Leaflets promoting anti-ethnic Rakhine sentiment are appearing on the streets of Bamar-majority cities like Yangon and Mandalay after Myanmar junta troops suffered disastrous defeats to the Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine State.
The leaflets urge Bamar people to boycott Rakhine-owned shops and restaurants, and demand that ethnic Rakhine people go back to their home state.
They began appearing on lampposts and signs for Rakhine-owned restaurants and shops on Monday.
“Avoid visiting any Rakhine-owned business to denounce the terrorist AA,” reads one statement posted on a lamppost in Yangon.
The AA enjoys huge support in Rakhine, where it has been fighting for greater autonomy since 2009. It has scored sweeping victories against regime troops since launching its western offensive last November, seizing five major towns in northern Rakhine and one in neighboring Chin State.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the hate campaign in the cities, which are also home to significant numbers of ethnic Rakhine people.
Analysts and residents, however, believe the campaign is the work of nationalist groups backed by the regime.
The junta has a strong track record of provoking division among the country’s many ethnic groups, targeting those who have taken up arms against it since the 2021 coup.
In August 2023, junta spokesperson General Zaw Min Tun sought to stir hatred between Bamar and Kachin people by saying the Bamar were killing each other with weapons supplied by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
The KIA has been training and arming local resistance groups in Bamar-majority central regions for their fight against the junta’s military.
The regime also sowed ethnic discord following unprecedented defeats to the Brotherhood Alliance of Ta’ang, Rakhine and Kokang forces in northern Shan State late last year. It claimed that alliance troops were seeking to occupy Shan homes and property instead of attacking junta targets.
Political analyst U Than Soe Naing said the junta had masterminded the anti-Rakhine campaign to instigate violence between the Bamar and Rakhine communities.
“The AA has declared its intention to seize the whole of Rakhine State, an unprecedented feat. They have already seized almost all of northern Rakhine. So, the junta has hatched this plan to provoke riots between the two communities”, he said.
However, the plan would fail because people are aware of the regime’s trickery and divide-and-rule tactics, he added.
A Rakhine woman living in Yangon told The Irrawaddy that the attempt to sow racial discord was unlikely to work as most Bamar people are anti-regime and won’t join with military supporters.
“I don’t think it will have a big impact. But there is insecurity among the Arakanese [ethnic Rakhine] residents of Yangon,” she added.
