To expedite and implement conversion to the Border Guard Force (BGF), the Burmese Army has dispatched troops to the headquarters of the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K), a Kachin ceasefire group, which accepted the proposal in June, said a local source.
Early last week, half the number of Burmese troops in the Bhamo-based Infantry Battalion (IB) No. 236 were sent to Pangwa, the headquarters of NDA-K in eastern Kachin State close to the border with China's Yunnan province, said a local source close to the battalion.
The troops from IB No. 236 left for the NDA-K's capital Pangwa to form new army battalions under the BGF to be controlled by the Burmese Army, the source added.
Pangwa sources said, NDA-K is gearing up to accept the given percentage of Burmese soldiers to be inducted in the separate Kachin NDA-K battalions according to the agreement between the NDA-K and Burmese Army before Burmese soldiers from Bhamo departed for Pangwa.
It is mandatory for the Burmese Army-monitored BGF to have troops of the ethnic ceasefire groups. There will be a total of 326 soldiers in every BGF battalion but 27 officers of the total will be from the Burmese Army.
Since the group has agreed to transform its army into three battalions of the BGF under the Ministry of Defense of Burma's ruling junta, it is implementing the regime’s directive, NDA-K sources said.
The BGF proposal states that a total of 81 Burmese military officers have to be included in the three battalions of the BGF formed by the NDA-K.
The NDA-K supreme leader Zahkung Ting Ying split from the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in 1968 and formed the 101st Division of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) before it split again from the CPB and formed the NDA-K in December 15, 1989.
There was an unsuccessful attempt to oust NDA-K leader Ting Ying on September 14, 2005, by the group's senior leaders’ led by General Secretary Layawk Ze Lum in Pangwa, while he was temporarily in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State.
During a fervent week-long power struggle between General Secretary Ze Lum and the pro-Ting Ying group in Pangwa, the latter was provided protection in Myitkyina by Maj-Gen Ohn Myint, the junta's former Northern Regional Command commander.
Ting Ying told villagers of Tang Hpre on the Irrawaddy River's confluence hydropower project, 27 miles north of Myitkyina on August 17 that he wanted the KIO to accept the BGF proposal, said local villagers.
The ruling junta is trying to mobilize all ethnic ceasefire and non-ceasefire groups in the country under a single command of the Military of Defense before the 2010 general elections in the country.
