By Tun Oo and K Wantha, GAN
Longread: Opinions March 27, 2024
AA soldiers on the destroyed junta warship (Photo/AAinfodesk)
Despite the little coverage about Arakan in international media, the recent news from our native land has been tremendously positive. In early December, the Arakan Army (AA) opened its series of military victories in its native land with the capture of a main base of the Myanmar military in Tronai, Platwa. Then, the AA moved the southward success journey liberating city after city. Only a couple of months later, in early February, the AA declared the historic capital of Mrauk U freed from the Bama military control. This is the first time since the Arakanese freedom fighters expelled the Burman occupation of the city in the early 1800s. Within one hundred days since the first major military victory in Platwa (Paletwa), the AA had captured eight townships including the first southern town of Ramree.
For the Arakanese, the news of military victories has been an excellent dose of joy. We rejoice at the heroism of our Arakanese soldiers. While we salute and are anguished over those who made their ultimate sacrifices to attain our land, we share the full confidence of our forces in repelling the potential counter-offensive of the junta soldiers. The ordinary people in Arakan understand the tremendous costs of the destruction of our homes, our communities and even our lives from the indiscriminate attacks of the junta. Yet, we pledge to stand by the AA in their unfinished military struggle to defend and maintain the momentum to rid of the military junta from the remaining parts of Arakan and Myanmar as a whole. As they have shown their military prowess at every turn, our leaders and our troops will continue to bring battle victories in our beloved land. We look on with pride and confidence on our sons and daughters in the armed struggle against the evil of the Bama military government.
Unfortunately, the good news from Arakan stops at these AA military victories. The liberated cities are being razed to the ground by the Burmese fighter jets; communities currently contested by the AA are being obliterated by the Junta’s artilleries as a deterrence approach; people in the junta-controlled areas face constant harassment. Though a sad truth, any armed conflict would cause significant destruction in infrastructure and so-called “collateral damages” in local communities. Indeed, in every part of Myanmar, the military junta has caused significant damage to communities.
The destruction in Arakan caused by the military junta may be somewhat similar to other areas in Myanmar, but there is an additional dimension that would make the recovery and reconstruction much harder, once the fighting ceased. The context in Arakan has created quadruple challenges for any reconstruction effort. Firstly, as an already cyclone-prone area, Arakan faces the increased intensification of tropical cyclones, as the recent Cyclone Mocha experience has shown. The successive maladministration of the Burmese rulers had done little for the communities in Arakan to be ready for natural challenges. This “build-in” risk of being located in the monsoon cyclone path has compounded the destructive approach of the Bama military, creating a significantly harder challenge for recovery in Arakan.
Secondly, Arakan faces historically lower levels of infrastructural development. Information based on the 2010 statistics shows “Rakhine State” as one of the lowest performers in poverty ratio, paved roads, electrification and water supply. The previous decade to 2020 had some significant infrastructure development across Myanmar, for example in access to electricity or mobile users. There might have been some superficial improvement in the region’s infrastructure from the NLD administration’s obsession with pursuing fad projects. Without a systematic or comprehensive development approach with wider political or community participation, infrastructure development in Arakan under the so-called civilian government was disappointing for the communities in Arakan. Furthermore, the already-challenged infrastructure systems in Arakan recently experienced further destruction during the recent battles. The military junta has chosen to buckle down to defend against the AA by destroying the bridges, rather than protect these valuable investments. The AA, on the other hand, has been trying to preserve these little economic fundamentals in Arakan. While the large-scale infrastructure projects may continue despite the intense violence in the region, the local communities need to link small-scale infrastructure to them in order to gain any tangible local benefits. Yet, this limited economic and social infrastructure in Arakan would be another added burden in its reconstruction once the guns are silenced.
Thirdly, Arakan is wedged between two countries that have only started to experience some economic progress in recent years. Even then, the actual trade relationships of Myanmar with Bangladesh and India have been extremely limited. Even the notoriously unreliable official data shows that cross-border trade with Bangladesh and India represented only a mere 0.22% of all trans-border trade volume. Even this meagre connectivity with Arakan’s immediate neighboring country of Bangladesh has stopped amid recent fighting in the border townships. The future of the long-promised Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project that would significantly leapfrog trade and transport connectivity with India is now under a dark cloud as most of the project areas are under the control of AA. Once the fighting ceased in these border areas, the trade connections with these two neighboring countries could recommence. However, it would still take significant effort to ignite economic development opportunities for the local communities from the border connectivity compared to those with China and Thailand.
Finally, the biggest challenge Arakan faces in its recovery and reconstruction is the lack of human resources. Myanmar’s 2014 Census information shows Rakhine State was the second highest among states to lose its populations to other states, as many Arakanese migrated out from their homeland. The long-term underdevelopment of Arakan has inevitably created the push factor, especially among younger and more productive people. With the limited educational and commercial infrastructure, the people in Arakan have been forced to seek employment or other life opportunities elsewhere. Unlike other neighboring areas, Arakan is unlikely to benefit from the demographic dividends of the youthful and dynamic population.
Each of the above four challenges in themselves would be a significant problem for any society or nation to overcome. Other parts of Myanmar may have some or all of these major challenges, but all of these are significantly higher in Arakan. Significantly, the cumulative impacts of these combined are acting as catalyzes for multiplying barriers for Arakan. Even when the persistent communal conflict had receded and despite the abundant resources both above and under the ground, these four challenges combined stood tall against Arakan.
Pathways Toward the Solutions
Now that problems are identified, how are we going to overcome them? There are three pathways to overcome these challenges. The first and fundamental pathway is local ownership in shaping the future directions of Arakan. Rakhita Lanzine has been the carillon call for the Arakanese by the ULA/AA as the organizing ideology of the national liberation. With self-determination as the central tenant, it is a political ideology for self-determination among all people of Arakan. It has energized and reshaped the Arakanese political thinking from the narrow ethnocentric political worldview that has plagued everyone in Myanmar over the last century.
Hospital destruction in Rambree town (Photo/AAinfodesk)
However, Rakhita Lanzine is not just a political ideology alone. As envisaged by the head of ULA/AA, Rakhita Lanzine also includes elements of social democracy and welfare state principles as its core values. Rakhita Lanzine consists of the political-economic agenda based on social democratic principles. It sets the foundations for how to think about policies and approaches that have the well-being and interests of the local people at the center. This would also entail the centrality of the communities in terms of their collective actions, common interests and their cohesion. Thus, Rakhita Lanzine as a political-economic agenda would ensure local cultures and interests are at the heart of any social and economic approaches.
Rakhita Lanzine also includes guidance on the economic development approach. As an organizing political ideology that puts the self-determination of each and every one of its people at the center, Rakhita Lanzine would ensure that they can exercise adequate social and economic opportunities to participate in the broader political and social lives within their communities, within their region and within Arakan. To ensure these opportunities, Rakhita Lanzine entails the notion of social safety net in one of its core philosophical foundations. How these social democratic and social safety net principles are eventuated will have to be worked through gradually by all people of Arakan, but these provide a solid foundation in addressing the complex and overlapping quadruple of challenges outlined above.
Secondly, this is also an opportunity for the national level effort to refocus on these reconstructions, through a genuine national collaboration. The recent military victories across Myanmar have certainly created political enthusiasm for genuine social and economic reforms that will genuinely benefit every corner of the country. There is a possibility of leaving behind the ineffectiveness of previous centralized reforms and shedding the sour feelings of exclusion of the local communities towards the shallow rhetoric of elected administrators. Despite this immense opportunity, we are yet to see a genuine national visionary who can grasp this golden chance to lead Myanmar into a better country.
Thirdly, this is also the international development partners to learn from their previous mistakes of evangelical approach in Myanmar, specifically in Arakan. The recent history of international aid in Arakan has not been filled with glorious memories for all communities in Arakan. Partly due to the preoccupation of the designers of aid programs with ill-informed views and biases, the international efforts have not really delivered any genuine transformation. Being ill-suited, this aid architecture will unlikely provide any impact on the aforementioned quadruple of challenges. Undoubtedly, a new strategic rethink of a new aid approach from the international agencies in Arakan. Of course, the existing aid principles would need to be at the front and center of this new approach.
Mong-phoe village's hospital destruction due to the airstrikes in Mongbra township (Photo/AAinfodesk)
However, we should be reminded that among these three pathways of recovery and reconstruction, Rakhita Lanzine remains the central pillar. As it will provide the local-led approach, the second pathway of the nationally coordinated approach and the third of a new international development architecture will provide a significant uplift in unravelling the complex development challenges that Arakan is facing once the guns are silenced and the fires are extinguished. While we dream that all these multiple efforts will come together under the visionary leadership of ULA/AA, we suspect our dream will remain simple a dream. We have seen no signal or interest from our so-called federal colleagues or international communities to genuinely understand the visions of our Rakhita Lazine. With this, we the Arakanese would only have our leaders and ourselves to take us out of the social and economic doldrums, as we are resolving the political challenges ourselves.
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