myanmar and China share a
border that's more than 2,000 km long
bilateral relations have traditionally
been warm with China being myanmar's top
trading
partner China's interest interest in
myma has has always been one um of you
know strategic engagement they've been
there with different governments um
they're interested in in my's resources
they're interested in access to the Bay
of Bengal it's also part of the broader
brri um uh framework and so from a
strategic standpoint it's anything to
stabilize um the the Borderland area um
is something that I think they would um
promote
but as the sa's control of the outskirts
deteriorated there was a surge in
crossborder crime including cyber scams
drug trafficking and online gambling of
which Chinese citizens were the victims
there has been an issue which has become
a thorn in the side of Beijing are these
scam centers across the country but
especially in Northern sha State uh
where tens of thousands of national
foreign Nationals including Chinese
National
have been trafficked uh into slave likee
conditions uh and forced to uh to
operate these digital scam centers and
so China had uh protested these asked
the regime to crack down on these uh and
the regime essentially did not
comply with the success of operation
1027 observers looked for signs if China
has turned its back on the
regime despite speculations Beijing has
maintained it was not involved in the
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fighting I think the the Chinese would
have known of the operation uh that it
was commencing soon uh they have always
provided uh Military Support uh to these
ethnic armed
organizations
uh people say that there was T sit
approval I think it's less a a green
light than the absence of a red light in
the case of the Chinese I think one of
the key factors uh in the success of
operation 1027 is the Firepower
available to these groups uh some of
these weapons are originating from other
groups uh but at least the base inputs
uh for these weapons and the Munitions
uh are coming from China and so without
access to this weapons markets these
groups would have never been able to
capture these territories uh and so uh
China plays an important role
there as it lost ground the military
turned to the one trump card it
has advanced
Weaponry in the form of air
strikes and artillery
fire
sadly tragically of course the myar
military's response has been uh with to
use more aerial power and and that has
uh has uh very sad and unfortunate
consequences of course on many
communities who are kind of caught in
the crossfires of the conflict areas and
displacing even more
people the humanitarian crisis in
Myanmar is spiraling the UN Refugee
agency estimated that almost 2 million
people are displaced within Myanmar and
another 1 million have fled the country
and the burden is falling on its
neighbors
the Karen Hills of myanmar's Shan State
serve as a base for some members of the
Ken nationality's Defense
Force it's a new group formed after the
2021
coup the kdf scored victories in the
recent months capturing several major
towns including the regional capital
Loa 21-year-old pad joined the k&f about
a year ago he's the only child of a
single
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mother
as the fighting rages on in Myanmar
ordinary citizens are caught in the
crossfire the UN Refugee agency reports
that many have left their homes and
escaped to other parts of the
country they are known as internally
displaced peoples or
idps there have been over 2 million
people uh displaced uh the military has
burned down upwards of 70,000 homes
across the country there is a a very
serious risk for idps of being caught up
in the fighting in the crossfire but
also of being hit by air strikes and we
get news of of casualties from air
strikes almost Every Other
Day 69-year-old Dam is from meay Village
one of some 4,000 villages in the cayen
state in the Southeastern part of
Myanmar she's lived in the village her
whole life raising chickens and farming
the land until last March when the
fighting reached her
area
foree together with her daughter and two
granddaughters they abandoned their home
and fled into the forest with over 40%
of the country covered by forests the
trees provided cover from
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bombardment
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for
Fore
uh they are often cut off from Aid
groups because they're in Conflict areas
these are very remote areas in the
peripheries difficult to reach uh the
economic situation in these areas is
already difficult uh so there isn't
necessarily uh stockpiles of medicine or
food available to these uh internally
displaced person
after 2 weeks of hiding in the jungle
Doria and her family found the nearest
refugee camp on the thong River on the
border with
Thailand the camp is called T Po and
it's subdivided into six sites there are
some 1,400 refugees here in
total
when we talk about a million displac
people um what that means to to the
everyday people is not being sick and
not having the medicine being hungry and
not having the food being thirsty not
having the the water you know not being
able to go to school for for kids um not
taking care of your basic hygiene and
and diseases and so forth building on
top of that bdbd f
Wawa I is a medical doctor in the same
refugee camp as
D there are 15 medical staff including
three doctors he started working in the
area in December 2021 when it wasn't
even a refugee camp
then
January
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February
while the fighting has not reach reach
the big cities living is also proving
difficult 56y old tantan and her family
moved from her Village to yangan 2 years
after the 2021
coup
for
the humanitarian crisis has also spread
to myanmar's neighbors the country's
shared border with Thailand is some
2,400 km
long while it has 20 official
checkpoints most of the border is porous
Thailand hosts over 990,000 refugees
from
Myanmar about 45,000 of them arrived
after the 2021
coup the ties having you know
instability and Civil War on your border
is not something that you're going to be
uh looking forward to Thailand is one of
the largest um trading partners with
myma this has got to be hurting their um
economic uh situation as well not to
mention the the communities that moving
back and forth across a very long border
so a lot of this displacement is more
around Northern Chan State uh the
displacements uh that is closer to the
tii borders in Karen and Karen States
the ties have always allowed Civil
Society to operate along its borders
quietly I think Thailand is is
absolutely essential to to the future of
Myanmar uh not just because it shares
that border but there's a need for a lot
of humanitarian assistance to come
across that
border but what is the future for
Myanmar when the dust settles what will
be left of what was once Asia's richest
country after months of intense
fighting
the new year has brought some semblance
of
Peace on January 12th
2024 the military regime and the
Brotherhood Alliance announced a
ceasefire so the ceasefire is very
significant because the military agreed
to it uh not because necessarily it was
trying to achieve peace or reduction in
hostilities but because it's essentially
been beaten uh in this area of Northern
sha State uh and to prevent further
losses to prevent the Alliance from
continuing to move on regime territories
the regime has agreed to this ceasefire
uh and the opposition groups also agreed
to this ceasefire because they have
essentially captured their objectives at
this
point
the Chinese had a big hand in brokering
the
ceasefire
China was likely willing to see the
Brotherhood groups uh capture their own
territories uh once this problem became
much bigger for the Myanmar uh
military uh China started to pressure
all sides to negotiate and to reduce
hostilities Insight reached out to the
state Administration Council by email
for their response to the ceasefire and
their plans to uphold peace peace we
have not received a
reply currently the ceasefire looks
shaky within days of the agreement the
Tang National Liberation Army part of
the three Brotherhood Alliance accused
the military of
attacks in rakine state the arakan Army
continued to seize territory from the
Juna and outside of the three
Brotherhood Alliance other groups are
Keen to keep
fighting
apart from China other external groups
could hold the keys to peace in
particular myanmar's Neighbors in asan
the association of Southeast Asian
Nations
so asan I think is the organization that
has a standing and the interest to play
a role in the in the Myanmar crisis so I
think what asan can do is as Indonesia
has done in 2023 which is to
facilitate all kinds of conversations
with and between uh stakeholders in
Myanmar on January 29th asan held its
annual foreign Minister's meeting in
Laos where for the first time in over 2
years the me military government sent a
non-political
representative asan has B the Juna
leadership from meetings for failing to
progress the organization's fivepoint
peace
plan so Asian's line is that it wants an
all-inclusive dialogue it wants to talk
to everybody so that is a very complex
line to balance if you are openly
talking to the SEC you may not be able
to reach some of the stakeholders if you
are talking with certain stakeholders
you may not be able to talk to the sa
there are a lot of groups that will not
accept uh any form of discussion of the
sa uh it's also not clear that the sa at
this time is a reliable dialogue partner
at
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all then in a surprise move on February
10th the Juna ordered a nationwide
conscription for men between the ages of
18 to 35 and women between the ages of
18 and
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27 the sa is looking to show up its
troop
strength but conscription could also
Drive some to sign up with the rebels
instead in either case the fighting is
likely to drag and it is difficult to
say who will come out on
top yeah it's quite messy the the whole
thing because the resistance itself is
made up of so many different groups so
different groups will see what a win
might be very differently I mean a win
by the more urban Elites might be taking
over the government and establishing a
new constitution
uh that's something that's very
different from what the eaos are looking
at I think
that uh we will not be able to see a
single force or a single leader or a
single
organization uh come up to take control
or to govern the whole of the country at
least for many years to come we will see
a lot of different armed groups
controlling their own territory and
making sure that their own territory is
uh safe from external attacks first
another possibility is that the military
could begin to recede in fact we're
already seeing this uh recede from the
peripheries of the country lose greater
control over the ethnic States uh and
essentially become a rump State uh
confined to the center of the
country and while the nug and the eaos
are currently United by a common
foe it's unclear if this solidarity will
continue once hostilities
end many people see the nug as the
legitimate government of the country and
many see that the only way forward is
for the energ to come into power and
which would immediately some say would
get recognition from aan and other
countries in the world I'm not sure it's
going to be as smooth and as simple as
that the nug itself it's made up of
different groups being able to find
consensus amongst themselves the
leadership is not even in the country
it's in outside of the country um so
it's an an exile government
and I think if a political vacuum were
to emerge you're going to see like what
you had when the British left you had a
political vacuum everyone started
fighting each
other the n's claims of legitimacy are
its ties to the National League of
democracy or nld the civilian government
ousted by the
Juna the nld had previously achieved
electoral Victory because of the
popularity of its General Secretary Onan
sui
angan sui was immediately imprisoned uh
by the myar military following the 2021
coup and she remains in prison at this
time uh there is no uh single figure in
Myanmar uh who comes close to
representing the sort of unifying Figure
Head that Anansi was for the country so
I don't think it's healthy actually to
have an anonui as the Savior you know
for the country the system is not going
to work um purely through through the
Charisma of a single person anymore the
biggest challenge is that there hasn't
haven't been any leaders that have been
able to articulate a a cohesive Vision
that everyone can buy into through a
language that everyone can understand um
with um with hopes and aspirations that
people
can um can accept and work
towards a large proportion of the
Myanmar population wants to cre create a
federal Democratic Union so they are
very clear that this is not business as
usual it is not regime change meaning we
take away the sa and replace it with a
set of democratic rulers now whether All
actors are on board with this vision of
Revolution and whether they agree on the
same vision of Revolution uh that's
that's not entirely
clear for now at least in the
Borderlands of the northern Shan state
the precarious ceasefire is
holding and in this fragile peace the
people of Myanmar can dream of their own
and the country's