To firm up its political stand the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) held a three-day meeting with representatives of the ethnic Kachin public to discuss how to take Kachin politics forward with Burma’s ruling junta and the new government to be formed after the elections in November, said KIO sources.

The meeting between the KIO brass and over 30 invited representatives from Kachin State and Northeast Shan State was wrapped up today at the KIO’s Headquarters in Laiza in eastern Kachin State, near the Sino-Burma border, participants said.

The KIO officials are now chalking out a statement on the meeting based on the advice and suggestions of the participants. It will be released soon.

Waw Hkyung Sin Wa, Deputy General Secretary of KIO explaining why the meeting was called said, “We called the meeting to feel the pulse of the Kachin public and gauge their attitude on how to take the Kachin political stand forward.”

Based on the outcome of the meeting, the KIO will call its “Party Congress” for members in Laiza.  Policy decisions will be adopted at the congress, said Sin Wa.

The three-day meeting began a day after the junta announced November 7 as the election date.

The meeting was attended by leaders of the Kachin Nationals Consultative Assembly, church leaders and regional representatives including Rev. Dr. Saboi Jum and his younger brother Hkun Myat, known as ‘peace mediators’ between the KIO and the junta, said KIO sources.

The KIO is the last remaining Kachin armed group, which continues to resist the junta’s pressure to transform its armed wing--- the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to the regime-controlled Border Guard Force.

The KIO has been insisting to the junta that a multi-ethnic genuine federal union of Burma be set up in keeping with the Panglong Agreement signed between the majority Burman leader Gen Aung San and ethnic Kachin, Chin and Shan leaders on February 12, 1947.