11-29-2023--Burma--India-China--Northen Resistance--make sure you read this--

https://www.irrawaddy.com/specials/myanmar-china-watch/chinese-navy-ships-arrive-in-myanmar-for-joint-drills.html

In Mon State:

https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-junta-forces-flee-deadly-resistance-attack-in-mon-state.html

Impt--Guest col. https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/success-on-myanmar-india-border-a-turning-point-for-chin-resistance.html

The Rihkhawdar-Zokhawthar crossing is also one of the main overland routes from Myanmar to India.--(for both refugees and non-profit aid coming in).

At a time when even China is seen as tacitly approving Operation 1027, largely motivated by the proliferation of scam centers under junta allies, India’s Myanmar policy stands out as an anachronism. At least 75 junta soldiers fleeing to Mizoram have been flown to India’s Manipur State by helicopter and repatriated across the Moreh-Tamu crossing. According to local journalists, these orders came directly from New Delhi after a junta request via the Indian Embassy in Naypyitaw. The Indian government continues to invite junta officials to high-profile events, including junta Education Minister Nyunt Pe at the Global South Summit on Nov. 17.

Continued Indian support for the “mortally wounded” junta is a miscalculation: the military itself is primarily responsible for Myanmar’s chronic instability, dating back to the Ne Win dictatorship. This instability is what forces tens of thousands of Chin refugees into India and allows safe haven for insurgents fighting the Indian government, such as the Manipur People’s Liberation Army, which attacked Indian security forces as recently as Nov. 16. Most strikingly, as junta air strikes and artillery pounded the Chin resistance to prevent Rihkhawdar’s fall, a refugee on the Indian side of the border was killed by stray fire.

This instability also rules out any possibility that India will realize grand economic plans such as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which requires an overland link from India through Chin and Rakhine in the very sites of renewed fighting. Only federal democracy in Myanmar can deliver the border security and regional stability that India needs. Indeed, most of the 5,000 Chin refugees fleeing the junta early this month have already begun returning home through resistance-controlled Rihkhawdar. Engagement with resistance forces now would do a great deal to ensure friendly relations once the junta is defeated.

This instability also rules out any possibility that India will realize grand economic plans such as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which requires an overland link from India through Chin and Rakhine in the very sites of renewed fighting. Only federal democracy in Myanmar can deliver the border security and regional stability that India needs. Indeed, most of the 5,000 Chin refugees fleeing the junta early this month have already begun returning home through resistance-controlled Rihkhawdar. Engagement with resistance forces now would do a great deal to ensure friendly relations once the junta is defeated.

Recommendations for the US

For Washington too, this transformative moment suggests a need for new policies. With the Indo-Myanmar border now accessible to the resistance, it is past time to bypass the junta and channel cross-border humanitarian aid directly to affected communities. The United States should begin working with India and the United Nations to build aid infrastructure for Myanmar’s northwest. This is also an opportunity to bolster the local administrative capacity of Myanmar’s civilian National Unity Government (NUG) and ethnic resistance organizations, providing a head start on the massive post-revolutionary task of building “federal democracy” from the ground up. Doubts about resistance unity, which contributed to slow implementation of the BURMA Act, met with a resounding rebuke in Operation 1027. Nonlethal aid and technical assistance for the resistance should be provided without delay; in the past, the NUG has asked for early-warning systems to protect citizens from air strikes, communications equipment, and support for its network of in-country schools. With hundreds of junta soldiers surrendering or joining the resistance since October, the United States should provide funds to incentivize additional desertions. These measures will hasten the end of the war now that the balance has swung decisively against the junta.

Most importantly, Washington needs to come to an accommodation with Myanmar’s neighbors about the post-junta landscape. Despite not drastically changing the character of aid, the BURMA Act raised alarm bells in Beijing that pro-democracy forces might become US catspaws. India and Thailand have their own concerns about the unforeseen consequences of regime change next door. It is imperative for the United States to clearly outline its limited interests and goals in the country, and to work with Myanmar’s neighbors to realize priorities such as infrastructure links and border security. Myanmar cannot finally succeed in its revolution only to become yet another arena of “great-power competition.”

Since the Fiscal Year 2024 budget is held up by congressional dysfunction, new US appropriations for Myanmar will not be possible until early next year. As Congress reconciles the Senate and House versions of FY 2024 appropriations, it should adopt the Senate’s US$167-million Myanmar budget, which explicitly funds cross-border humanitarian assistance through India as well as support for deserters and nonlethal aid for the resistance. In the meantime, the United States should continue to marshal international pressure on the junta and target its finances, as with its sanctions on Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise.

Zo Tum Hmung and John Indergaard are the executive director and project and advocacy coordinator, respectively, of the Chin Association of Maryland.