The Junta’s Twin August Offensives

By WAI MOE
The Irrawaddy News

After more than four decades of rule, the Burmese military government is confronting the two main centers of domestic opposition to its power in a bid to increase security and prolong military rule before the elections next year.

Having effectively kept pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi out of the elections by sentencing her to a further 18 months of house arrest, the military regime’s forces broke the ceasefire with ethnic groups by seizing the Kokang capital of Laogai on August 24.

Since the military regime’s attack, instability has been reverberating through Kachin State, Shan State and the towns along the Sino-Burmese border in China’s Yunnan Province.

Other ceasefire groups in northern and northeastern Burma, such as the United Wa State Army, the Kachin Independence Army and the eastern Shan State-based National Democratic Alliance Army have been building up defenses against a potential attack by regime troops.

“The [Burmese] government would like to assert more authority over the ethnic minorities in the highlands, leading to the problems of the past few days,” said Michael Charney, a Burma expert from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, in an email to the The Irrawaddy. The ceasefire agreements between the ethnic groups and the junta left potentially volatile situations in place, he said.

According to journalists and political observers in Rangoon, the junta is not yet ready to promulgate the election law, though the elections are scheduled to be held in 2010. With only three months remaining this year, time is running out.

If the junta wants to hold elections under the 2008 constitution, in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, it has to demonstrate that there is only one commander-in-chief and that the regime’s army is the only armed force in Burma, observer’s say.

“We can see that by sentencing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on August 11, the military regime made sure there would be no worthy political challenger in the 2010 elections. After removing her from the picture, the generals turned on their other main enemies,” said Chan Tun, a veteran politician from Rangoon.

The National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Suu Kyi, and the Wa, Kokang and Mongla ethnic ceasefire groups have called for the constitution to be reviewed before the elections.

In 2005, Wa, Kokang and the Mongla delegates to the National Convention called for full autonomy and separation from Shan State, as well as guarantees that their armed militias would remain under their control.

At the end of the fourteen-year-long national convention process in 2007, however, the junta ignored all their demands when the handpicked Constitution Drafting Committee finalized the constitution.

“After the junta ignored their demands at the national convention, the ethnic groups knew a showdown had to come soon,” said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former communist who observes Burma military affairs from China’s Yunnan Province.

“But ceasefire groups, particularly the Kokang, failed to prepare properly, which is why Laogai fell to regime troops so easily,” he said.

The junta generals, meanwhile, must be wondering whether the simultaneous offensives against urban political opposition and ethnic ceasefire groups have been wise.

“I wonder why the regime is risking conflict with the ethnic militias now. They may want to get control before the elections—but the junta could destabilize the whole country,” said Mikeal Gravers, a Burma expert from Aarhus University, Denmark.

Charney said the Burmese junta will face many similar problems in the coming year, because the generals want ethnic and political stability in order to hold elections and conclude the domestic problems that are bringing so much international attention.

Burma Newscasts - The Junta’s Twin August Offensives
Friday, September 11, 2009

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Junta Continues its Campaign against Burmese Diversity

By SIMON ROUGHNEEN
The Irrawaddy News

Recent fighting in northern Shan state, between the junta’s army and the ethnic Kokang militia known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, has fuelled speculation that the regime intends to coerce Burma’s 17 ceasefire groups into accepting a plan to incorporate them into the state security apparatus as border guards.

The ceasefire groups are ethnic militias—most notably the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Independence Army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army—that have fought on and off, in various guises, against central rule since Burma became independent in 1948. They are part of Burma’s remarkably diverse ethnic, religious and cultural demography—40 percent of the country’s population is comprised of non-Burman minorities. In total, the state recognizes 135 different ethnicities.

However, the Burmese regime’s army has fought brutal campaigns against these groups, with long-documented human rights abuses, including mass displacement, forced labor and conscription, as well as countless cases of rape and murder targeting civilians. Some analysts believe that the level of abuses ranks alongside or even exceeds that of Darfur in western Sudan.

In some cases, the junta has successfully co-opted proxy or splinter movements from ethnic insurgent groups as part of its ongoing strategy of “divide and rule” to weaken ethnically based opposition. But far from bringing peace to the country, this approach has served only to perpetuate ethnic tensions.

Indeed, some observers believe that the regime has little interest in resolving a problem that has long been its raison d’etre. “Burma’s ethnic diversity has been one of the main justifications for continued military rule,” said Win Min, an analyst of Burmese affairs based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, adding that the army has long seen civilian government as too weak to prevent potential secession by ethnic minorities.

Going back to the 1947 constitution, the military has always believed that civilian solutions to the problems posed by Burma’s ethnic divisions, such as local autonomy or federalism, with the option of secession in some cases, threaten national unity and foment instability.

The army goes by the maxim that diversity equals disunity, something seen in military-civilian political vehicles such as the National Unity Party, the junta-backed party that ran against the National League for Democracy in the 1990 elections, and the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a mass organization established in 1993 that is expected to be transformed into a pro-junta political party in time for elections in 2010.

The regime’s efforts to undermine ethnically based expressions of identity in Burma are also evident in the 2008 constitution, which circumscribes ethnic autonomy and is a digression away from the establishment of anything resembling a federal union—a demand of many ethnic groups.

“The constitution/election process is driving this policy to marginalize the ethnic groups,” said Sean Turnell, an economist at Australia’s Macquarie University whose research focuses on Burma. “This may come back to haunt the junta, as it has with previous governments,” he added.

If the junta proceeds with its military build-up in Shan State, close to the well-armed UWSA, it may be revisited by the ghosts of insurgencies past very soon. The prospect of renewed ethnic civil war in Burma’s borderlands has caused concern in neighboring countries, particularly China, which remains a key ally of the regime.

The Burmese generals issued an apology to Beijing after being reprimanded over the fighting in Kokang, which saw an estimated 30,000 refugees from this ethnically Chinese region cross into China’s Yunnan Province. The junta risks undermining its relationship with Beijing, as instability is perceived to be contrary to China’s interests.

As K. Yhome, an analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in India, put it: “Political stability in Myanmar [Burma] is a major concern for Beijing, particularly in the border regions.”

China’s port and pipeline plan linking the Burmese coast with Yunnan is due to get underway this month, and Beijing doubtless does not want the timeframe jeopardized by the junta’s domestic concerns. The pipeline will extend 1,200 km and allow Beijing to bypass the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea when bringing oil imports from Africa and the Middle East into China.

Given that China has “run interference for the junta at the UN Security Council”—in the words of Walter Lohman, an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation—sending refugees streaming into China seems a bitter payback. Only three weeks ago, Beijing told critics that the August 11 decision to return Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest was an internal Burmese matter.

Ironically, the junta’s offensive along the Sino-Burmese border may have been intended to send the same message—that the regime manages its internal affairs autonomously—to Beijing. It could also be a hint that there are other options available, should the junta want to diversify its networks of foreign partners.

The regime certainly has reason to believe that Beijing is not its only friend. While China’s tally of oil blocks in Burma is 16, India has seven and Thailand five. Meanwhile, India, South Korea and half of Burma’s fellow members in the Association of Southeast Nations are investing in the country’s vast natural resources and competing with China for trade links with the generals.

According to Turnell, the regime may even be paying China back for entering into a series of gas contracts with Bangladesh over offshore fields in disputed seas between Burma and Bangladesh.

However, it remains to be seen how far the junta could push this attempt to needle China, or to diversify its foreign trade and investment relations. “Myanmar needs to remain focused on Chinese concerns,” said Jian Junbo, an assistant professor of international studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

If the regime seeks to pick a fight with the UWSA or any of the other larger ethnic militias, it could be stirring a hornet’s nest. This type of political instability could threaten Chinese investments in Burma, and Beijing’s growing economy cannot afford that.

Just as it does not want an unstable Burma, Beijing is almost certainly on the alert for any rapprochement between the US and the junta. It is not clear whether the Kokang offensive is linked to the recent visit by Senator Jim Webb to Burma, but the growing military presence in Shan State has taken place while international attention has been focused on Webb’s visit, and the Suu Kyi trial circus that preceded it.

“In the long term, if the US improves its ties with Myanmar, it will have strategic implications for Beijing, which wants to reach the Indian Ocean through Myanmar and the oil and gas pipeline projects that it plans through Myanmar,” said K. Yhome.

3 September 2009
Burma Newscasts - Junta Continues its Campaign against Burmese Diversity

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UWSA will be in a spot if Wei sides with junta

by Brian McCartan

Mizzima - Much has been made of the junta’s ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics, but often overlooked is the fact that Burma’s military rulers do not create many of these situations, but exploit existing divisions. One that could have potentially serious consequences to follow-on moves against the ceasefire groups is that between the northern and southern Wa under Wei Xuegang.

The territory under the control of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) is split between a northern region along the Sino-Burma border and a southern region on the Thai border. The northern region is the former operating area of the Burmese Communist Party (BCP) from which the Wa mutinied in April 1989 before signing a ceasefire with the government later in the year.

The southern area was originally the operating area of a non-communist Wa group that eventually joined northern Wa after the mutiny. The southern Wa was led by Maha Sang, a former Wa prince and his lieutenant, an ethnic Chinese from the Sino-Burma border area, Wei Xuegang. Designated the 171st Military Region, the area eventually came under the firm leadership of Wei and his brothers Wei Xueyin and Wei Xuelong.

In addition to the leadership of the southern Wa, Wei and his brothers are considered by many Burma watchers as the bankrollers of the UWSA. Appointed a central committee member of the group’s political wing, the United Wa State Party, in 1996, Wei was also the UWSA’s finance head from July 2006 until December 2007.

Wei’s financial standing in the UWSA comes largely from his control of heroin and methamphetamine production facilities along the Thai border and international trafficking connections. The huge profits made by Wei and his associates enabled the UWSA to greatly expand its control over areas of Shan State as well as increase its number of soldiers and quality of equipment and weapons.

Further reinforcing Wei’s position was the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Wa villagers from the China border to the southern Wa area in 1999. The Wa came to dominate the area, establishing new villages and towns and largely forcing the original Shan inhabitants out. Many of the old strongholds of former opium warlord Khun Sa, which the Wa had fought against for years, were absorbed by Wei’s group after his surrender in 1996. Many of those areas were along the Thai border giving the organization increased opportunities for trade in various forms of contraband including narcotics.

Where Wei and the rest of the UWSA leadership differ is in their political outlook. While many of the ethnic Wa leaders of the UWSA have definite nationalist interests as well as business, Wei is known to be dismissive of politics and interested more in ensuring the continued expansion of his business interests.

An outbreak of fighting with the Burmese Army would certainly not be good for business from Wei’s standpoint. Most of his more legitimate businesses are in central Burma and he would stand to lose them. Hostilities could also potentially disrupt narcotics production and trafficking, particularly if Thai security forces support Burmese moves on their side of the border.

The junta certainly understands this as well and has made several attempts to persuade Wei to make his own peace and transform his forces into a government-backed militia. Although details are sketchy, it can be assumed any arrangement would include a provision wherein Wei would be granted non-interference in his narcotics production and trafficking.

Should Wei cast his lot with the junta, it would put the UWSA in serious financial difficulty. Lost would be access to Thailand and the large amounts of cash generated by Wei’s narcotics business. Cross-border trade to China would not be able to make up for the shortfall and a prohibition on narcotics trafficking to China is reportedly a condition for Chinese assistance on development projects and other forms of cross-border aid as well as political support against Burma’s generals. While victory would by no means be as swift as against the Kokang last week, without Wei’s forces and financial backing, the UWSA would find it all the harder to resist the Burmese Army.

So far, the southern Wa have resisted the junta’s overtures saying that all negotiations must be with Panghsang and Wa troops are reportedly on standby for any outbreak of hostilities. The rapid fall of the Kokang last week and the replacement of Peng Jiasheng with a rival backed by the government, however, may give Wei reason to rethink his options. After all, a precedent has already been set by the retirement of Khun Sa in 1996. The old warlord went on to live very comfortably in Rangoon until his death in 2007.

READ MORE---> UWSA will be in a spot if Wei sides with junta...

Burmese Army might be targeting UWSA: Observer

by Mungpi

New Delhi (Mizzima) - After having overrun and occupied the Kokang area in north-eastern Shan State and driving away its leader, the Burmese military junta might have initiated its move against one of the largest ceasefire groups, the United Wa State Army, an observer said.

Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Thailand-based Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN), who is close to UWSA, said Wa leaders in Panghsang in eastern Shan state have received a letter from the Burmese Army demanding the extradition of Kokang leader Peng Jiasheng and three others. The junta had issued arrest warrants against them.

“Nobody is sure where Peng and his group are staying right now. It is absurd that the Burmese Army has demanded that the Wa hand over Peng. It seems to me that the junta is starting to pick on the Wa,” Khuensai said.

The letter dated September 1, 2009 was received by Wa leaders in Panghsang on September 2. Worried over the issue, the Wa leaders sat at a meeting on Thursday morning and decided not to respond to the letter, he added.

“The Wa leaders believe that the demand could be a point to pick by the junta and so decided to remain silent without replying to it,” said Khuensai.

He said, whichever way the Wa replies, the junta could find fault. Even by remaining silent, the junta could still find fault and find reasons to launch an attack.

Peng Jiasheng, the once supreme leader of the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), also known as the Kokang Army, was forced to flee Loa Kai, capital of Kokang region, after the Burmese junta issued an arrest warrant for him along with three others including his brother on charges of running an arms and ammunition factory and trafficking.

Peng’s flight left his deputy Bai Suoqing and a few other MNDAA soldiers, who support the junta. The MNDAA was later reformed with the help of the Burmese Army and Bai was appointed the new leader.

“When I asked Wa leaders about the whereabouts of Peng, they told me that he would most probably be with his son-in-law but did not deny or agree that Peng might be in Wa controlled area,” Khuensai said.

According to the Wa leader’s response, Peng and his troops are most likely to be with the Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) or Mongla, whose leader Sai Leun is Peng’s son-in-law.

While the information on the junta’s demand to the Wa to extradite Peng cannot be independently verified, a Sino-Burma border based military analyst Aung Kyaw Zaw said, he does not believe any such demand has been made.

“I have not heard of the demand but I think it is unlikely and Brig Gen Win Maung commander of the Regional Operations Command (ROC) in Lao Kai has no such power to make the demand as the case is to be handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs,” he added.

But he said, in connection with the conflicts last week in Kokang region, Burmese Deputy Home Minister Phone Shwe and a team of delegates, earlier this week, visited Kun Ming, capital of China’s North-western province of Yunnan, and met regional Chinese officials.

Aung Kyaw Zaw said, while the junta is determined to neutralise ethnic armed groups, particularly the ceasefire groups, in eastern Shan State, the UWSA might not be the first target to choose.

Observers agreed that the junta is unlikely to declare war on the UWSA, which is believed to have up to 20,000 soldiers, but use different tactics including ‘divide and conquer’ by exploiting the differences between the leaders, Wei Hsueh-kang and Bao You-Xiang.

READ MORE---> Burmese Army might be targeting UWSA: Observer...

Kokang campaign still on

Shanland - Despite victory over rebellious Kokang army announced yesterday through state-run media, the Burma Army has yet to slow down its war machine, reported sources from Shan State.

People in Muse, opposite China’s Ruili, and northwest of Kokang, were still being snatched by the official porter collectors yesterday and in Lashio, the capital of Shan State North, southwest of Kokang, civilian trucks were still in demand.

The Burma Army is proceeding with a mopping-up operation against isolated Kokang fighters who are still putting up a guerrilla resistance in the 22,000 sq.km territory, according to a source on the Sino-Burma border. Up to 30% of the original Kokang force (estimated strength, 800) loyal to the deposed leader Peng Jiasheng are believed to be still on Burma’s side of the border.

On the Thai-Burma border, militia units placed under full alert two days ago have been allowed to relax. “Civilian trucks requisitioned by the Army in Monghsat (opposite Thailand’s Mae Ai) have also been permitted to return home,” reported a local.

The United Wa State Army (UWSA)’s Thai-border based 171st Military Region, comprising 5 brigades, under the command of Wei Xuegang, however, have yet to come down from their mountain bases. “Unlike in the past, when Wa trucks passed by Burma Army checkpoints without being searched, they are now being subjected to thorough going-overs,” said another local source.

On the other hand, sources in eastern Shan State are betting that the next target for the Burma Army should be Mongla, the UWSA’s southern neighbor and ally. Kokang that fell on 29 August is the Wa’s northern neighbor and ally.

Even Mongla, 80 km northeast of Shan State East’s capital Kengtung, has become edgy, according to them.

Yesterday, some 470 Burmans working or seeking work in Mongla were rounded up by the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) officials, loaded in trucks and dumped at Taping, the Lwe crossing that marks as the border between the NDAA and Burma Army controlled areas. “We used to have about 100 people working here,” explained one of the officials, on condition of anonymity. “But the number had jumped up to over 400 in a matter of weeks. We believe many of them, not all, must be spies.”

The Shan State Army (SSA) ‘South’, that has been fighting against Naypyitaw, meanwhile is yet to issue any official statements on the latest developments in Burma. “We are still closely following the developments,” said one of the senior officers.

One Thai border source reported that the UWSA has begun liaising with the SSA South. “There has been no such thing as yet,” replied the same SSA source.

Tension between the ceasefire groups and the ruling military junta has been growing since April when the former were demanded to transform themselves into Burma Army run Border Guard Forces.

READ MORE---> Kokang campaign still on...

The fall of Kokang raises questions

Shanland - After three days of heavy fighting, 27-29 August, the bulk of the anti-Naypyitaw Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the name given to their armed force by the Kokang, moved yesterday into China where they were disarmed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The biggest question raised by the fall of Qingsuihe (Chinshwehaw), opposite Namteuk (Namtit), where the Kokang’s strongest ally United Wa State Army (UWSA)’s 318th Division is headquartered, may be: What were the Wa doing when the Kokang were being attacked at Qingsuihe?

At first, both the Wa and other sources reported that at least 500 UWSA fighters had been deployed to assist the embattled Kokang. However, on the 29 August evening, the Wa source told SHAN Qingsuihe had fallen, as the UWSA had decided only to make a stand along the Namting that forms as a boundary between Wa and Kokang territories in order to prevent any spillovers from the fighting.

What happened to the ‘all for one and one for all’ agreement reached earlier among the Wa, Kokang and Mongla? SHAN asked. But Panghsang has yet to answer the question, which has naturally prompted more questions:

• How strong is the Peace and Democracy Front (PDF), now that it has done practically nothing against the Burma Army’s attack on Kokang?

• Now that the UWSA has allowed Kokang its northern ally to go, is it ready to let go other allies, namely the Shan State Army (SSA) ‘North’ in the west and Mongla aka National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA) too?

• Does it think the UWSA will be able to make a lone stand against the Burma Army, after its allies have gone?

• What was China’s role in the Kokang debacle? Has the UWSA been advised that the Burma Army will not be allowed to make further attacks against it and its remaining allies?

Kokang’s deposed leader Peng Jiasheng has also voiced similar doubts in his special statement issued late in the evening of 28 August, a day before Qingsuihe’s fall:

• We have vowed that we would together overthrow the common enemy, the ruling military dictatorship clique. I request that we put our vow into practice starting today.

• If the Kokang force has been swallowed, the other allies armed forces will also be swallowed not long after. We therefore request you to counter attack the SPDC forces starting today.

Another big question arose when a report by a usually reliable source said that the mutiny in early August against Kokang’s supreme leader Peng Jiasheng was masterminded by a Liu Guoxi, a disgruntled member of the Kokang leadership, in cooperation with the deputy police of Burma.

With details lacking, SHAN as yet has no way to confirm the report, though Liu has been known in the past to be a colleague of Mong Hsala, the leader of now defunct Mongkoe Defense Army (MDA). MDA went into oblivion and its top leaders either jailed or executed in 2000 by the Burma Army during a mutiny against Mong Hsala.

Granted that the report is true, questions arise:

• Are there more Liu Guoxis among the ranks of the UWSA and its allied armies?

• Is the Burma Army in cahoots with them?

• Wei Xuegang, Commander of the UWSA’s Thai-border based 171st Military Region, is said to be close to Prime Minister Thein Sein. How close are they?

At present, the questions are hard to answer.

But investigations by the media and concerned agencies in the next few weeks will find whether the ideal goal of forming a grand alliance against the hated military regime is too late or can still be a dream come true.

READ MORE---> The fall of Kokang raises questions...

Scorched earth victims ordered to rebuild houses

(DVB)–Villagers in Burma’s central Shan state whose houses were razed in the junta’s latest scorched earth campaign this month have been ordered by the army to rebuild their property.

Some 500 hundred houses were burnt down by the Burmese army near Laihka town in Shan state between 27 July and 1 August, uprooting around 10,000 civilians.

Sein Kyi, deputy editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News, said that army officials in the area recently ordered those who fled to return to their villages and rebuild their homes.

“They also shot video and picture footage of the villages being rebuilt to make it look like the army was actually helping the villagers.”

He said the villages were burnt down by army soldiers together with troops from a splinter group of the opposition Shan State Army, known as the Brigade 758.

“Now the army officials are telling villagers it was the Brigade 758 who burnt down their houses, despite warning [the brigade] not to,” he said.

“But actually, it was the [government] troops who burnt down the villages and the Brigade 758 was only accompanying them.”

The order to rebuild the villages follows a press conference held two weeks ago in Bangkok by Shan right groups, who reported that around 40 villages have been targeted in the campaign.

According to the groups, it is the single largest forced relocation in Shan state since a campaign from 1996 to 1998 saw the uprooting of 300,000 villagers, many of whom fled to Thailand.

Some aid materials, brought to the displaced by sympathisers in nearby towns and villages, were reportedly intercepted by the army on August 7.

Sein Kyi said that the materials were recently distributed to the villagers under the army battalion’s name.

Much of the scorched earth campaign has focused on Laikha township, where over 100 villagers, including women, have been arrested and tortured, and three have died. Many of these were displaced by the previous campaign.

Reporting by Aye Nai

READ MORE---> Scorched earth victims ordered to rebuild houses...

Australia neglecting needs of IDPs in Eastern Burma

By Sai Awn Tai

(Shanland) -Australia is neglecting what the Australian people want and what the right thing to do is for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in eastern Burma, said Dr John Kaye, NSW Greens MP.

During the last week about 10,000 people from Shan State fled from their homes after the military attacked and burned down the villages.

Burma advocacy campaigners Nang Charm Tong and her colleagues from the Thai-Burma border have urged the Australian government to change its foreign aid policy to assist Shan, Karen and other ethnic IDPs.

They met Mr Bob McMullan, the parliamentary secretary for international development assistance on 19 August to press AusAid to change its policy.

“Mr McMullan was sympathized and said that he will talk with his government colleagues but the result is unlikely to come overnight.

“This is our first step on this advocacy campaigning. We will continue to lobby until the Australian government changes its cross-border aid policy,” said Charm Tong.

Australian foreign aid has increased from $A16 million to 29 million for Burma but none of this money will assist the IDPs and last year, only $A1.2 million went to refugees who live in refugee camps at the Thai-Burma border.

The Burmese community in Australia, surprised by the AusAid policy, has asked questions why the Australian government does not assist the cross-border people who urgently need assistance for health care and food.

“There appear to be strong links between the Australian government and the military regime,” said Paul Power, the Chief Executive Officer of Refugee Council of Australia.

“I would like to question the nature of cooperation between the Australian government and the government of Burma” he said.

“The Australian government is quite reluctant to provide aid assistance to the IDPs in eastern Burma saying it has to respect the sovereignty of Thailand and Burma. They are also worried about the risk factor on the ground if they provide cross-border assistance to the IDPs.”

“In addition, they want to focus the humanitarian assistance through Rangoon,” said Dr Myint Cho, the director of Australia Burma Campaign.

However, Dr John Kaye believes that AusAid can also fund cross-border programs to IDPs without affecting their programs already being funded in Burma.

“If we look at countries like Canada, Norway, Denmark and US who do give funds to IDPs, they have also continued to operate their programs through Rangoon without problems from the military regime,” he said.

READ MORE---> Australia neglecting needs of IDPs in Eastern Burma...

Army torches over 300 houses of ethnic Shan

by Myo Gyi

Ruili (Mizzima) – Over 300 houses were torched last month by local Burmese Army columns from townships in southern Shan State, the armed ethnic Shan group statement said.

A statement issued by the 'Restoration Council of Shan State' (RCSS) on August 21 said six Burmese Army battalions set over 300 houses on fire since July 27. RCSS is the political wing of the 'Shan State Army' (South) – SSA-S.

"We want the international community, especially ASEAN and UN human rights organizations to know about the human rights violations in Burma. This statement urges and reminds the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military clique to stop its human rights violations committed on both Shan people and the entire Burmese people," the SSA-S spokesman Sai Lao Sai told Mizzima. SSA-S has been waging war against the junta for the right to self-determination.

Following clashes between the junta's army and SSA-S in central Shan State last month, the Burmese Army destroyed the villages for their alleged role in supporting Shan rebels by setting their houses on fire in keeping with its four-cuts policy, which includes cutting off communication channels between the villagers and the rebel army.

Over 40 villages, which were forcibly relocated, are from Meng Neng, Kehsi, Meng Kai, Leikha, Panlong, Nam Pan, Mone and Kun Hein in southern Shan State. Villagers from these villages now have to roam and hide in the dense forests, spokesman Sai Lao Sai said.

About 42 houses were burnt down in Tatmauk and Wan Ho Lone villages in Leikha Township by army columns led by Maj. Kyaw Thu Hla and Maj. Zaw Myo from IB 12 under the command of LIB 88, the local villagers said.

In a separate video report sent by Mizzima undercover reporters, 154 houses could be seen torched on July 29 in Hokhe village, Meng Kai Township. It left 641 people homeless.

The villagers fled without being able to take any belongings. Among the losses were a small rice mill, six motorcycles, one hand tractor with a trailer and 50 oxen pulled carts.

The homeless people had to take refuge at the monasteries in nearby villages or stay with their relatives.

"They could not bring anything with them except some pots and some clothes. All the paddy was burnt down along with their houses," an undercover Mizzima reporter, who watched the carnage, said in his report from Burma.

Sai Lao Sai said that they had already compiled the human right violations report with facts and figures committed in Shan State from 1996 to 2008. "In their four-cuts campaign, the junta systematically commits human rights violations against the Shan people. This had forced nearly 1,000 villages to be relocated. Nearly 2 million ethnic Shan people are homeless and displaced.

At least 718 women were sexually assaulted and 12 women were killed in sexual violence in Shan State from 1996 to 2005, the RCSS statement said.

READ MORE---> Army torches over 300 houses of ethnic Shan...

Eastern Burma: Another Darfur?

By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News

You could say it runs in the family—45-year-old Saw Lubermoo’s grandmother and grandfather were IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), his parents were IDPs, and now he is an IDP.

The ethnic Karen says he has been constantly on the move and hiding in the jungle since he was four years of age.

He is among hundreds of thousands of ethnic Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan civilians who have been displaced in eastern Burma for decades.

According to a 2008 report by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella group of donors and humanitarian organizations, the total number of IDPs in eastern Burma is likely to be well over half a million with at least 451,000 people estimated to have been displaced in rural areas alone. The group also says that many IDP cases in eastern Burma go unreported.

According to Shan and Karen relief groups, there are currently about 20,000 IDPs in hiding in the jungles of central Shan State and northern Karen State.

A separate group of some 4,000 Karen villagers fled during the joint Burmese army– Democratic Karen Buddhist Army offensive against the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in June and are presently being sheltered on Thai soil.

Shan community-based rights groups, including the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN), reported on August 13 that in the previous two weeks, the Burmese army had burned down more than 500 houses and forced about 40 villages to relocate, mostly in Laikha Township in Shan State.

On Wednesday, a top US administration official expressed anxiety over the displacement of thousands of civilians in northeastern parts of Burma due to the Burmese army’s military activities.

“We have been deeply concerned by very recent reports of large-scale displacement, perhaps as many or more than 10,000 civilians,” the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Eric Schwartz, told reporters on Wednesday at a special briefing at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the US State Department.

Observers and human rights advocacy groups have said that the conditions under which villagers are forced to become IDPs in eastern Burma is conducive with the criteria regarded by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as “crimes against humanity.”

Aung Htoo, the general-secretary of the exiled Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC), said, “We can say with certainty that crimes against humanity and war crimes are being committed in Burma.

Charm Tong, a spokesperson for SWAN, said, “The regime brazenly committed these crimes even as the whole world was watching them during the trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Several activists have said that crimes committed by soldiers of the Burmese regime include murder, rape, torture, looting, forced relocations and displacement. Many compare the situation in eastern Burma to the Darfur crisis in western Sudan where about 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced.

The ICC has issued a warrant for the arrest of President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan.

Since 1997, the Burmese regime has destroyed over 3,000 villages and displaced over half a million civilians in eastern Burma. Karen sources report that there have been many unreported displacements and destroyed villages in Karen State alone since 1949 when the Karen armed revolution began.

International and regional rights groups, such as the International Federation for Human Rights, Altsean-Burma and Burma Lawyers’ Council, have urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma.

Regional activist, Debbie Stothard, the coordinator of Altsean-Burma, said, “How can the SPDC’s planned elections be given any credence when war still rages in eastern Burma?”

A Karen rebel commander with the KNLA for more than two decades said he decided to join the fight against the Burmese army after he witnessed the bloodthirsty murder of children by Burmese soldiers.

He could not control his emotions as he told the story. “In one village, I saw the Burmese army kill women and infants. This event motivated me to pick up a gun and protect my Karen people,” he said.

“I have asked myself many times why Burmese soldiers are killing civilians. But, I have never found an answer.”

A Karen girl, Taw Oo Paw, 13, said, “I pray every night before I go to bed that I can be reunited with my mother and my sisters, and return to my village and live in peace.”

Her father was killed by the Burmese army and she has been separated from her mother and sisters for two years. She said that she hopes for a family reunion, one day.

Washington-based The Irrawaddy correspondent Lalit K Jha also contributed into this article.

READ MORE---> Eastern Burma: Another Darfur?...

Junta Conscripts Ethnic Youths

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

About 70 Chin teenagers in Matupi Township in Chin State in western Burma have been forced into military training, according to Chin sources.chi

Local sources said soldiers from Infantry Battalion No.304, which is based in Matupi Township, ordered nine villages to select at least eight youths over 18-years-old per village for military training.

“People have to work in the fields to grow paddy at this time of year [the rainy season]. We are short of food and no one wants to go for military training,” said a Chin resident in Matupi.

Matupi is one of seven townships in Chin State facing food shortages due to plagues of rats destroying crops.

The World Food Program (WFP) in Rangoon has reported that about 85 percent of the population in Chin State is in debt after borrowing money to buy food.

Similar conscription took place in the northern part of Ye Township in Mon State in southern Burma in July, when Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No. 343 ordered 200 youths to go for military training, according to Lawi Oung, a resident in Ye Township.

“The participants were taught how to beat people, how to handle riots and how to hold guns,” he said. “The training took one month, but the participants were only given fake bamboo guns during training.”

The families of those who refused to join had to pay 6,000 kyat [US $5.50] for exemption, according to Lawi Oung.

The villages where conscription took place are in a “black area,” which is close to a Mon rebel-controlled area, according to Thailand-based the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM).

Analysts said that the junta is training militias to prevent any uprising in the planned 2010 election, but they may also be preparing them for use as frontline troops when they attack Mon rebels.

Junta troops have conducted similar military training in several townships in Shan Sate in Northern Burma in recent months, according to the Chiang Mai-based Shan Herald Agency for News.

About 100 youths in Muse Township near the Chinese border in northern Shan State were forced to undergo military training.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, Saengjuen, an editor for the Shan Herald Agency for News, said: “an estimated 1000 people have been forced into training. Many are former members of forces loyal to the drug lord Khun Sa [who died in Rangoon in 2007].

“More people have been conscripted this year for basic military training, and to be taught how to collect news, organize campaigns and prepare military operations,” he said.

Saengjuen believes such militia troops will be used to attack armed ethnic ceasefire groups in Shan State, such as those in the Wa, Kokang, and Mong La areas, if tension keeps mounting.

Meanwhile, about 500 private mercenaries from Tang Yan Township in eastern Shan State were forced to join junta troops in preparation for a possible attack on the United Wa State Army (UWSA).

Tension between junta troops and ethnic ceasefire groups has been mounting after the latter refused to transform their troops into border guard forces in Shan State in July.

READ MORE---> Junta Conscripts Ethnic Youths...

Shan opposition drafts alliance charter

By Hseng Khio Fah

The Executive Committee members of the Provisional Shan State Congress (SSC) has completed the first draft of the constitution yesterday at their third annual meeting, held at undisclosed venue on the Thai-Burma border, according to one of the members Peunkham Payakwong from Tai Coordination Committee (TCC).

“The draft is expected to be approved at the next meeting,” he said.
The EC members are:
The meeting was attended by all the EC members, except for Maj Hsiao Harn.

The details of the charter is yet to be disclosed. “Suffice it to say it will do its best to cater to the needs of all the indigenous peoples of Shan State,” said Peunkham.

The meeting also discussed further plans for the holding of a second conference towards the end of the year. The EC has so far met 3 times.

The provisional Shan State Congress was formed on 23 December 2008 by the LDU, RCSS, PNLO, WNO and TCC at the Shan State Army (SSA) ‘South’ base Loi Taileng, with the declared aim to unite all the movements fighting against the ruling military regime.

READ MORE---> Shan opposition drafts alliance charter...

Military training continues in another guise

By Hseng Khio Fah

(Shanland) -Burma Army’s recruiting campaign and military training are still going on in northern Shan State’s Muse Township on the Sino-Burma border, according to local source.

In early this month, local police officials have forcibly recruited over a hundred of youths from the town and rural areas saying they would be employed in the fire brigade. However, those recruited people actually being given a month long military training.

Each town quarter was ordered to provide at least 10 to 30 people and each village surrounding Muse at least 3 people.

“No excuse for the service. Parents are also afraid to refuse for fear of punishment,” a resident said.

The recruits are being trained at Muse’s football field since 11 August, he added.

Each trainee is provided Kyat 500 ($0.45) each day.

Since early 2009, the Burma Army has been forcing villagers in several townships in Shan State to join militia units and have been conducting many military trainings.

In May, hundreds of villagers in Shan State East’ Tachilek township, opposite Maesai and people in Namkham, northern Shan State were similarly ordered to sever either in the fire brigade or in the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), but all were forced to undergo militia training, according to report by SHAN in May.

READ MORE---> Military training continues in another guise...

China tough with junta on Kokang

Kokang leader Peng Jiasheng

S.H.A.N - China may be backing Naypyitaw when it comes to democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and the over 2,000 political prisoners, but it has taken a tough stance twice in a week when the Burma Army tried to force its will upon one of former communist armies, according to sources on the Sino-Burma border.

On 8 August, it had successfully convinced the Burma Army force that had entered the Kokang territory “without our permission” to carry out inspection on a location suspected to have an arms factory. “Due to China’s intercession, the Burma Army had pulled out,” said a local source.

Three days later on 11 August, Maj-Gen Aung Than Tut, Commander of the Lashio-based Northeastern Region Command, summoned 5 Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), as the Kokang ceasefire group prefers to call itself, to his headquarters. Two were later dispatched to Laogai, the Kokang capital, to persuade its top leader Peng Jiasheng to have an audience with him.

Peng, who had already refused to meet Aung Than Tut on 8 August, did not show up. As a result, the situation that had almost returned to normal on 9 August had tensed up again, triggering people the flee across the border once more.

They were however stopped by the Chinese. “We are doing what we can to ease up the situation,” one border official was quoted as saying. “Of course, we will not refuse admission if bullets start flying. But in the meanwhile, you should trust us and go back.”

Only Chinese citizens were allowed to cross the border, said a source from the border.

The remaining three were allowed to return on the next day, thus somewhat cooling things off. “There isn’t any doubt why the junta backs down,” said a knowledgeable source. “There could even have been a trade-off between Naypyitaw and China: Ditching Suu Kyi in exchange for peace along the border.”

China was the only country that supported Naypyitaw’s decision to continue Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest on 11 August.

The situation nevertheless is still worrisome, according to a Thai-Burma watcher. “The release of the Kokang officials did not resolve the issues between the two sides,” he said. “Naypyitaw still wants Kokang and their allies to become border security battalions under the control of the Burma Army and they keep saying No to it.”

In addition, according to several sources, any fight with Kokang will certainly lead to a full-scale war with its allies, Kachin Independence Army (KIA), United Wa State Army (UWSA), National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA) and the Shan State Army (SSA) “North”, which amounts to a grand total of 45,000-50,000 strong well armed opposition.

Naypyitaw has fixed October as the deadline for the ceasefire groups to transform themselves into what it terms as Border Guard Forces (BGFs).

READ MORE---> China tough with junta on Kokang...

Rights groups to regime: Stop atrocities

By Hseng Khio Fah

(Shanland) -Again, overseas Shan rights groups are on calling the Burmese military immediately stop its atrocities and also on the international and regional communities to end their silence and set up an investation team on the regime’s crimes against humanity.

Since 27 July, Burma Army units under the command of the Mongnawng based Military Operations Command (MOC) #2, Shan State South, have burned down over 500 houses, more than 200 granaries, and forcibly relocated an estimated 10,000 villagers from almost 40 villages in Mongkeung, Laikha and Kehsi townships, according to the rights groups.

“We are therefore demanding the regime immediately stop their atrocities against people the and allow all relocated villagers to return to their homes,” said Nang Charm Tong from Shan Women Action’s Network (SWAN) at a press conference held today on the Thai-Burma border.



“On the other hand, we would like to call on the international communities such as the United Nations Security Council, ASEAN and Burma’s neighbors to pressure Burma to stop its oppression on the people. They should not let Burma continue abusing the people,” she added.

According to her, the current forced relocation campaign is the largest forced relocation since 1996-1998, when over 300,000 villagers were uprooted in southern and central Shan State, most of whom have since fled to Thailand.

“This is another attempt to uproot the ethnic people,” she said.

During the 1996-98 campaign against the SSA, almost 1,500 villages were destroyed and more than 300,000 in southern and eastern Shan State were forcibly relocated, a third of which had escaped into Thailand.

“The troops were ordered by their headquarters to burn down the houses, as they repeatedly radioed to their headquarters as the buildings went up in flames,” said Shan Human Rights Foundation’s Director Kham Harn Fah.

"This campaign has been carried out cold-bloodedly and systematically,” he added.

The Burma Army earlier retaliated the Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO) that had wiped out a 12-men patrol on 3 May by killing two village headmen, torturing more than 80 villagers and gangraped a 15-year old girl in Hsihseng, another southern Shan State township, according to several exile news groups.

READ MORE---> Rights groups to regime: Stop atrocities...

Gang-rape follows Four-Cuts

by Hseng Khio Fah

(Shanland) -Latest reports of the Burma Army’s four-cut campaign said that a Shan woman from Shan State South’s Laikha township was gang raped in front of her husband by the Burma Army that has been waging a four-cut campaign since late July.

The couple was identified as Sai Awta, 23, and her wife Nang Noom, 20 (not their real names), from the 31 household Wan Nawngpoke village, Tarkmawk village tract, Laikha Township, said a source.

The incident occurred only a half of mile south of the village on August 2 at 5 pm, when three privates led by Sergeant Tin Aye from Mongkeung based Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #514 was on patrol and found the said couple while they were working in their farm. The group detained them after accusing of being members of the SSA-South.

Some soldiers separated Sai Awta from his wife, tied him with a rope to a post of the hut and beaten him while others raped her wife in front of him in turn including the Sergeant until midnight. After that, the couple was warned not to spread news of the rape, said Sai Awta’s friend who declined to be named.

“They [soldiers] threatened them not to tell anybody; otherwise their family and both of them would be killed,” he said.

On that day, a 25 strong patrol from the battalion together with 14 men of pro-junta Mongzeun militia group (formally Brigade 758 of the Shan State Army (SSA) ‘South’ that surrendered in July 2006) arrived at the village.

It was led by Lt Myint Than and the militia group was led by Sai Yoong whose leader Mongzeun was killed in an attack by the SSA on 25 May.

“Villagers were given a deadline to leave their houses, if not all houses would be burnt down,” said a local source who wishes to remain in anonymity.

A clash between LIB#515 and SSA fighters on 15 July in Laikha township has led hundreds of villagers in Laikha, Kehsi and Mongkeung townships suffer from several human rights violations.

“License to Rape,” a report by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN), which was published in 2002, detailing 173 incidents of rape and involving 625 women and girls, had shaken the international community.

READ MORE---> Gang-rape follows Four-Cuts...

Veteran politician refutes state’s interpretation of federalism

by Nem Davies

New Delhi (Mizzima) – A veteran politician from Shan State, Shwe Ohn, who attended the historic Panglong Conference in 1947, has strongly protested against an article appearing in the ‘New Light of Myanmar’, which says federalism means instigating for disunity among the people.

Mizzima received a copy of his protest letter, sent to the editor of the paper.

“I have not yet received a response from them. This article is wrong. It’s not true. I want this article to get corrected,” Shwe Ohn told Mizzima.

In the article, entitled ‘With care and with conscience’, written under the pseudonym ‘Ko Thar Yar’ and appearing in the 26th July issue of the ‘New Light of Myanmar’, the federal principle is assessed as a means of sowing disunity among the people.

“They are trying to reincarnate federalism with the intention of disintegrating the state, and they are sowing dissension among the ethnic people. If we start with this federal principle [according to the paper], our country will disintegrate into tiny states, all of whom will certainly become prey to the tiger,” explained Shwe Ohn.

The article goes on to argue, “The precedence of other big sates contains obvious lessons and examples which cannot be denied by anyone. So we should take care of federalism, which has seeds that can disintegrate our union.”

U Shwe Ohn, however, said the article’s premise was impossible and that author Ko Thar Yar was ignorant about federal principles. He further suspects, though it could well be the author’s own opinion, that some external influence was behind the essay.

In his letter to editor he explained federalism in its historical background, stating, “It is very clear that union means the states are integrated and constituted on an equal basis. But in 1948, in the Union of Burma, there was no Burman State and thus it must be a bogus Union.”

He also sent copies of his letter to the daily ‘The Mirror’ as well as Rangoon-based weekly news journals.

In his letter he contends that all ethnic representatives who attended the Panglong Conference seriously discussed the formation of a Federal Union on the basis of equality in politics, self-determination and the right to secession, as they did not want a unitary system.

“The problems of a union cannot be resolved as long as the problems of ethnic people, who are almost 40 percent of the total population, are not solved,” stipulates Shwe Ohn.

In his 311-page, 17 chapter book entitled ‘Let’s build an unbreakable Union’, Shwe Ohn chronicled the migration of ethnic people now living in Burma, the emergence of the Pagan kingdom, the historic Panglong Agreement and finally his views on the constitutions of Burma.

While the work was widely distributed among political activists in 2008, he has not yet received permission from the Censor Board to publish his work inside Burma.

Similarly, the 86-year old veteran politician wrote and published ‘How about a Third Union?’ in 1993 in addition to presenting his ‘8-States Federal Union principle’ to the junta sponsored National Convention, for which he was greeted with a one-year prison sentence.

He has since established the ‘Federal Democracy Alliance’ party, based on democratic and federal principles, in early 2008 in order to contest the forthcoming 2010 general election.

READ MORE---> Veteran politician refutes state’s interpretation of federalism...

Dam forcibly displaces 15,000 Burmese

(DVB)–The construction of the unfinished Tasang dam in eastern Burma has already forced around 15,000 people into refugee camps in neighbouring Thailand, according to a report released yesterday.

Upon completion, the Tasang dam on the Salween river in Shan state will be the largest in Southeast Asia, bigger than China’s Three Gorges dam.

But ‘Roots and Resilience’, a report released by the Shan Sapawa Environment Organisation which focuses on the Kheng Kham community, documents the forced relocation of 15,000 civilians living near to the dam site.

Shan state is Burma’s prime opium growing region and the site of often intense conflict, with factions of the ethnic Shan State Army fighting against the Burmese government.

“The dam is in a war zone and the Burmese military always suspect the villagers are part of an armed group,” said Sai Sai, a spokesperson from Shan Sapawa Environment Organization. “So they are arrested, tortured, and many rape cases have been reported in the area.”

The 7,110 megawatt Tasang dam is the biggest of five dams planned on the Salween river.

Last year the government announced that 28 dams were under construction, adding to the 12 that already exist. There are plans to build another 10.

Investors in the project include Thailand’s MDX Company and China’s Gezhouba Group Company.

The majority of the energy generated by the dam will be sold to Thailand, who recently reiterated its support for the project when it included it in its national Power Development Plan against the wish of human rights groups.

“We want to pressure the Thai government not to put the Taseng dam into Power development plan” said Sai Sai.

“If they are doing so then they are showing their support for the dam and for the human rights violations that are occurring as a result of the dam”.

“If they go ahead with the dam 15,000 people will lose everything because their homes will be under the water.”

According to environmental group International Rivers, between 40 and 60 million people worldwide have been displaced by hydropower projects.

Reporting by Alex Ellgee

READ MORE---> Dam forcibly displaces 15,000 Burmese...

Junta Troops Prepare for Battle against UWSA

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

Junta troops and members of a private militia have joined forces in preparation for an attack against the United Wa State Army (UWSA) in Shan State in northern Burma, according to UWSA sources.

The militia, called the Wanpang group, number about 500 soldiers in Tang Yan Township in eastern Shan State. Led by Bo Mon, it is a remnant of group formed by late drug lord Khun Sa.

“The militia has been ordered to obey the command of the government troops,” said Mai Aik Phone, who is close to the UWSA.

Saengjuen, a news editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, said the military government plans to use the militia as a proxy army, in a way similar to its relationship with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which wages war against the Karen National Union (KNU).

The UWSA is the most powerful ethnic armed ceasefire group, and it has rejected the government’s offer to serve as a border guard force.

The government troops have been reinforced in UWSA-controlled areas in Shan State in recent months. Most UWSA troops are now on 24-hour alert.

According to Burma’s new constitution, all ceasefire groups must operate under the command of the military government.

Most ceasefire groups have reject the offer to serve under the command of the government army, and say they will maintain their current role as an army to protect their own people.

The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has proposed to transform its troops into the Kachin Regional Guard Force, but it has rejected the offer to serve as a border guard force. The junta has not responded to their proposal yet.

In July, the New Mon State Party (NMSP) also rejected the offer to serve as a border guard force.

Hongzar Bang Kyine, a NMSP spokesperson, said that the party will officially announce its rejection of the offer on Mon Revolution Day on Aug. 5.

The party’s leaders have been told by the junta’s regional commander to consider serving as a local militia, if they reject the border guard proposal.

Meanwhile, in recent operations along the Thai-Burmese border, combined forces of the government army and the DKBA attacked military units of the KNU. The DKBA has agreed to serve as a border guard force and has waged fierce battles with their fellow Karen in the past several months, claiming many lives and injured on both sides.

READ MORE---> Junta Troops Prepare for Battle against UWSA...

Religious leaders to pressure Burma ethnic groups

(DVB)–The Burmese government is using influential religious leaders and businessmen to convince ethnic ceasefire groups to transform themselves into border guards, as well as issuing direct threats to the groups.

A resident of Kachin state’s capital Myitkyina, where the ceasefire group Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) are active, said that a senior army official met yesterday with influential state figures to discuss transformation of the KIO into border troops.

“The regional commander met with pastors and business owners at the church in Aung Nan ward this morning and told them to help them pressure the KIO,” said the resident.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has embarked on a campaign to transform ceasefire groups into border patrol guards, a move which would bring them into what the government call the “legal fold”.

Ceasefire groups have said however that agreeing to the proposals would weaken the groups and effectively make them subordinated wings of the Burmese army.

The Myitkyina resident said that threats would be issued to the Kachin group if they failed to comply with the proposals.

“A religious leader who attended the meeting told me that the regional commander had hinted that [the military] would commence war against the group if they refuse the plan,” he said.

Meanwhile, sources in Shan state said the government is also putting similar pressure on ceasefire group, Shan State Special Region 4 (SSR-4), in eastern Shan state’s Mongla.

A former official of the ceasefire group, led by Sai Leun, said the SPDC had been spreading news that the army will enter Mongla on 8 August and attack the group if they don’t accept the border guard plan.

“[The army] said we would be in no position to fight them back as we have only 4000 or 5000 troops when they have 400,000,” said the official, adding that “we have already prepared ourselves for war.”

Reporting by ATK and Nan Kham Kaew

READ MORE---> Religious leaders to pressure Burma ethnic groups...