BANGKOK (AP) — Recently renewed struggle In northeastern Myanmar, fighting between military government forces and ethnic minority militias has become more complicated in recent days, with two minority groups previously not involved in the fighting joining the fray, claiming to be a third force for stability.
The intervention of the powerful forces of the United Wa State Army and the Shan State Army-North highlights the tensions between the different ethnic minority guerrilla groups who have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government.
While many of the groups have alliances with the pro-democracy resistance movements that emerged to challenge military rule after the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi In 2021, they prioritize their own goals, including control of territory.
Each group’s focus is now on Lashio, which is about 210 kilometers (130 miles) northeast of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city and headquarters of the northeastern military command of Myanmar’s ruling generals.
Two ethnic armed groups, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), had advanced last week Lashio, the largest city in northern Shan State. The TNLA represents the Ta’ang or Palaung ethnic minority, and the MNDAA is a military force of the Kokang minority, who are ethnic Chinese.
The two groups were part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which launched a surprise offensive last October that managed to seize large swaths of territory along the border with China. The current fighting, which began last month, marked the end of a Chinese-brokered ceasefire that effectively ended fighting between the military and the alliance.
But the United Wa State Army and Shan State Army-North, which were not involved in the October offensive, moved their own soldiers into the Lashio area late last week, apparently preventing the TNLA and MNDAA offensive.
The United Wa State Army announced it had sent about 2,000 troops Thursday to Tangyan, a township bordering Lashio that has been under attack by the TNLA. Tangyan is believed to be home to a large number of ethnic Wa.
The Wa Army is the largest and strongest ethnic armed organization in Myanmar, with a force of about 30,000 well-equipped soldiers and advanced weapons including heavy artillery and helicopters from China, with which it has close ties.
Nyi Rang, a liaison officer for the group, told The Associated Press in a report Friday that the move was intended to prevent the armed conflict from spreading to the city. He said the Wa group had negotiated with the military government at the request of residents before deploying its troops.
The Northern Shan State Army sent more than 1,000 troops Friday and Saturday to nearby Mongyai township, where the MNDAA is fighting the Myanmar military. The Shan consider Mongyai an area within their sphere of influence that cannot be taken over by another group.
The group released a statement on its Facebook media saying it had sent troops for the stability of the region and the safety of the population.
“It’s the area we dominated,” Col. Sai Su, the group’s spokesman, said in the report. “So we did it to prevent the city from falling into the hands of other organizations and to keep it under the control of the Shan State Army. People also asked us to protect them.”
Two Mongyai residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told the AP on Sunday that their area was calm after the Shan troops were deployed. One of them said Wa troops were also stationed nearby.
All the ethnic armed groups involved in the situation in Shan State have close ties to China. It is widely believed that last October’s offensive had Beijing’s tacit approval, amid growing discontent over the military government’s apparent indifference to the burgeoning drug trade along the border and the proliferation of cyber-scam centers in Myanmar, with workers smuggled in from China and elsewhere in the region.
Beijing has made it clear that it strongly supports a crackdown on scammers. Tens of thousands of employees of scam operations have been repatriated to China, while the MNDAA, which supported the effort, was allowed to retake a key border town it once controlled.
However, China’s main interest in the region is to maintain stability, which is threatened by the renewed fighting. Therefore, China is likely to support the efforts of the Wa and Shan to contain the TNLA and MNDAA.