Who are Myanmar’s ethnic militias?

SINCE THE Burmese army enacted a coup in February, almost the entire country has risen in opposition to it. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, while a mass strike has brought the economy, and much of government, to a standstill. The World Bank predicts GDP will contract by 10% this year, making a mockery of the generals’ pledge to usher in an era of unprecedented prosperity. Despite all this, the top brass are in no mood to negotiate. They would prefer to shoot rather than give up power; their goons have murdered more than 700 people. Most protests are peaceful, but a growing number of Burmese civilians are fending off attacks with home-made weapons. Some are receiving training from the numerous ethnic militias scattered across the remote borderlands. A group of deposed politicians who have formed a provisional government have approached these insurgents about forming a “federal army”. Who are Myanmar’s ethnic rebels, and can they make a difference in the protesters’ fight against the army?

Myanmar is hugely diverse. The government’s official tally of 135 ethnicities is based on dodgy British anthropology, and does not even include the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in the western state of Rakhine, who are considered illegal immigrants. But it suggests something of the complexity of the country’s demography. When British conquerors arrived in the 19th century, their “divide and rule” tactics pitted ethnicities against each other, deepening old rivalries or creating new ones. When Myanmar gained independence in 1948, immigration officers set about determining which of those groups were indigenous to Myanmar before the British arrived and opened the door to vast numbers of migrants. Ethnicity determined citizenship, and became the prism through which politics and society are understood.