Training the Next Generation of Kachin Rebels

By PATRICK BOEHLER / THE IRRAWADDY Friday, March 16, 2012

New Kachin Independence Army recruits on parade at the basic training camp by Laiza. (Photo: Irrawaddy)

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The rest will stay on like Sumdu.

This is the fifth batch of basic training since March last year, Aung Ja told The Irrawaddy.

Sometimes he and his men train as many as 300 at once, sometimes only 180. Since the fighting restarted in June last year, “sometimes we need manpower,” he confesses, so the training has to be shortened to just one-and-a-half months.

Sumdu wanted his photo to be taken in uniform. He ran up to the barracks and ran back in nervous excitement wearing his KIA fatigues and holding a wooden, rifle-shaped stick in his hand. He decided against including the weapon in the photo and asked for his eyes to be blacked out. “It's dangerous if I ever want to go back to Thailand,” he explained.

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COMMENTS (6)

tocharian Wrote:

20/03/2012

It is indeed a messy situation. Peking already views Northern Burma and Arunachal Pradesh (in India) as Southern Tibet (or Nan Zhang as they call it), but right now the Chinese are focusing on finishing that pipeline and railway line to the deep-sea port at Kyaukphru, which they need as a fuel stop for their navy. China needs electricity from all these dams (not to mention timber, jade and gold) plus gas and oil through the pipeline (saves the trip through Malacca Straits), so what are the Kachins, or for that matter Burma, getting in return from China? More fighting or perhaps Confucius Institutes? LOL

Ohn Wrote:

18/03/2012

Burma is financially poor and people faces hardship, not because there is sanction but because all the productive forces are wasted on killing or trying to do with each others.

So the most important thing is NOT to get more money from international companies and financial institutions, but to rein in the military dogs. In stead one of them called Thein Sein is deified!

ryan libre Wrote:

18/03/2012

Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict : adopted by the UN General Assembly on 25 May 2000
"States may accept volunteers from the age of 16"
i joined the US Army when i just turned 17, nobody called me a child solider.

George Than Setkyar Heine Wrote:

17/03/2012

The CRUX of the MATTER is the communists in Beijing want Kachin State, Wa State and Shan State (Head of Burma) for further contingencies in their strategy for HEGEMONY of BURMA in particular and the region in general no less.
Wa and Shan states are already in their hands.
KIA needs to be EJECTED out of Kachin Land to complete the picture.
And Myitsone Dam Project, oil pipelines, rails and roads are in order and need to completed by 2013.
Min Aung Hlaing has to LEAN on the KIA of course.
The Kachins know the GAME and HOLD the FORT until today.
In case KIA gives way, then BURMA would WOE the DAY as the Chinese would HOLD SWAY in Burma FOREVER and a DAY no less, lest you guys forget.

Oo Maung Gyi Wrote:

17/03/2012

There is solution to establish peace if both side have sincerity. Necessary to share equally, so that peace can establish. One sided and greediness can not solve the ethnic issues. Bama big brother should consider deeply why the fightings are still going on.

rawtmalanmanau Wrote:

17/03/2012

Irrawaddy, Please take note that your wrong usage on the head of Article.Please never ever use that Kachin rebel. You knew that the head of Article is the most important .Don't make confuse people. thank you