Kokang, Wa want to keep things as they are
(SHAN) -In their recent meetings with visiting junta negotiator Lt-Gen Ye Myint, both Kokang and Wa had expressed their wish to maintain the status quo before Naypyidaw introduced the transformation proposal, according to sources from the Sino-Burma border.
Peng Jiasheng
“Things had been going smoothly the way it should be,” Peng Jiasheng, Chairman of the Kokang’s Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) was quoted as telling Ye Myint on 4 June.
“Why should you want to change? It’s just like stirring up a beehive.”
Lt-Gen Ye Myint
His next meeting was with the Wa leaders in Panghsang yesterday which lasted three hours, from 1400-1700, in Burmese and Chinese, according to a source lose to the leadership. “All the division commanders upwards were present there,” he said. “And the gist of what we said was the same as what Peng told him earlier.”
The Burma Army’s chief broker, who is also Chief of the Military Affairs Security (MAS) had nevertheless brought what the Wa regarded as the only good news “He wasn’t harping on the June deadline anymore,” said the source. “ ‘Take your time to reconsider our proposal,’ was his request at the end of the meeting.”
Ye Myint is now in Mongyang, south of Panghsang, on his way to meet the Wa’s southern ally, the National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA-ESS) led by Sai Leun, at Mongla tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the situation along the Thai-Burma border is tense by all accounts. “We are being ordered by the area command (of the Burma Army) to dig bomb shelters and stock up rice and dry food,” a village elder at Nakawngmu, 29 miles north of the Chiangmai border, said. “Coming and going across the Salween at Tasang Bridge (between Mongpan in the West and Mongton in the east) has also become difficult since yesterday. More questions and more inspections.”
The Wa command on the Thai-Burma border, in addition to the demand to transform itself into a border security force and return to Panghsang, has been ordered to pull out from three strategic outposts. The Wa have so far refused to comply saying, “Our leaders are still in Panghsang.”
