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Business disputes between Chinese companies and leading Kachin Independence Army officers may have been behind the February 26 assassination of Vice Chief of Staff Col Lazing Bawk, according to KIA sources. He was killed at about 6:40 am when a bomb exploded in the bathroom of his house in Laiza, a town abutting the Chinese border in Kachin State. According to Kachin sources he was the third or fourth person to use the bathroom that morning, so a fairly sophisticated remote control device is suspected to have been used. A KIO investigation into Col Lazing Bawk’s murder has yet to identify a prime suspect. A group of Chinese businessmen that claim to have been defrauded by senior KIA officers may have exploited the chaos caused by a recent power struggle to have Deputy Chief of Staff Col Lazing Bawk killed, according to Lahtaw Tu Ja, a former KIA officer. Twenty four, mainly Chinese, companies that had invested an estimated 100 million yuan (US $ 12 million) in resorts and hotels in N’ba Pa, Maija Yang, Laiza and Ja Htu Kawng in Kachin State, had their assets seized and were forcibly ejected by the KIA in early January. The businessmen asserted that KIA officers arbitrarily reneged on the contracts they had signed. They petitioned the Chinese government for help. Consequently, Chinese authorities banned both the KIA Chief of Staff and Vice Chief of Staff from entering China, according to Lahtaw Tu Ja. A KIA officer close to Chief of Staff Gen N’ban La, who asked not to be named, said business might be behind the assassination, but rebutted the fraud allegations made by the 24 Chinese businessman, claiming that they were thrown out of the KIO free zone for evading taxes and revenue-sharing obligations spelt out in their respective contracts. The KIO has farmed out numerous logging and mining concessions to Chinese and local businessmen. Three KIA officers, one being Col Lazing Bawk, controlled the awarding of the concessions. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the conditions of concessions were arbitrarily changed and in some cases the concessions canceled by the officers. They are widely rumored to have profited personally from their signing rights. Ali Je, the proprietor of the Myitkyina Hotel in Laiza, was granted a logging concession for an area of land that another Chinese company already had the concession rights to by the late Col Lazing Bawk. She was required to pay about three million yuan to Col Lazing Bawk, according to Lahtaw Tu Ja. There has been speculation that Col Lasang Awng Wa, who led a failed coup in January, then fled to China, may have been involved in Lazing Bawk’s assassination. He, KIO Vice President Hpau Yam Tsam Yan and other KIO junior officers were purged after the coup attempt. Lasang Awng Wa, contacted by The Irrawaddy on his mobile phone, denied that he was involved and that he was shocked when he heard the news on the radio. "I don’t support the violence," he said. His daughter is married to Col Lazing Bawk’s son. In 1975, three KIO leaders, including founder Zau Seng, were assassinated by KIA soldiers at Tam Ngob, Shan State near Thai Border.