Aware that the major concern of ceasefire groups’ is closure of the border by China, the Burmese junta is goading the Laogai-based Kokang Army until it has no choice but to shoot thereby incurring the wrath of Burma’s giant neighbour, according to reports filtering in from the Sino-Burma border.
For instance, says one source, the Burmese military is crowding Kokang positions on the strategic mountain northeast of Qingxuehe (Chinshwehaw). While the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), as the Kokang Army prefers to be known, still occupies the higher peaks, the lower peaks are being taken over one by one by the Burmese Army. “They stopped shoving us only when we told them we didn’t want them to stray into minefields surrounding our places,” a Kokang officer was quoted as saying.
China is said to have warned both sides not to fire first. Accordingly, the Peace and Democracy Front (PDF), of which Kokang, Wa, Mongla and the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDAK) are members, has long adopted at least two principles that they believe China would approve:
- Not to shoot first
- Not to secede from Burma
“Laogai is now a ghost town,” said a local, “because nine out of ten of its population has left.”
The current crisis that arose amid Naypyitaw’s demand that all the ceasefire armies transform themselves into Border Guard Forces is said to have started when three of the top members informed Naypyitaw earlier that their top leader Peng Jiahseng was involved in the production of drugs and arms.
The three had also accused Peng of favouring kinfolks over others. The upshot of it was the demand by Naypyitaw to send an investigation team to Kokang and when the latter tried to stall the move, the former arrived in the territory in force on August 8 which triggered the present face-off.
Sources in Wa, so far left strictly alone by the junta since June, say attack on any member organization of the PDF will be regarded as one against the grouping and as such they will retaliate.
The new constitution, drafted and approved by Naypyitaw, has promised both Wa and Kokang self-administrative status.
Kokang declared itself opium free in 2003 followed by Wa two years later. But both are still reported in drug-related news stories.
