"The rebel Arakan Army has set up civil administrations in parts of western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, collecting taxes and arresting illegal drug users — making good on a pledge to provide governance to underpin the ethnic Rakhine autonomy the armed group has been fighting for. The predominantly Buddhist ethnic army has been at war with Myanmar forces in northern Rakhine state and in Paletwa township of neighboring Chin state for 19 months. It is the newest of many conflicts the national army has been waging with ethnic armies since the former Burma became independent from Britain in 1948. The AA set up shop in 2009 in Laiza, northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, and five years later declared its long-term intention of returning to its Rakhine homeland and establishing its own government in the state. In December 2019, AA leaders announced the formation of a Rakhine People’s Authority to levy taxes on businesses to fund its operations and that of its political wing, the United League of Arakan, as well as administer areas under its control in Rakhine state. The AA is estimated to have 9,000 fighters. At the time, AA spokesman Khine Thukha told RFA that the formation of the authority was legitimate because it would initiate a new form of government in a bid to reestablish the historic Arakan nation that existed centuries earlier. “This body has an obvious revenue-generation function, but its creation is probably more important as a demonstration of the group’s de facto authority and territorial control and assertion of its legitimacy,” said a report on armed conflict and politics in Rakhine state issued in June by the International Crisis Group. “Armed groups in other major conflicts in Myanmar over the decades have taken similar steps,” the report said. Branded an illegal organization and terrorist group by the Myanmar government in March, the AA demanded on May 29 that all government administrative offices and the military immediately leave northern Rakhine state..."