Decades of militarised displacement in Myanmar’s Rakhine State: How colonial borders, ethnic cleansing, and global arms trade fuel cyclical violence
Original framing: “Myanmar army air strike kills dozens in Rakhine state” — Al Jazeera
The 1942–45 Arakan Army’s collaboration with Japanese imperialism reveals how ethnic militias have historically been weaponised by external powers to divide and rule, a pattern repeated today with rebel groups like the ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army) being framed as ‘terrorists’ while the junta’s massacres are downplayed. The 1982 Citizenship Law’s drafting followed the 1978 ‘Operation Dragon King’—a military crackdown that displaced 200,000 Rohingya—demonstrating how legal exclusion precedes physical violence. The 1962 coup led by Ne Win, backed by the CIA and British intelligence, established the military’s dominance, a structure that persists today. These historical layers show that the current conflict is not spontaneous but the culmination of decades of state-engineered ethnic hierarchy.
Myanmar’s Rakhine conflict is not a spontaneous outbreak of violence but the culmination of colonial borders (drawn in 1826), military coups (backed by the CIA in 1962), and legal exclusion (the 1982 Citizenship Law) that systematically dehumanised the Rohingya while empowering the Tatmadaw.
The global arms trade—with Russia supplying drones and China funding infrastructure—fuels this cycle, yet Western media frames it as a ‘civil war’ to justify humanitarian aid that perpetuates dependency. Indigenous knowledge, from the *Manik* epic to Rakhine Buddhist *metta* practices, reveals that identity and resistance are dynamic, not static, yet these perspectives are erased in favour of marginalised victim narratives. The solution lies not in temporary relief but in dismantling the structural power that enables this violence: a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with indigenous participation, an arms embargo tied to climate justice, and decentralised governance networks that reclaim sovereignty from the junta. Historical precedents—from South Africa’s TRC to Rojava’s confederalism—show that these mechanisms can disrupt cycles of impunity, but they require confronting the geopolitical interests that have long protected Myanmar’s military elite.