Exiled Kachin politician Duwa Maran Zau Awng recently sent US president Barack Obama an open letter urging that him not to visit Burma next week because of the military's ongoing offensive in Kachin State. According to various rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, the Burma military have committed numerous atrocities against Kachin civilians during their campaign against the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).
“It's not the right time” says the 81-year old now exiled politician. Duwa Maran Zau Awng won a seat in parliament representing the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) the 1990 election - the results of which were annulled by the military.
Duwa Maran Zau Awng told the Kachin News Group that the reformist credentials of Burma's nominally civilian government have been inflated. “President Thein Sein is a liar. He is not implementing a genuine change that alters the military's role in the country. Instead he's killing innocent Kachin people,” said the former political prisoner who was jailed from 1997 to 2001 for opposing Than Shwe's regime. Now he lives in Florida.
Burma's armed forces attacked the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) on June 9 last year, only three months after Thein Sein, a former general and close ally of the officially retired Than Shwe, took office. Over the last 17 months, Thein Sein has publicly ordered the military to stop offensives against the KIA on two occasions. However the military continues to attack KIA positions - routinely killing and maiming Kachin civilians in the process. An estimated 100,000 Kachin civilians have been displaced by the fighting after the Burma army unilaterally ended a 17-year ceasefire with the KIO.
Duwa Maran Zau Awng is concerned about the central government making it difficult for the UN and other international groups to send humanitarian aid to internally displaced people's (IDPs) camps located in KIO territory along the border with China. The situation in these camps has become increasingly desperate as very little aid has been received while the conflict rages on.
Duwa Maran Zau Awng was born into a Kachin aristocratic family during the British colonial era. When he was just 16, Duwa Maran Zau Awng attended the Panglong talks in Feb., 1947. During the Panglong talks Kachin, Shan and Chin and other ethnic community leaders signed an agreement with independence leader General Aung San that promised Burma's ethnic nationalities some degree of autonomy to govern their own affairs in exchange for their support in building a new nation.
But Aung San was assassinated months later. His successor, U Nu never fully implemented the agreement and the promises of autonomy for ethnic nationalities were never forthcoming.
