Escalating tension between the Kachin Independent Organization/Army (KIO/A) and the Burmese military junta over the contentious Border Guard Force issue has seen to the ethnic group recruiting new batches of soldiers, said local residents.
The KIO stepped up fresh recruitment since last week in Northeast Shan State, eastern Burma and Kachin State the residents added.
“Some youths from Nam Hpak Ka village ran into my house,” said a resident of Namtau village in Shan State. At least three of her close family members escaped the recruitment dragnet of the rebels in Nam Hpa Ka village in Northeast Shan State.
She said the three youths fled from their homes because they did not want to join the rebel army.
The junta and the KIO failed to reach an understanding over the thorny BGF issue, which sought to transform the latter’s armed wing into a small guard force under Burmese Army control.
The junta has been pressurizing the KIO to toe its line but the ethnic rebel group wanted the regime to consider the 1947 Pang Long agreement framed by ethnic leaders along with Burma’s Independence architect General Aung San. If the regime implements the 1947 agreement promising equal rights for all people then the KIA is ready to surrender arms not just change to BGF, KIO has suggested several times.
The two sides met 10 times to discuss the BGF issue without coming to a settlement with the junta setting a deadline for February 28 for KIO to acquiesce.
KIO is now holding its crucial central committee meeting in its headquarter Alen Bum in Laiza on the Sino-Burma border as of March 1 to thrash out the BGF issue and its next response to the junta.
KIA soldiers exercise in Lai Sin Bum headquarters in Kachin State, near China Border.
“There is no fresh recruitment in the township but in the gold mining and Hpakant jade mining areas new soldiers are being taken in,” said a resident of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State.
KIO had stopped recruitment for a long time after its ceasefire with the regime in 1994.
The Burmese Army is also recruiting new soldiers for forming people’s militia in Shan State, Mungbaw and Manje villages since last month, a source said.
“They (junta) are recruiting even child soldiers,” the source added.
In January the junta forcibly recruited at least 60 people to form militia groups from those living near the KIA’s 4th brigade. Villagers said the idea was to harm the ethnic armed group by using local people.
