Myanmar’s Military Struggles to Control the Virtual Battlefield Crisis Group Asia Report N°314, 18 May 2021 Page 5 reports on clashes with the Tatmadaw featured maps with precise details, enhancing its information’s credibility in the eyes of users.16 Crucially, improvements in communications technology enabled the Arakan Army to bridge the distance between its leaders in northern Kachin State and Rakhine communities some 1,000km away. Earlier Rakhine insurgencies, such as the Arakan Independence Organisation and Arakan Liberation Party, had foundered when they attempted to move from their border bases near China and Thailand to gain a foothold in Rakhine State.17 The combination of online access to Rakhine communities, combined with its more straightforward ethno-nationalist ideology, helped the Arakan Army to succeed where its predecessors had failed. The group used technology in creative ways to bridge the physical distances and build support. One video that circulated widely on social media shows the group’s leader, Twan Mrat Naing, speaking on a computer screen to villagers in Rakhine State, who are asking him questions about the Arakan Army and its activities. “Without Facebook, the Arakan Army would have found it very difficult to get a popular following”, commented one social media researcher.18 A Rakhine civil society leader confirms: At first, I noticed the Arakan Army theme songs spreading on Facebook – these songs were really penetrating Rakhine society, becoming popular. Only later did I find out that the Arakan Army was not actually here [in Rakhine State] and used the internet to spread their information. From 2018, many people – including my friends – talk about the Arakan Army whenever we meet.19 The Arakan Army’s propaganda landed on fertile ground. Rakhine State is among Myanmar’s poorest, and political liberalisation and outbreaks of communal violence since 2012 had heightened ethno-nationalism among its majority Rakhine population. Rakhine political parties had performed strongly in the 2010 and 2015 national elections, but Naypyitaw had blocked them from assuming any real power. Resulting frustrations were at times channelled at the Rohingya Muslim minority to horrific effect, but the Arakan Army used its online propaganda to portray the Burmans, who control the central government, the administrative apparatus and the armed forces, as the real enemy. In January 2018, government forces played into that narrative by opening fire on demonstrators at the town of Mrauk-U, the former capital of the once-flourishing Rakhine kingdom, killing seven people. Later that month, the state’s leading politician, Aye Maung, was arrested for a speech in which he said the Burmans treated the Rakhine like slaves. He was later convicted of treason and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment.20 16 For detailed discussion of the Arakan Army’s communications strategy, see David Scott Mathieson, “The Arakan Army in Myanmar: Deadly Conflict Rises in Rakhine State”, U.S. Institute of Peace, November 2020, pp. 11-12. 17 Martin Smith, “Arakan (Rakhine) State: A Land in Conflict on Myanmar’s Western Frontier”, Transnational Institute, December 2019, p. 39. 18 Crisis Group interview, social media researcher, November 2020. 19 Crisis Group interview, Rakhine civil society leader, November 2020. 20 For more, see Crisis Group Asia Report N°307, An Avoidable War: Politics and Armed Conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, 9 June 2020.