INDIA	MYANMAR

India-Myanmar: Positive Developments

Reports on March 4, 2019, stated that 500 Tatmadaw (Myanmar Military) personnel dismantled Indian Insurgent Groups’ (IIGs) infrastructure located in the Taga area of the Sagaing Region in north-western Myanmar. The Security Forces (SFs) took over control of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) ‘head quarters’ in operations over the last week of February 2019 (date not specified). Significantly, a note by Tatmadaw stated that the crackdown started on January 29, 2019.

SFs also seized two ‘military training schools’ and two United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) outposts, located southwest of Taka village (in the same region), as well as a temporary base of ULFA-I located west of Taka, also during the last week of February 2019. The crackdown came after NSCN-K refused to follow Tatmadaw’s reported order to drive out all non-Myanmarese militants from the region.

The only fatality in the crackdown was an ULFA-I militant, identified as ‘major’ Jyotirmoy Asom, who was killed in a fire fight on February 2. ULFA-I has an estimated 150 cadres in Myanmar. 79 assorted arms and some ammunition were recovered from the camps and at least 12 militants, including six NSCN-K militants, were arrested.

The IIG’s targeted during the crackdown include NSCN-K, ULFA-I, Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), and National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Saraigwra (NDFB-S). It has been estimated that about 2,000 cadres of various IIGs are based in Myanmar.

Reports, meanwhile indicate that NSCN-K ‘military chief’ Niki Sumi has moved north towards the China border, while other IIGs have been pushed to the region occupied by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in North Myanmar.

Referring to the crackdown in an interview published on February 23, 2019, ULFA-I ‘chairman’ Paresh Baruah, disclosed,

Earlier, on February 20, 2019, NSCN-K ‘central executive committee’ member U. Kyaw Wan Sein had revealed,

It is useful to recall that this is not the first time that the Myanmar Army has targeted infrastructure of IIGs, particularly the NSCN-K, in Myanmar. In July 2018, a minor confrontation had occurred between NSCN-K and Tatmadaw over a NSCN-K check-post near a Buddhist temple at Taga. Isak Sumi, the then spokesperson of NSCN-K, had claimed that the “stand-off between the Myanmar Army and the Naga Army has temporarily been resolved without untoward incident, but the Naga Army had to make a tactical withdrawal”. In 1995, after some persuasion, the Myanmar Army agreed to conduct joint counter-insurgency operations with the Indian Army. Operation Golden bird was launched to intercept a party of the NSCN-IM, ULFA and the NDFB. In the midst of the operation, after 38 militants had been killed and more than a hundred weapons captured, New Delhi announced the Nehru Award to Aung San Su Kyi. Offended, the Myanmar Army abruptly called off the Operation, and it is estimated that more than a hundred militants escaped with their weapons.

Tatmadaw is irked with the NSCN-K which has allowed Myanmar insurgent groups such as Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) to traverse across north-eastern and north-western Myanmar through its area. According to a February 28 a report, former Tatmadaw official had stated that NSCN-K has helped replenish armed groups of Myanmar fighting the Tatmadaw.

The crackdown can also to be seen in the context of the Tatmadaw’s renewed military operation against the Arakan Army (AA). NSCN-K’s area in Myanmar is a strategically important region for Tatmadaw’s ongoing operations against AA since November 2018. The violence has spilled over from the Rakhine to the Chin State, adjacent to the Sagaing Region.

Moreover, impatience is growing in the Myanmar capital, Nay Pyi Daw, as NSCN-K refuses to give up its demand of an Independent Naga homeland (comprising Naga inhabited regions in Myanmar and India) and to sign the National Cease Fire Agreement (NCA). NSCN-K has only signed a regional cease fire agreement with Myanmar. The ceasefire agreement signed on April 9, 2012, is only applicable in the Sagaing Region.

As the Myanmar Army seeks to get an upper hand before the onset of monsoon, the Tatmadaw offensive will primarily target AA and, as a secondary effect, probably weaken IIGs, which will be forced to seek alternative safe areas. Tatmadaw operations have been calibrated to avoid large-scale fatalities or open up another front for the military, which is already fighting a plethora of ethnic insurgencies in the Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States. That being said, these operations will further weaken the NSCN-K, which recently suffered a split.

Conspicuously, this military operation augurs well for India-Myanmar relations. In New Delhi’s perspective, the recent military operation is the outcome of its continuous diplomatic efforts and military to military cooperation with the Myanmar (the latest developments being the December 2018 visit by senior military officials to Myanmar and the defence exchange program in which 120 Myanmar Defence personnel visited India). The Indian Government’s February 17, 2019, decision to deploy two additional companies of the Indian Army in Lawngtlai District (Mizoram), bordering Myanmar, to stop AA militants from entering its territory, can also be seen in this context.

M.A. Athul
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management