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China, India tensions put Myanmar in the middle
By BERTIL LINTNER is a Swedish journalist, author and strategic consultant > MAY 29, 2020
Flights out of Myanmar have been rare during the Covid-19 crisis, but there was a remarkable exception on May 14. A special plane provided by the Myanmar military flew from the small town of Hkamti in Northern Sagaing Region to Imphal in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur and then on to Guwahati in Assam. Onboard were 12 Manipuri insurgents and another ten from Assam.
The Myanmar military was handing them over to Indian authorities in an equally unusual gesture of goodwill. Seen in a broader perspective, it reflects the Myanmar military’s policy of diversifying its foreign contacts and lessening its long-standing dependence on China for security and arms.
It now takes on added strategic significance as China and India mount troops along their contested northern border, bringing the long-time rivals closer to conflict than they have been in years. Myanmar could thus soon be pushed and pulled in countervailing directions as that big power tussle over territory plays out.
Myanmar is firmly stuck between the two Asian giants. Indian insurgents have maintained sanctuaries inside Myanmar since the late 1960s. From there, they have often launch raids into states like Nagaland, Manipur and Assam and then retreat back safely across the border beyond the reach of Indian forces.
Myanmar authorities, burdened with more pressing threats posed by ethnic insurgencies elsewhere in the country, had consistently looked the other way and even denied the existence of the remote insurgent camps. The turning point came in February 2019, when the Myanmar army raided Taga in upper Sagaing Region where the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K) shared its headquarters with rebels from India’s northeast.
Shangwang Shangyung Khaplang, a Myanmar Naga, died in June 2017, but the organization still carries his name to distinguish it from NSCN-IM where “IM” stans for Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, the Nagas from Nagaland and Manipur respectively.
Isak passed in June 2016, and Muivah is alive in India, where he since 1997 has been involved with largely inconclusive peace talks with Indian authorities. The insurgents, who were repatriated to India this month, had been arrested on different occasions in the wake of the raid on Taga in January last year. At the same time, the Myanmar military also apprehended five high-ranking NSCN-K officials.
They were Nagas from Myanmar and therefore Myanmar citizens. In November last year, they were sentenced by a court in Hkamti to two years’ imprisonment under Myanmar’s draconian Unlawful Associations Act, a colonial era law dating back to 1908. The Indian insurgents were given two-year sentences under the same law and were also held in Hkamti jail.
Then came an amnesty in mid-April to mark Thingyan, the traditional New Year, at which almost 25,000 prisoners were released. It did not include human rights workers and political dissidents, but, in a response to an appeal from the local Naga Literature and Cultural Association, those five Nagas were released.
As the amnesty also did not cover foreign citizens, the Manipuris and those from Assam were not set free. But through backdoor diplomacy, India’s security services managed to secure their release as well and subsequent repatriation to India.They came from three different Manipuri groups, an ethnic Bodo outfit in Assam, and a group that wants to carve out an independent entity of six districts in northern West Bengal and four contiguous areas in Assam.
