In the past week Burma’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) decided to stop pulling its punches with what we have come to know as the “ceasefire groups”.
In the northern Shan State there has been fighting on a scale that hasn’t been seen for decades. According to Xinhua, tens of thousands refugees from the Kokang region (controlled by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and also known as Shan State Special Region 1), have fled across the border into China’s western Yunnan. A good map of the area is available here. There is speculation that the fighting may now spread to the eastern Shan State (pictures of the exact area available here), and even to the Kachin State.
The battles in the northern Shan State have already tested the resolve of those who have enjoyed such long periods of “peace” and “development” under the ceasefires. I would expect that many of the “ceasefire” troops, particularly those from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, have only limited combat experience. 700 of their men have reportedly already surrendered to Chinese authorities. Many United Wa State Army soldiers, on the other hand, have a fair amount of frontline fighting under their belts. Some of their units have maintained battle-readiness through their long-term deployments along the Thailand-Burma border. Will they now be drawn into a more general conflict?
One of the other issues that intrigues me about these battles in the northern Shan State is the possibility of an alliance of ceasefire armies that draws some of its strength from the connections made during the SPDC-sponsored constitution-drafting National Convention. During the National Convention, delegations from “ceasefire” areas, such as this one, lived and worked together in Rangoon. It would be surprising if they did not develop some strong relationships. Before the opportunities presented by the National Convention many of the top ethnic leaders had spent their recent years relatively isolated in their border strongholds. In the meantime, non-ceasefire groups have been largely forced to make do with these kinds of mountain-top meetings.
But are things now changing? In the past days the “Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front”, with Wa, Kokang, New Democratic Army – Kachin and Eastern Shan State Army members, has released a joint statement (translated here) that gives some sense of the potential solidarity among the ceasefire groups.
And this “Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front” is only one possible alliance configuration. Could a broader grouping of Wa, Kokang, Shan, Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Mon, etc., get together to take the fight back to the SPDC? It remains an intriguing, but unlikely, possibility. Instead, is 2009 going be the year when the ceasefire armies will be “divided and ruled” once-and-for-all?
7 responses so far ↓
1 Ge Deng // Sep 1, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Greetings:
I thought the NDA-K had agreed to the border guard proposal and that the Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front (MPDF) was UWSA, Mongla, KIO and Kokang. Above you list the NDA-K as part of the MPDF and do not list the KIA/KIO. Is that an error?
Thanks,
Ge Deng
2 Nicholas Farrelly // Sep 1, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Hi Ge Deng,
Thanks for your message.
I had thought the same but today, when I was putting this piece together, all of the sources I was checking were listing the NDA-K as part of this alliance. I have now gone back to re-check and can find some reports referring to the NDA-K and some to the KIO as the fourth MPDF member.
This looks the most definitive source on the matter and in translator note 2 it confirms your comment.
Ge Deng, I certainly expect you are right about this and my initial post is wrong.
Can anyone offer further information? I am very happy to provide space for relevant PDFs or other materials that may be helpful to the wider reading public.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
3 Ge Deng // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Greetings Nich:
I think that there was an alliance or agreement between the 4 groups that came out of the Burma Communist Party (BCP) namely UWSA, Kokang, Mongla and NDA-K. This seems to be the Peace and Democracy Front.
But I also recall reading in the last few months, since the border guard proposal came out, of an mutual defense alliance between Kokang, UWSA, Mongla and KIO. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to do a through search to find the reference to the second group. And in a sense I do not think it would matter because it was likely to have been a news article and not some sort of official communique. The point being that sometimes the news reports get a bit lost in the alphabet soup of ceasefire group politics and might contain some errors. I will send out some emails in the hope that I can get someone with more information to take a look at this an clarify it.
Best,
Josh
4 Ge Deng // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:21 pm
“Four ethnic ceasefire groups in Burma’s north have got together and decided to retaliate against the ruling junta, if it starts any offensive against any member of the alliance, said local sources.
The groups in the military alliance are the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) based in Kachin State and Northeast Shan State, Mongla-based National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA-ESS), Kokang ceasefire group and United Wa State Army (UWSA), said KIO sources.”
so this is from 2009.08.11
http://www.kachinnews.com/index.php/news/1034-four-ethnic-ceasefire-groups-to-take-on-junta-in-event-of-war.html
5 Ge Deng // Sep 1, 2009 at 8:28 pm
“The SPDC has been putting pressure on all ceasefire ethnic armed groups to disarm and transform into the Border Guard Force. There is concern that there would be similar war against other ceasefire groups which refused the junta’s proposal on BGF.
Four ceasefire groups the ‘United Wa State Army’ (UWSA), ‘Kachin Independence Organization’ (KIO), ‘Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army’ (MNDAA) and Maila group or ‘National Democracy Alliance Army’ (NDAA) formed a military alliance.
The allies, however, did not pitch in, in the war against the Kokang group. The Kachin people are concerned with the clashes between junta’s forces and Kokang forces.”
this is from 2009.08.31 (yesterday) at the link below:
http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/2696-junta-briefs-kio-on-kokang-war.html
So it seems like there may be two alliances here, although the recent military alliance doesn’t seem to have come to much (so far). Ans also, it may be that the MPDF was issuing statements about the recent situation in Kokang — for example:
“The Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front, an alliance of four ethnic groups, and Chinese reports said the flashpoint came when troops attacked a factory used by ethnic groups to repair weapons on the suspicion it was being used to produce drugs.” from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32596296/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
6 Bamar // Sep 2, 2009 at 8:34 am
Perhaps the lingo used by the journos need to be changed to “Chinese expats” rather than “Burmese refugees” fleeing back into China. During the last two decades, the influx of Chinese into Burma has turned Burma into an extended province of China. Burmese citizenships are easily bought, IDs of dead people have risen from ashes and are driving the local economy and the local language being used locally is not Burmese but Chinese? The fiercely nationalistic junta have protected the country from even being tainted with hues of ethnicity for decades. Has the love affair with amorous China becoming too stifling for the Burmans that they are looking towards the West for a bit of counter balancing? The Burma Army did court the Japanese to fight the Brits then courted the Brits to drive the Japanese out.
7 aiontay // Sep 2, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I don’t doubt that the National Convention allowed relationships to develop, but since most of the ceasefire groups don’t exactly have young leadership, there were working relationships that extend all the way back to the insurgent days. Both the Kokang and Wa were part of the Communist insurgency and KIA 4th Brigade used to co-operate with the Communists.
Also, when I was in Lashio back in 1997, the UWSA office was just down the road from the offices of two other ceasefire groups. Unfortunately, I forget which two now. Further down the road was the house of a Kachin who was the leader of a pro-government militia,(not a ceasefire group) who jokingly offered to take me down to the Wa office, where he had friends, and said that MI would really want to talk to me if we did that.
Also, these groups all had economic and political ties to China, and I’m sure they had a chance to develop conections there.
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