With analysts increasingly predicting that the Arakan Army (AA) may soon defeat and expel junta forces from Rakhine State in northwest Myanmar, the country is about to arrive at a potentially game-changing milestone. For the first time since the failed coup of February 1, 2021, a non-junta organization will be in control of an entire state.
As if recognizing the opportunity this moment affords to shore up its internal position as well as build bridges to regional powers, the AA announced in the third week of September that it was willing to work with key stakeholders to bring aid directly into Myanmar across the border from neighboring Bangladesh.
The need for it has never been greater. Rakhine State has seen decades of discrimination and de-development, devastating cyclones after which the junta has deliberately blocked aid, the imposition of an apartheid system on the 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State, and an on-going genocide, which has driven over a million refugees into neighboring Bangladesh.
This has been compounded by an upsurge of violence since November of last year, which has seen the forced displacement of over 530,000 people caught up in fighting between the junta and the AA, and accusations of atrocity crimes committed by both sides.
Nonetheless, civil society groups, aware of the overwhelming humanitarian need among the Rohingya and all other ethnic groups, and their increasing vulnerability in the face of worsening atrocities, have joined the call for the establishment of an emergency corridor.
The influential SAC-M group of former U.N. officials demanded this in a statement on August 19, followed shortly afterwards by nearly 30 Rohingya groups affiliated with Progressive Voice. They called on the Bangladeshi government to establish a corridor “to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid from Bangladesh” and demanded that the international community support the new administration in Dhaka to implement this initiative.
Rohingya groups have given a conditional welcome to the proposed corridor. Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation U.K., said that “Rohingya groups would like to see a humanitarian corridor established as a matter of urgency, as people are being slaughtered every day. But there must be proper guarantees that the aid is fairly distributed to all communities across Rakhine State. And we would insist that there must be an effective mechanism for protecting Rohingya people and monitoring human rights.”
Revealingly, in his first major policy address after taking office, Bangladesh’s newly appointed interim president, Mohammad Yunus, headlined Bangladesh’s commitment to supporting Rohingya refugees, calling for “sustained international efforts for Rohingya humanitarian operations and their eventual repatriation in safety, dignity, and full rights.”
This new mood has been echoed by officials on the ground. Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman welcomed the proposed corridor, particularly if it were part of far-reaching plans, long prioritized by Bangladesh, to repatriate Rohingya refugees, whose population, he says “has now swollen to 1.2 million,” with 20,000 arriving in the last three months alone. While he had concerns about a corridor being used by people to enter Bangladesh, he said “cross-border aid, if supported by groups such as the ICRC or Medecins Sans Frontieres, for the people stuck in the conflict zones, would be a good idea.”
Bangladeshi stakeholders responsible for dealing with security, and who are key to shaping Rohingya policy, also welcomed the proposed humanitarian corridor. But they argue that for the proposal to be acceptable, three conditions must be met.
Firstly, the Arakan Army “must set out a Rohingya repatriation plan that has the support of the Rohingya people, the Bangladesh authorities and the international community.” Secondly the AA “must allow Rohingya officials, community volunteers and human rights groups back into their own towns and villages under AA control, to monitor the aid corridor and distribution, but also as a signal of commitment to long-term human rights protection” and thirdly that “the AA discuss the future political position of the Rohingya People in Rakhine State with Rohingya officials, including in the camps in Bangladesh, to avoid further civil war in Rakhine State as waged by the Myanmar army, the Tatmadaw.”
Interest in a humanitarian corridor is likely to be strong among other states in the region. India has reportedly invited non-junta groups, including the AA, to a meeting in New Delhi in November, amid mounting concern about the growing number of refugees from Myanmar fleeing into India’s northeast. The Indian government is also keen to protect its $400 million Kaladan port and highway project in Myanmar’s west, and another $250 million mega-project for a road linking India’s landlocked northeastern states with Thailand, via Myanmar.
An aid official who has worked on the Thai border for over two decades told me the humanitarian corridor “could appeal to countries bordering Myanmar because it is in their own self-interest to stabilize regional security problems such as drugs and human trafficking and infectious disease crossing borders.”
As interest gathers in the proposed corridor, there is skepticism about whether the U.N. team in Myanmar should, or could be substantially involved: according to a former U.N. Resident Coordinator, Charles Petrie, the present U.N. Country Team in Myanmar lacks leadership, courage, and imagination. Furthermore, the U.N. is accused of standing by during the Rohingya genocide in 2017, as outlined in a report commissioned, and accepted in full, by Secretary General Antonio Guterres. That report was never fully implemented. In addition, deals the U.N. has struck since the coup to deliver aid in junta-controlled areas have discredited U.N. agencies by allegedly facilitating the junta’s weaponization of aid.
Against this background and with tens of thousands reportedly facing starvation, the case for large-scale cross-border assistance through Bangladesh has become overwhelming. Aid expert Damian Lilly was part of the team that set up the cross-border program from Chad into Darfur last year and also worked in Myanmar at the time of the coup. Lilly is a strong advocate of cross-border operations into Rakhine State, which he says would “be an important strategy to scale up humanitarian aid to affected populations given the inadequacy of other channels. Local organizations are on the frontlines of the conflict across Myanmar such as in Rakhine State, assisting communities in hard-to-reach areas that are off-bounds to international agencies because of junta restrictions.”
The challenge for Rakhine State is that grass-roots Rohingya groups never had a chance to organize themselves like other local communities, due to decades of discrimination, systematic persecution, and denial of fundamental rights.
“Strong community-based networks grounded on trust, equality and solidarity will need to be nurtured by the donor community, and provided with protection and security by other elements of the revolutionary movement, if they are to deliver assistance securely and at scale and their preferred model is cash transfers,” said Adelina Kamal, an independent analyst who served as the executive director of ASEAN’s humanitarian arm, the AHA Center. “Youth groups are particularly active, working across communal divisions, and are key, if cross-border assistance is to have a future,” she argued.
A bigger problem centers on well-grounded doubts over the AA’s commitment to the protection of Rohingya communities amid accusations of widespread violations of international humanitarian law. An email from the headquarters of the AA and its political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), published in the New Humanitarian in May, attempted to allay these fears. While admitting there had been “irregular challenges” they said there would be “consequences and actions for anyone who has committed any abuses and crimes.” They also claimed they would “uphold the citizenship and human rights of the Muslim residents in Arakan” to whom they would deliver “equal governmental services including security, jurisdiction, and basic welfare including healthcare and education.”
Long-standing Myanmar watchers, while skeptical, feel indigenous attempts to develop accountability systems must be given a chance. Paul Greening has been a human rights advocate and humanitarian with the U.N. and INGOs for over 20 years, working on Rohingya issues since 2008. “I am not an advocate for the AA,” he says, “but we must be strategic in our approach. The AA will soon rule Arakan so they have to be dealt with and while it is very likely they have committed crimes, it doesn’t appear to be an AA policy, but rather the work of local commanders.”
Greening says there should be independent investigations and prosecutions. “The fact that the AA has provided aid to Rohingya, has recruited Rohingya into its administration and police force, and has asked the international community for cross border aid and has engaged with organizations investigating crimes, needs to be acknowledged and encouraged,” he said.
This initiative to promote cross-border aid leading to possible repatriations comes against a background of multiple failed attempts at deconfliction by outside groups and will be fraught with political pitfalls, dilemmas, and false dawns.
But a way must, and surely will, be found, which, unlike the cross-border model rolling out on the Thai border, does not involve the junta. And clearly there can be no repeat of the 1978 repatriation of Rohingya refugees, another stain on the U.N., which UNHCR acknowledged saw as many as 10,000 refugees die.
Martin Smith has worked on Arakan and Myanmar affairs since the 1980s and has written a book on Rakhine State. He concludes that “the challenge is to provide new models for aid delivery that, with local peoples playing a full part, becomes integral to the greater challenges of conflict resolution, community-rebuilding and ending military rule in the country.”