The Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) backed by the Burmese junta has launched a vitriolic attack on the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), backed by it, over elections later this year, said sources in the local USDA unit.
The KIO and KSPP were severely criticized with the contention that the two organizations are the same and have the same stance in opposing the junta by Duwa Mading Zung Ting, a local USDA leader in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State during the association’s annual meeting on June 2 at 10 a.m. local time, said participants.
Though the KSPP is not opposing the junta and is keen on contesting the polls, it was clubbed with the KIO by the USDA leader.
Duwa Zung Ting’s criticism of KIO and KSPP was applauded by two Burmese military officials present in the meeting. They were Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, Minister for Post, Communication and Telegraph and Maj-Gen Soe Win, Commander of the Northern Command, said a participant.
The USDA leader’s criticism has not gone down well with the Kachin people, who know him as a crony of the junta.
Mading Zung Ting, a Kachin and a key election functionary of the association, and head of the Kachin Cultural Committee (KCC) lambasted the two organizations for “Rejecting the junta’s 2008 constitution, which shows they disapprove of the junta,” local participants said.
The KSPP led by Dr. Tu Ja, former Vice-president No. 2 of KIO, registered with the Union Election Commission in Naypyitaw, early April. However, it is yet to be approved as an official political party to contest the elections.
Duwa Zung Ting, head of Kachin Cultural Committee and a USDA leader.
The party called a halt to its election campaign more than a month ago awaiting the decision of the junta-controlled Election Commission, said party sources.
The Election Commission is resorting to dilatory tactics because of KSPP’s links with the KIO, which is refusing to accept the junta-proposed Border Guard Force, or the so-called “special goodwill gesture of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the country’s military leader”.
The KIO, one of strongest ethnic armed groups in military ruled Burma approved the junta-centric 2008 constitution against the will of the Kachin people and pro-democracy organizations. However it rejected the BGF, which entails putting the KIO’s armed-wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) under the control of the Burmese Army.
The junta, on the other hand has repeatedly ignored the KIO’s proposal for a genuine political dialogue before the KIA can be transformed.
Since early this week, military authorities have expeditiously undertaken a civilian census in Myitkyina for the second time in the year for the elections.
At the moment the junta backed USDA and others favoured by the regime are the only organizations, which can conduct election campaigns around Kachin State without restriction since early April after the KSPP stopped its poll campaign.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in a rare visit to ally Burma on June 2 and 3 discussed with junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe the elections, ethnic armed groups and energy issues.
