The Kachin negotiate with the regime on the border guard force issue, while recruiting and training more soldiers To show their unhappiness, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which signed a cease-fire agreement with the junta in 1994, sent only 200 soldiers to the festival. Last year, about 2,000 KIA personnel joined the festivities.
Within the KIA, which now has 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers in five brigades and one infantry division, there is growing suspicion and distrust of the Burma regime. The Kachin, who fought against Burma’s central government for near 40 years, have already rejected the regime’s demand to transform the KIA into a border guard force. Instead, the KIA is recruiting and training more soldiers and preparing for resumed hostilities with the Burmese army. Additionally, it formed a military alliance with the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the largest ethnic army with 20,000 soldiers, and the National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA-ESS), aka the Mongla group, with an army of about 3,000 soldiers. Five Kachin leaders, including Dr. Tuja, the vice chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), its political wing, have resigned to focus on building up the Kachin State Progressive Party, jointly founded in March 2009 with three Kachin cease-fire groups and the Kachin National Consultative Assembly, the largest political umbrella organization, to contest the junta’s general election this year. “The Kachin must have a political party,” said a Kachin leader. “If not, they will lose their identity.” Engaging in electoral politics is part of the Kachin strategy to prepare for its political and military future. In the meantime, the KIO/KIA control their autonomous zones, building hospitals, teacher training colleges and Christian churches in both Kachin State and northern Shan State, in the remote northern reaches of the country. |
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