Clash a reminder of underlying tension

The fighting in the eastern town of Myawaddy on the Thai border between ethnic minority Karen rebels and government forces broke out.

Five Thai villagers were wounded when four rocket-propelled grenades landed on Thai soil, a Thai official said, as several thousand people fled the fighting in one of the main trade gateways along the 1,800 km (1,100 mile) border with Thailand.

Animosity between majority Burmans and ethnic minorities in the hilly borderlands that form a horseshoe around the central Irrawaddy river plain goes back centuries.

“Nothing’s been resolved,” said David Mathieson, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The election hasn’t resolved any of the underlying causes of the civil war.”

Karen fighters have passed their war against the government down the generations since the then-Burma won independence in 1948 from British colonial rulers who had taken advantage of ethnic divisions to help maintain control.

Karen nationalists at first demanded an independent state but more recently have sought autonomy within a federal Myanmar, as have other minorities such as the Kachin, Shan and Wa.

But such calls spell nothing but trouble in the eyes of the army which is dominated by Burmans, who make up about 65 percent of the population, and sees one of its most crucial roles as preventing the break-up of the country.

Hostilies
Over the years, battered by an increasingly powerful army, most minority factions have struck ceasefires with the government under which they’ve been allowed to keep their weapons and run their enclaves.

But tension has flared as the army tried to absorb those groups into a military-run Border Guard Force by the election.

Main factions balked but with the election now out of the way, the army is expected to try to force them into line.

“It’s quite possible hostilities will break out,” said veteran Myanmar-analyst and author Bertil Lintner. “There’s going to be trouble but exactly in what shape or form is hard to tell.”

The Karen battling soldiers in Myawaddy are from a splinter faction of a ceasefire group that objects to being forced into the Border Guard Force. Other factions including the Kachin and the Wa along the border with China are also resisting.

“Being absorbed into the military power structure not just robs them of their identity but it makes them subordinate and robs them of whatever political aspirations they’ve had,” said Mathieson at Human Rights Watch.

China, building gas and oil pipelines from Myanmar to fuel its economy, is loathe to see trouble that could trigger a flood of refugees and will be pressing all sides to avoid conflict.

The Myanmar government will be hoping regional assemblies being set up with this election can satisfy minorities’ aspirations for self-rule.

But it’s yet to be seen how much influence the assemblies, over which the army will hold virtual veto power, will have.

“They sound good on paper but in practice, what will they be allowed to do?,” said Mathieson.

“I think it’s an example of further divide and rule. It’s about further splitting and marginalising the ethno-nationalist organisations.”