The junta-backed Yuzana Company’s workers in Kachin State, Northern Burma, have been armed and provided with military training in preparation for civil war with the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), which rejected the junta’s latest order to surrender its weapons, according to sources close to the company.

On October 2, the Burmese military provided sixty Chinese-made M-22 assault rifles, copies of the Russian AK-47, to Yuzana plantation workers in the Hugawng Valley (also spelled Hukawng) in western Kachin State, according to workers.

The guns were provided to the employees by Burmese military officers of the Regional Operation Command (ROC or Da-Ka-Sa) based in Danai, during the 3rd graduation ceremony for intensive military training at the company’s worker camp, according to the workers.

Local Burmese Army battalion commanders and the commander of ROC attended the ceremony. The native Kachin villagers around the plantation and fire fighters were also forced to join the graduation, according to local villagers.

This was the first time the Burmese military publicly provided guns to workers, although over 700 workers had been trained already, said sources close to the company.

Some workers were given military training at Infantry Battalion No. 297, based in Sahtu Zup, near the worker camp, said locals.

Awng Wa, chairman of the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG), which recently reported confiscation of land by Yuzana in the world’s largest tiger reserve in Hugawng Valley said, “I think the armed company workers may threaten local people to vote for the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the next month’s elections. It will transform to militia for backing the Burmese Army if the war resumes between the Burmese junta and the KIO”.

The Rangoon-based agricultural company, chaired by U Htay Myint, entered the Hugawng Valley in 2006 and grabbed up about 400,000 acres from the ethnic Kachin people with assistance from the local Burmese military and administrative authorities.

Since 2006, the company has transported thousands of Burman ethnics from southern Burma to the Hugawng Valley every year, in cooperation with the ROC, said company sources.

The sources added the company has been instructed by military leaders to transport 200,000 Burmans to the area before the November 7 elections, who will outnumber the native Kachin population and vote for the junta’s USDP party.

In Danai Township, there are over 20,000 eligible voters out of a local population of more than 30,000, local sources said.

An official at KIO headquarters in Laiza, near the China border in eastern Kachin State said today, arming the workers, “creates an ethnic war between Kachin and Burman”.

The KIO is the strongest ethnic armed group after the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and is demanding the Burman-led military rulers restore a multi-ethnic genuine federal union with equal rights in the country.

The KIO also called on the military leaders to ensure the November 7 elections are “free and fair”.