I think we are seeing the early stages of a much more consistent effort, in parts of the international media at least, to draw our gaze to the war between the Kachin Independence Army and the Burmese government. New articles are being written all the time.
This war – for which there would appear to be no military resolution in sight — will become more important to President Thein Sein when international actors start paying closer attention. With the by-elections decided, relations with the National League for Democracy are settled for the time being. And other ethnic political movements, to include the Karen National Union, are getting behind the government’s agenda to an unprecedented degree. This means the Kachin war could prove to be the most awkward element in the entire transition process, justifying all manner of policy acrobatics, if it is not brought to a mutually agreeable end.
Increasingly we see commentators arguing that because of fighting in the Kachin and Shan States positive political developments in other areas of the country can be heavily discounted, even disregarded. I’d suggest that is an analytical step too far but, as I have argued in the past, there is a clear, and unfortunate, contradiction in Burma’s recent politics. Consistently positive moves in what could be desribed as “Burman” politics have been matched by at best haphazard progress in ethnic areas, and seriously regressive developments in Kachinland.
Recently, in response to the ongoing conflict, Sebastian Strangio has reported that “there’s little sign of a democratic awakening” in war-torn parts of northern Burma. Some have posited that “insurgencies come and insurgencies go. But ethnic cleansing is forever”. Others contend that, while the Kachin war continues, “heeding…calls” to remove sanctions ”would be a serious mistake”.
After the 17-year ceasefire it is remarkable that violent events in the Kachin State could now disrupt President Thein Sein’s plans for a smooth transition to international respectability. What we are seeing suggests that day-by-day the effort to internationalise the conflict, and bring pressure to bear on the government, will only build.
Andrew Jackson extended the franchise to all White male voters while ethnically cleansing the southeast of the US of American Indians and did nothing to restrict slavery.
That being said, yeah it is a problem for Thein Sein, but also a problem for Aung San Suu Kyi.
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Whether their long standing ties with the Baptist Kachin from colonial and missionary days to WWII or their Big Business interests will prevail in the US engagement strategy we shall find out in due course notwithstanding the media and public outcry. It will be a close call.
McCain and Webb have followed Clinton in calling for easing the sanctions, and JW in fact for a speedy end to the sanctions (surprise, surprise from the business crusader). The UN has always been a soft touch in Burma; perhaps we can expect it to be more assertive over issues of near genocide.
You get the feeling it’s something that will be decided mainly between Burma and China in dividing the spoils of the North, and also on how to pacify the natives. There is something of a Wild West feel too in Kachin State, and also Karen State where bizarrely domestic big business interests and go-betweens like Myanmar Egress are already involved from the start.
Hopefully the regime will find another viable exit strategy in dealing with these ethnic wars too other than just ‘killing the buffaloes or the injuns unless the railroad companies get what they want’.
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The only different now is Kachin instead of Karen.
How long before ad. for mercenary start appearing in Guns & Ammo® and similar magazine?
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Why is this evidence albeit ugly lost to the West?
The Wa as a smaller ethnic group has done well due to their monopoly on the DRUGS and VICES trade naturally unaffected through out this useless careless policy period.
Enabling this ethnic group to be defiant due to their economic cloud.
A larger economic pie, at stake, presently absent in Myanmar, will always empower all participants therefore favor negotiation over present approach to conflict.
http://www.mizzima.com/edop/commentary/6718-burmas-turn.html
Is it so hard to accept that an economist that prompted this useless careless policy is now being called to be reversed by another one, albeit Nobel Laureate?
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Funny how plan B typically chose to highlight only the economic clout of the Wa and not their close political and military ties with China. Unlike the Kachin, you cannot consider the rise (under the tutelage of the CPB) of the erstwhile headhunters and once backwater tribe separately from China. In fact the border agreement signed in 1960 stated that the 1941 boundary in the Wa states (across their land) would be accepted.
Stitglitz can now afford a very sanguine outlook for Burma’s economy given the recent ‘miracle’ of reforms. It is certainly progress after a fashion and from dire necessity dawned on the ruling elite conceding if belatedly to acknowledge and utilise ASSK’s undisputed role that some of us still shows incredibly ill grace in accepting.
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@#6
Good try but no money.
“ASSK’s undisputed role that some of us still shows incredibly ill grace in accepting.”
undisputed role of calling for this ongoing useless careless policy.
undisputed role in screwing up a landslide victory.
Rehabilitating an unrepentant initiator by another like minded “damn the humanity” within.
Will wait until her true redemption.
As of now she is still all for and about herself.
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For the international community, the Kachin are elephant in the room. Cue from Aung San Suu Kyi: the only need for the Kachin is offer as a go-between which implies that Kachin are not US but others and offer of blankets to the frightened survivors afterwards in publicised fashion.
Chinese want Kachin dead to collect their goods (pipes,dams, jade, minerals, timber) already paid and bought from the Burmese, only wish they do so quietly. Burmese military want Kachin dead to serve the master Chinese. The “Democratic Opposition” really want Kachin dead as they are pebble in their new shining boots for them during their “nation building” ie. selling out the pipes, ports, roads, forest, fish, gem, rare metals, cheap labour and women for high rise buildings and iPAD’s, Than Shwe’s plan and now enthusiastically endorsed by all.
And the international community desperately reliant on Chinese economy just to keep the Eurozone dis-integration at bay, wants to give China anything they want and salivates at the thought of newly integrated South- East Asia as next virgin to spoil with rampant consumerism on top of resource extraction and energy production with promised destroyed land, air, water and demoralised people devoid of culture and religion left behind.
For consumer goods are the new opium for the masses with better penetration.
Karen got tired of being chased around for half a century and want to be rich like the Thai who they secretly loath. At least some of them are eager to drop any pretension of federal state and grab money and some status coming their way.
There is no democratic awakening in Burma today unless people believe in Hong Kong Rolex.
Only if the titles “President”, “Parliament”, “Constitution” mean what they regard since they are born but not as it is today in Burma. And actively keep finding excuses for Thein Sein to lie to them- the Myit Sone Dam is a lie, the stop attack order on Kachin is a lie.
Yet it is curious how much more Thein Sein has to lie until people feel cheated at all. Such is the power of Aung San Suu Kyi. Or rather misplaced trust. Of course the “Parliament” (two Houses!!!) and the whole “Government” is under some nebulous committee and ALL military people off uniform can come back any time they want for another 4 years.
Since Aung San Suu Kyi has been out, the killings got worse, raping got worse, burning down the villages got worse, tongues got cut, eyes got gouged out, swathes of land confiscated, petrol prices nearly doubled, water and electricity prices got higher. People are irrationally euphoric because of their blind faith in one person.
There is the most supine investment law she will enact as soon as in the parliament so that all global businessmen can rape and pillage with clear conscience with law protecting THEM. The law should be correctly called “the Rights of Bulldozers”.
Perhaps someone could point out a single good thing that happens to the people in the last year which is not of the circus and pantomime.
Likelihood is that after the fall of Liaza, Kachin, left to their own devices by future-blanket-giving brethren of the country Burma and the international community, will be a guerilla force and may feel justified to use violence in the other parts of the country as hinted by a recent order and might try to turn the problem into national wide racial issue.
“The 17 years of peace” was the leaders of Kachin community getting rich by all immoral business deals and nature destruction. Now Burmese military wants more and they rightly calculated that no one will come to the Kachin’s aid with various bribery to Shan, Karen and Wa and total ignorance and neglect by the Burmese and their chosen leader.
Choas and destruction await.
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a. Genocide of the Kachin will never happen however hard the regime with China’s likely collusion might try. Not in the 21st C before the very eyes of the global community. There is no way they can hide these things going on today. Not even the Australian Aborigines got wiped out, nor the Native Americans, though admittedly any race could face the same fate as those unfortunate peoples – a literally casino economy at best.
Thein Sein’s govt must find a viable exit strategy which cannot work without including the Kachin over sharing the wealth of the North. Besides there are Kachin in both India (Singpho) and China (Jingpo).
b. ASSK is someone we all need, ethnic or Burman (no need to be a fan of hers) , at least at this stage of the fight. Even the CPB realised that from the beginning and does today. We would have to find someone like her if she didn’t exist. She is still the one who can unite and carry everyone including the army ( except the irredeemable) with her.
c. A gold rush of sorts is on in anticipation of the sanctions being lifted and the
boom that’s about to begin has brought people from the four corners of the globeaccording to an official from the ADB. So there is a real risk of the universal greed masking the ethnic war in the north. A peaceful and prosperous Kachin State in the end must be in the interests of both India and China, not just Burma.
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Genocide of Kachin is NEVER going to happen because Min Aung Hlaing and his Chinese, Russian and Sri Lanka masters are no match for the Kachin. Keeping the honourable Burmese Military tradition, every time they get killed, they go around to torture defenceless villagers and rape the girls and kill them valiantly afterwards. If Aung San Suu Kyi has some opinion on these apart from the high school essay of we all should be peaceful stuff, it is not apparent.
The international community has been in economic doldrums ever since the mortgage crisis. Current bailout of Greece which is still in trouble is only part of Eurozone crisis. Everyone is itching to get in Burma for resources, cheap labour, sex industry and integration of Pan Asian economy which in economic terms will benefit the whole region and may head off this particular global economic crisis with new consumer market and new resource and energy production until this one runs out as well.
But led by a group of American Senators/ congressmen who have been steadfast in keeping the sanctions for noble purpose of truly helping the oppressed, no one was going to start this disgraceful carpet bagger rush until it was unexpectedly and suddenly triggered after that fateful 18th August 2011 “Family Dinner” with Aung San Suu Kyi coming out effusively praising and endorsing the fake President who all we all know is there by the grace of Than Shwe and is materializing the well planned calculated opening to get the best of both worlds for themselves.
Advised by the Chinese and the equally vision less and wicked ASEAN buddies and some American Nobel Prize winners, the military must be feeling so smug that they have sold of public assets to themselves and their foreign partners with financial gains with a prospect of multi fold more to come after the most inane “Investment Law” which will be enacted by the Parliament , the same parliament which is silent at best / more likely ordered killing of the large number of Kachins with guaranteed blankets for the survivors.
A large number of people have written recently and given interviews like the ones by Roland Watson, by Elliot Presse-Freeman, etc. of the need for orderly social development and education BEFORE indiscriminate destruction of the irreplaceable natural resources and (something no one mentioned) of the destruction of social fabric and millennium long traditional culture which cannot be regained.
The moral decay is already setting in the country and is accelerating. As a leader with moral authority it is more important for Aung San Suu Kyi to point out the importance of upholding the moral value and restraining the greed rather than encouraging people to get to be like Singapore in short time. Leading the ASEAN! What do we lead and why do we have to lead whatever for? Ta lwe sabin kaung!
Recent reminder of necessity for restraint in religious affair is the very sort of thing she should do and she did. But there are others which she could have done and regrettably didn’t.
People are so used to be kicked about all their lives and being told what to do and what to believe. It would have been wise to truly LISTEN to the people to understand what they want, what their aspirations are, what is is that they would like to see.
These may not necessarily be exactly the same those advised by the economists of Harvard and Singapore National University. Even though it is polite to want to be integrated with the others, the Burmese may not feel inclined to wallow in the decadent world of consumerism which every single academic and commentators are so desperate to shove into their throat.
Interesting to listen to all these academics being delighted about people getting out of poverty. Poverty as they understand in their feeble mind of numbers and statistics. Stiglitz was commissioned by Sarkozy to find measurement of economic performance and social progress, something not quite as good as Bhutan Gross National Happiness index which is ignored by all including one with strong Bhutan connection. All it is said about now is how much money is being made as sole indicator.
Burma imminently going down that money road to the delight of academics and economists will forever be regarded as a true tragedy for she was a remarkably beautiful country in appearance and conduct.
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Well Ohn, these people can’t put their own house in order but such a small matter has never stopped them telling the rest of us how to live our lives, has it?
As one of the contemptible Bamar I can assure you cynics like you and me have a damned good reason to be cynical. It’s from long and nasty experience. Don’t you kid yourself that we are each a monolithic entity with only ethnic and religious differences and no class divisions, and no great gap between the rulers and the ruled. It’s the same everywhere, and some of us do not merely scratch the surface and convince ourselves that a technological fix like the open market economy, globalisation, tech inputs and international capital will be the answer to all our problems, that catching up with Singapore, or the West for that matter with all its insurmountable crime and other social problems , is going to be the be all and end all.
You and I know that it’s high time these chauvinist militarist thugs got thrown out on their ear. The West is all too happy to embrace this ‘reform’ lark and above all ‘opening up’ the country, to welcome them to the new world order where money is the god of our time and deemed the sole purveyor of progress and happiness. The rest is window dressing, pulling the wool across our eyes and seizing the moral high ground. The bottom line is as ever Big Business. It transcends race, creed and cultural differences which cannot be allowed to interfere with its onward march in this brave new world.
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KIA won’t be fighting for too long, Just watch this YouTube video!
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Well KIO has ways better infrastructure than the current gov or ASSK group. In fact, Kachins do not need ASSK but ASSK might need Kachin if she really want to inform her So called national reconciliation. But ASSK is too afraid to speak up about Kachin or she has the same interest like Military Gov. We haven’t seen any goods come out from ASSK.
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Is this post with videos more proofs of KIA fighting a loosing war?
http://hlaoo1980.blogspot.com/2012/04/kia-forced-recruits-surrendered.html#more
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About 30 years ago, I was sitting with other youngsters in the local shop located at the edge of our street. A coporal from adjacent barrack was there and proudly told his interesting frontline experiences to us.
Guess what?
He said, they chased Kachin women for sex whenever they see these women in remote areas. He was literally bragging and I only realized this as rapes almost a decade later.
Another story I could remember was about a damned porter who elbowed him and disappeared after rolling down to a thick forest ravine. Of course, now I know that it was a poor guy who tried to escape from his slow-death process at front line which now called forced labour.
Kachin and Karen might forgive for these atrocities but to forget is not an easy task. Sadly, state media and some Burmese are trying to twist the truth and making people to be confused. Reconciliation is a long way to go.
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It is not a fluke that Rangoon is being reverted to it original Yangon.
Historically NO known record of permanently successful armed conflicts b/t the Bamar and any ethnic groups that chose to challenge, the former dominance has ever been recorded, since the dawn 1st Bamar dynasty.
Chauvinistic and unbearably obnoxious?
Probably, especially to those who ignorant THE Myanmar History.
The same group that choose to ignore preponderance of other successful means.
Neither as a Kachin just lamenting this present egregious misfortune of Kachin over the equally egregious misfortune of the whole Myanmar Citizenry nor self deprecating as a Bamar help to change anything positive within ongoing dynamics.
Doing so however will be playing into the hands of the West that has forged this dynamic with the useless careless policy and the beneficiary, this present military government.
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Well Egress,
It is the very issue with Aung San Suu Kyi.
She is coming out to be more and more of Thein Sein’s enforcer with acceptable face. If there has been any policy difference with Thein Sein who is simply of functionary arm of Than Shwe government, it is not apparent.
Some of The important issues in Burma today are
1. Continued building of the Myit Sone Dam which will destroy Irrawaddy along with livelihood of millions down stream.
2. Continued building of pipes and rails and roads, even if they are so wonderful like Than Myint-U says, being planned and done by the Chinese as if they already own the country.
3. More importantly killing, torturings and destruction of livelihood that goes with it.
4. Similar planned environmental destruction of immense and horrible scale in Tavoy now the spoils split with armed Karen group.
5. Most insane so-called investment law which is waiting for her signature so that the international money people will feel secure, effectively giving away the country for any foreigner to do any thing they want to make money.
6. Moral erosion in all layers of the society which will accelerate with likely drug and violence issues to multiply.
Not a single word has been said on these issues in the whole of last year so it is simple guess work that Aung San Suu Kyi might not agree with the military. But equally possible she might agree.
Funny thing still is that the military voted by themselves the constitution and the “Members of Parliament”. Public do not have a clue what is it that was voted.
Now the public in hordes voted willingly for NLD which is not saying what their policies are, and public do not have a clue what is it that was voted.
Even funnier, most people in NLD would have no clue what their policies are apart from these high school essays of live peacefully, don’t talk back to the elderly ( here read the militarymen), etc.
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plan B @ 15
Honestly, I have struggled to understand your flowery writing which looklikes you’re aiming only to a narrow audience. This led me to feel not so sure about whether you are directing to me as an ignorant toward the shaky Burmese history.
However, I’m aware that you’ll end all your rants by blaming the usual suspect “the West” which looks bizzarre for me and most of my friends.
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Let’s hope plan B stops whining like a broken record when the ‘useless careless west’ lifts the sanctions or the mosquito net and jump into the bed with our govt; they are just contemplating on ‘health & safety’ precautions, and who can blame them?
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