Retired soldiers of the erstwhile Communist Party of Burma (CPB) are being recruited by the ethnic Kachin ceasefire group, the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K) while transforming to the junta-proposed Border Guard Force (BGF), said local sources. The CPB split in 1989.
NDA-K has to recruit former Kachin communist party soldiers to meet the required manpower for transforming NDA-K to three battalions of the Burmese Army controlled BGF. There will be about 400 soldiers in the three battalions now but each BGF battalion is to have 326 soldiers, said NDA-K sources.
The NDA-K will be transformed to three BGF battalions with a total manpower of 978. Of them, 897 military personnel will be from the NDA-K and 81 from the Burmese Army.
Currently, the NDA-K’s military recruitment is taking place mainly in the villages under the control of the group east of Kachin State bordering China's Yunnan province--- Pangwah, Kambaiti, Hpimaw and Kangfang, where retired CPB soldiers are settled, said sources in NDA-K's headquarters Pangwah.
Shortage of the required manpower in NDA-K is preventing the speedy transformation to the BGF, sources close to the group said.
Pangwah sources said NDA-K's junior officers and people in the controlled areas were averse to conversion to the BGF. However they could not oppose the order of the leader Zahkung Ting Ying.
Now, some selected NDA-K soldiers are taking military training at the Burmese Army’s No. 7 Military Higher Training School based in Pyindaung near Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, said NDA-K sources.
The NDA-K, the former 101st Army Division of the CPB led by Zahkung Ting Ying signed a peace agreement with the junta in 1989. It accepted the junta-proposed BGF in June this year.
Zahkung Ting Ying is planning to contest the junta-conducted 2010 elections through the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), which is not an official political party yet, led by former KIO vice-president No. 2 Dr. Manam Tu Ja.
Kachin people view NDA-K as a business organization rather than a political force.
The NDA-K is the largest Kachin armed group after the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in military-ruled Burma.
