To Burma’s ethnic Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) its five-decade-long revolutionary fervour is dearer than the interests of the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), whose approval is hinging on the KIO’s armed-wing the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) surrendering its weapons, said KIO sources.

The KSPP is yet to be approved by the Burmese military junta-controlled Election Commission on the belief that it has tenuous links with the KIO, which rejected transforming to the junta-proposed Border Guard Force (BGF) on April 22, said a senior party leader today.

If approved, KSPP will be the arch-rival of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). The KSPP is led by retired senior KIO officials.

Dr. Manam Tu Ja, retired KIO Vice-President No. 2 told Thailand-based Kachin News Group, that approval for the party was totally dependent on the KIO’s decision to be disarmed.

The KIO debated the issue at the August 27 to 29 KIO Party Congress in Laiza capital on the China-Burma border, northern Burma. A statement is expected to be released on it tomorrow, August 31, said Wawhkyung Sin Wa, Deputy General Secretary of KIO in Laiza.

“For the sake of KSPP’s approval by the Election Commission, we cannot give up our armed struggle for liberation of the Kachin people in military-ruled Burma,” a KIO official in Laiza said.

A compromise is not possible given that the KSPP was set up just over a year ago while the KIO’s armed struggle for self-determination of Kachin people is over five-decades old, added KIO officials.

From a political stand point, the KIO backed the forming of the KSPP to represent Kachin people in Kachin State and the Northern Shan State Progressive Party (NSPP) for representing Kachin people in Shan State to contest the 2010 elections on November 7.

The United Democracy Party, another Kachin party in Kachin State was floated by Layawk Ze Lum, former General Secretary of New Democracy Army-Kachin (NDA-K), which transformed to the junta-proposed BGF last November. It also registered to contest the elections.

No Kachin political party was approved by the EC except the Unity and Democracy Party of Kachin State (UDPKS) which was formed by Kachin party members of the junta-backed USDP as a ploy to win over Kachin voters.

The KIO is the second largest ethnic armed group with over 20,000 troops including regular and reserved troops in Burma after United Wa State Army (UWSA). It is the last remaining Kachin armed group, which has rejected the junta-proposed BGF and its orders to disarm.

The KIO feels that the junta it should not consider a surrender of weapons proposal before resolving the political imbroglio between them.