Every afternoon, about two dozen people cutting across communities and genders gather on the banks of the Kaladan River at Paletwa town in Myanmar’s Chin State. They gaze at all the boats coming in from the border with India; most of them sail downstream to different townships in neighboring Rakhine State.

After a while, a bigger boat laden with commodities and covered with a blue tarpaulin sheet docks nearby. Two more boats over-packed with goods arrive in quick succession at the same spot. A crowd of mostly shopkeepers and traders, heavily dependent on the commodities smuggled from Mizoram in India, heads toward the boats and begins to untie the ropes holding down the tarpaulin sheets. The cargo is transferred to some vehicles and motorbikes that have also arrived to transport the items to other destinations near the town.

Source: Wikipedia

As at Paletwa in southern Chin State, people in Rakhine State depend on commodities smuggled from neighboring India and Bangladesh as supply routes from mainland Myanmar are blocked. Owing to a lack of motorable roads in Arakan, the region held by the Arakan Army in Rakhine and southern China states, commodities are mostly ferried in boats.

Why Does Arakan Need Smuggled Commodities?

Among the tactics adopted by Myanmar’s military regime against the resistance groups and the regions they control is the blocking of supply routes to deprive them of essential commodities, including basic foodstuffs. This tactic, which was adopted in Arakan as well, was intensified after the Arakan Army (AA) launched an offensive on November 13 last year. In response to its rapid battlefield gains, which have since brought more than half of the state’s 17 townships under its control, the junta has closed the supply routes from the mainland and the southern part of Rakhine State, compelling residents and the AA to rely heavily on the arteries ferrying goods from India and Bangladesh.

However, unlike the hilly borderlands elsewhere in Myanmar, Arakan is well endowed with arable land, a favorable climate, and plentiful water resources for agricultural production. This has given the region self-sufficiency in rice production.

A market at Rathedaung in Myanmar’s Rakhine State where local products are sold. Credit: Rajeev Bhattacharyya

The United League of Arakan (ULA), the political wing of the AA, keeps a tab on the transportation of commodities in the region. Kyaw Zaw Oo, the ULA’s political commissar for Paletwa, told The Diplomat that Arakan also grows “sufficient quantities” of vegetables, rendering unnecessary the import of these commodities from other regions. “So far, Rakhine State is not dependent on any other region for rice, vegetables, fish, salt and sugar. Barring these commodities, however, there is a need for almost everything else [to be brought in] in greater or lesser quantities,” he said.

A range of items, including cooking oil, biscuits, soaps, washing detergents, utensils, flour, garments, and batteries, is smuggled from India and Bangladesh into Arakan through riverine and land routes that crisscross the region. These items are sold at shops in the seven townships – Paletwa, Kyauktaw, Ponnagyun, Minbya, Rathedaung, Buthidaung, and Mrauk U – that I visited during a recent reporting trip.

Dharman Jalraj, the son of Hindi-speaking immigrants from India, is a daily wage laborer living on the outskirts of Kyauktaw town. He is regularly engaged by a Rakhine Buddhist trader to transport goods from the river bank to different shops in the town. “Many residents from our locality are heavily dependent on the goods coming from India,” he said. “We will starve to death if the flow of commodities comes to a halt.”

According to Jalraj, the flow of goods increases during the winter season when more than 40 big and small boats reach Kyauktaw on the Kaladan River from the border with India. This drops to around 15 boats during the rainy season. Jalraj’s views were echoed by other laborers in the township belonging to different ethnic groups, including a few Rohingya Muslims.

Informal discussions with AA and ULA functionaries and a few shopkeepers revealed that the region is most dependent on India and Bangladesh for fuel (diesel and petrol) and medicines. They pointed out that the junta has taken additional measures to ensure that these two items are not ferried from Myanmar’s mainland to Arakan through the secret hilly routes.

“Supply of Medicines is Erratic”

A doctor examining a patient at a health center in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Credit: Rajeev Bhattacharyya

The scarcity of medicines was evident at a hospital I visited in Rakhine State on June 17. The middle-aged doctor in charge of the unit agreed to meet me on the condition that neither his name nor the location of the hospital would be revealed. The reason, he explained, was the “high vulnerability” of........

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