The increasing conquests by the Brotherhood Alliance, composed of three powerful ethnic militias, are highlighting the difficulties of administering different territories. A challenge that could explain the difficulties in taking control of even the largest cities in Myanmar. The involvement of China is also emerging with increasing clarity.

Yangon (AsiaNews) - The advance of the three armed groups that are part of the Brotherhood Alliance is revealing that control over territory by ethnic militias is no less authoritarian than that exercised by the military junta. On the contrary, their administration of parts of Myanmar is reigniting long-dormant ethnic conflicts.

In recent months, several abuses have been documented by the Arakan Army, which, on the verge of completely expelling army troops from Rakhine, the Burmese region bordering Bangladesh, has created a proto-state, to use the definition proposed by theInternational Crisis Group research group.

Indeed, the Rakhine still depends on Naypyidaw for electricity, communications, banking services and the supply of essential goods. But most of the territory, inhabited by over a million people, is controlled by the local militia.

The army, weakened by the conflict, has exploited the historical rivalry between the Rakhine, of Buddhist faith, who make up the ranks of the Arakan Army, and the Rohingya, of Islamic faith.

The generals, increasingly weakened by the conflict, have recruited (partly by force) the Rohingya population (against whom they themselves had lashed out in the past), and the AA has responded by massacring hundreds of Rohingya in the northern areas of the state.

This is both old and new and is also manifesting itself in the areas under the control of the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

Like the AA, which originated in Kachin State, these are groups originating from a particular region that have spread to different Burmese states in recent years and even more so since the outbreak of the civil conflict in 2021. Also thanks to Chinese military support.

The TNLA, for example, is made up of ethnic Palaung fighters and originated in the hills around Namhsan in the eastern part of Shan State. It has gone through phases and, like the other ethnic militias, for some years respected the truce signed with the Burmese government.

The modern version of the militia dates back to 2009, when the Arakan Army was also founded. The recruits of the two groups received training from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), another ethnic militia active on the border with China.

The MNDAA, on the other hand, is composed of ethnic Han people (the majority in China) from the Kokang area. It rose from the ashes of the Burmese Communist Party, which was dissolved in 1989, and immediately signed a ceasefire with the Burmese army. Fighting resumed in 2015, when former democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi was in power.

The fighting in the Shan that year was also joined for the first time by the Arakan Army. According to Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist and Myanmar expert, the TNLA and the AA now represent ‘a new kind of rebel army led by younger and more dynamic people’ than in the past.

While the MNDAA, unlike the other two, has always maintained a much stronger link with China and what is considered the most powerful militia in Myanmar, the United Wa State Army (UWSA).

A link that proved useful in the civil war that broke out in 2021 following the army-led coup, even though officially the UWSA declared itself neutral. The MNDAA's conquest of the town of Lashio in Shan on 3 August (a major turning point that for the first time presaged a total defeat of the Burmese army) was made possible by weapons that the UWSA procured directly from China.

Experts agree that Beijing wanted to teach the Burmese army a lesson for not being able to close down the scam centres on the border between China and Myanmar. But they also agree that the situation now seems to have gotten out of hand for Chinese officials, who in January tried to convince the Burmese generals - long supported diplomatically and militarily by China - and the Three Brotherhood Alliance (the AA, the TNLA and the MNDAA) to sign a permanent ceasefire.

Attempts that have not yet been successful. The Kokang region where the main casinos and scam centres are located had long been administered by the MNDAA before the army installed a rival militia there between 2009 and 2015.

As of April ethnic militias have almost total control of the border territories. According to local sources, the conquest of Lashio has allowed a redeployment of resistance troops, in particular the People's Defence Forces (PDF), the armed wing of the Government of National Unity in exile that is fighting alongside the ethnic militias. The PDF are made up of young people from the Bamar ethnic group, the majority in Myanmar, who inhabit the country's central regions and only became organised after the army coup in 2021.

They received training from the Karen National Liberation Army and are reportedly on their way to Mandalay, the former capital, historical seat of the Burmese rulers before the arrival of the British in 1885. On 3 September, the city was hit, for the third time this year, by a Chinese-made rocket, but launched by ethnic militias.

Inside sources are certain that by the end of the year Mandalay (and all that it represents) will fall into the hands of the resistance forces.

But experts fear that, instead of bringing peace, a new phase of conflict may unfold: already in many areas the TNLA and the MNDAA are perceived as outsiders, and Mandalay, a multi-ethnic city of 1.5 million inhabitants, could pose a further challenge to the Brotherhood Alliance militias.

According to some, this is precisely why the anti-coup fighting groups are hesitant to recapture Myanmar's main cities.