With the Border Guard Force issue yet to be resolved and tension mounting, the first phase of the 11-day militia training in Kachin State in the north was wrapped up by the Burmese Army after the junta announced the electoral laws on March 8, said local residents.

The militia training to the first batch called the “1/2010 militia basic combat battle training” was given by Burmese Army trainers to 80 residents of Tatkone quarter, one of the largest ethnic Kachin quarters in Kachin State’s capital Myitkyina, local trainees told Kachin News Group.

The training began on March 8, the same day that the junta released the electoral laws and was concluded on March 19, the trainees said.

All trainees were Kachin men and they were forced to join the Burmese Army’s basic combat training by local military authorities reluctantly, they added.

During the training period, the civilian trainees were especially trained in basic combat like soldiers with machine guns, said eyewitnesses.

The second phase of militia training for local civilians is also underway in different quarters in Myitkyina, said local residents.

In Puta-O, the remote and landlocked town in northern Kachin State, the Burmese Army is preparing to give the same basic combat training to local civilians, said Puta-O residents.

In Bhamo late last year, civilians from each quarter and village were forcibly assembled in the guise of “reserved firefighters” but they were given basic combat training by Burmese military trainers, said residents of Bhamo.

Local members of the junta-back Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in Myitkyina and Bhamo also have to take basic combat training from the Burmese Army, said members of USDA in the two cities.

In Kachin State, the junta forcibly recruited local civilians in the name of “reserved firefighters” and they were given basic combat training since the Buddhist monk-led anti-junta demonstration in 2007, according to local sources.

People in Kachin State believe that the junta is preparing for an offensive against the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the last remaining Kachin ceasefire group which has refused to transform its armed-wing to the junta-proposed Border Guard Force.