Until a few years ago, Thanchi, a sleepy sub-district (upazila) not very far from the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Bandarban district, was a busy market town. Much of the activity – and excitement – would be generated by the almost regular incursion of Arakan Army soldiers who would cross the porous border for purchasing items of daily use. The very few Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) men deployed there at that time never objected to the presence of the Rakhine State rebels.
However, on March 25, 2023, this cozy arrangement ended abruptly when a massive fire broke out at the bustling Bolibazar market. About 52 shops went up in flames, with the loss estimated to be about BDT 6 crore. The fire, Bangladeshi political analysts said, was an outcome of “deliberate arson stemming from a conflict of interest between shopkeepers and Arakan Army insurgents”.
They said that Arakan Army insurgents had little or no problem entering Bangladeshi territory to pick up goods of daily use. The erstwhile Awami League regime, fully aware of the regular entry and exit of the Arakan Army, did not complain. The fire ensured one thing – the Arakan Army, by then in near-total control of the border, moved farther south, entering Bangladeshi villages and markets dotting the left bank of the Naf River (within Bangladesh territory) at will.
Now, however, the Arakan Army completely dominates the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. So much so that it uses speedboats to cross the river at will. And with a ‘friendly’ ally in power in Dhaka – the Mohammad Yunus-led interim authority – the Arakan Army has unhindered access to most market towns.
The deployment of a mint condition BGB battalion along the border has not deterred the Myanmarese insurgent outfit, whose ranks have begun to swell (from over 40,000-strong) as it recently took to conscription across many parts of the Rakhine State.
It is a formidable fighting force and expects to become stronger still in the event its ally, the Chin National Army, becomes a part of a coalition of insurgent forces that the US clandestinely seeks to “use” in its cover proxy war aimed at dislodging the Myanmar military junta forces from three key townships – Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Manaung – further south down the Rakhine coast.
The Yunus-led authority, primarily pushed by Bangladesh’s new National Security Adviser (NSA) Khalilur Rahman, seeks to aggressively toe and follow this US plan. It is prepared to pull out all stops to ensure the supply of – to begin with – “non-lethal” goods as enshrined in the US-scripted Burma Act.
The Bangladesh Army’s Ramu-based 10th Infantry Division is at the centre of this plan which involves moving logistics and other essential supplies to the Arakan Army from a supply base in Silkhali that is at a distance of 30 km from the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
While unconfirmed reports indicate that supplies may already have begun to move clandestinely across to the Rakhine State, the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” – earlier dubbed as a “safe corridor” – for the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in inhospitable and ramshackle camps in Kutupalong and Nayapara has come to political centrestage in Bangladesh.
What the Yunus administration had previously thought would prove to be an easy hurdle to cross is now turning into a challenge with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) fretting, if not fuming, about this objective that may just be a “cover” for the cross-border movement of all kinds of supplies, including “lethal” hardware in the months to come.
“The Bangladesh Army has become a grudging partner to Khalilur Rahman’s strategy. The officer corps is angry,” said a political analyst deeply familiar with the prevailing ground situation. The Army has in place in a “coordination centre” within the Ramu cantonment, where officers simply view Khalilur Rahman’s Rohingya plan as “essentially a movement of refugees from one camp to another (in the Rakhine State)”.
“This is fraught with risks as the Rohingya will certainly not agree to this arrangement, especially in their own land. After all, they all originate from Buthidaung and Maungdaw in the Rakhine State from where they were driven out eight years ago,” the Dhaka-based political analyst said, cautioning that the Rohingya (led by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army) are now armed. The problem has been compounded by the entry of fresh Rohingya refugees numbering nearly 130,000 in the last few months.
On April 13, a meeting of key Bangladesh officials suggested involving Norwegian authorities to work out the plans for repatriating the Rohingya. But this did not go anywhere as there was no consensus. And now, as the Rohingya repatriation plan through a so-called “humanitarian corridor” becomes an increasingly challenging issue, the Bangladeshi authorities are worried that the “larger scheme” – providing crucial supplies to the Arakan Army for its battlefield operations against the Myanmar military junta – could hit a roadblock.
Khalilur Rahman has remained in close touch with Susan Stevenson, the US Charge d’Affaires in Naypidaw, who, along with other State Department officials responsible for Southeast Asia and South Asia, is in regular touch with the Bangladeshi NSA.
A key element that does not appear to be part of the Bangladesh interim authority’s plan involving the “humanitarian corridor”, supposedly meant for Rohingya repatriation, is the non-inclusion of about 22,000 Rohingya living in scattered locations in Hyderabad, Jammu, Nuh in Haryana and Delhi.
Speaking to Northeast News, a functionary of the Delhi-based Rohingya Human Rights Initiative said that “when the remaining Rohingya living in extremely hostile conditions in Buthidaung and Maungdaw are not safe even now, how can the Yunus-led interim authority ensure the safety of all those who the Bangladeshi authorities say will now be repatriated”.
Besides, he said, “There does not appear to be a sound and durable plan or solution”. This Rohingya representative said in 2017 when the Myanmar military launched a brutal crackdown, his family fled, leaving behind five shops that were quickly occupied subsequently by Arakan Army insurgents. “There is no guarantee that violence will not erupt again,” he said.
