Representatives of the Burmese military junta and Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) will meet in an attempt to resolve the deadlock over transforming the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the armed-wing of KIO to the junta-proposed battalion of the Border Guard Force (BGF) in early October, said KIO sources.
KIO officers in Laiza headquarters on the Sino-Burma border in Kachin State said the meeting is slated to be held on October 2 before the October 30 deadline set by the junta to transform the KIA and the rest of the ethnic ceasefire groups in the country to the Burmese Army-controlled BGF.
The KIO was told to come up with a clear "Yes or No" answer on the transformation by Lt-Gen Ye Myint, the junta's Chief Naypyitaw negotiator and Chief of Military Affairs Security when he met KIO delegates led by Vice-president No. 1 Lt-Gen Gauri Zau Seng in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State on September 9, said KIO delegates.
According to KIO delegates, the junta-proposed BGF will be set up with a total manpower of 326 in a battalion including the direct participation of 30 officers of the Burmese Army. The battalion commander will be from KIA but his deputy commander must be from the Burmese Army.
KIA soldiers over 50 years old will not be accepted in the BGF. All military personnel in the BGF will be under the direct control of the Military Chief of Staff of the Burmese Army. They will receive military training, weapons, rations and salary from the Burmese Army, added KIO sources.
Since April, delegates from both sides have met seven times but the imbroglio over the KIA’s transformation has not been resolved, said KIO officers.
The junta in turn has rejected the KIO's demands for transforming KIA to the Kachin Regional Guard Force (KRGF) and the direct participation of KIO people in a new Kachin State government after next year’s elections.
Two attempts were made to explain the KIO's demands to the junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe in July and August by a group of civilian peace mediators led by Rev. Dr, Lahtaw Saboi Jum, former general secretary of the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) and the current director of Shalom Foundation (also called Nyein Foundation), a national NGO in the country. However the attempts were thwarted as no meeting was allowed, according to KIO sources.
KIO delegates said the junta in every meeting with the KIO said that it was concerned and desired transforming KIA to BGF, which was the same as the KIO/KIA.
At the moment, the KIO is the strongest and the last remaining Kachin ceasefire group, which has rejected the junta's BGF proposal among the four main ethnic Kachin ceasefire groups in the country.
