| By NAW SENG | APRIL, 2004 - VOLUME 12 NO.4 |
First an attempted coup then an assassination—the details are sketchy and conspiracy theories abound. It’s clear that all is not well within the Kachin Independence Organization. On a freezing winter evening in early January, some 300 Kachin soldiers and their commander stormed a mountain compound near the China border. Its occupants were away, at the home of Kachin Independence Organization leader Lamung Dr Tu Jai, attending a meeting of about 30 Kachin elders, youth leaders and KIO central committee members. The attackers knew the terrain well: the compound they were attacking was their own Pajau headquarters. And KIO vice president Gauri Zau Seng had no doubt as to why they had attacked: “It was a coup attempt.” The KIO was formed in 1961 by ethnic Kachin, who are mainly Christian, to fight for independence from Rangoon, partly in response to the government’s decision to make Buddhism the national religion. From 1968 it was also squeezed by the Chinese-backed Communist Party of Burma, or CPB. The CPB imploded in 1989, so left the KIO with only one foe, but in January 1990 its 4th Brigade defected to Rangoon. In 1992 unscrupulous Chinese arms dealers cheated the organization of its entire US $10 million war chest by taking payment then failing to deliver any weapons. The financial loss crippled the KIO and destroyed its chairman Brang Seng, who started drinking very heavily after the fiasco. The KIO signed a ceasefire with Rangoon in February 1994. Brang Seng died six months later aged 64. The ceasefire delivered neither security nor prosperity to the Kachin. With the end of hostilities the Burma Army presence has—instead of falling—increased considerably. Burmese military commanders treat the local population as if the state were a war zone. Consequently civilians suffer wartime brutality including forced labor and rape. In Putao there is widespread malnutrition. Within the KIO’s modestly sized free zone that borders China, cliques within the leadership have profited hugely from commercial ventures—mining, logging, hotels and tourism and other businesses—but little has filtered down to the population. Younger officers have grown disenchanted; some want to replace their aging superiors. Mutiny at Laiza “The problem is the personal interests of the KIO leaders,” said Gauri Zau Seng, “and it hurts the KIO and the Kachin people.” As the mutineers launched their January attack, KIA chief of staff General N’ban La was receiving medical treatment for kidney stones at a hospital in Kunming, China. When he learned of the revolt, he returned to headquarters immediately with his deputy Col Lazing Bawk and loyal troops. By the time they arrived, however, the suspected masterminds of the coup—KIO intelligence chief Col Lasang Awng Wa and Bawmwang La Raw, a Kachin businessman—had fled to China. The returning soldiers arrested Lt-Col Padip Gam Awng, an aide to the intelligence chief, and then KIO Vice President Brig-Gen Hpauyam Tsam Yan, who some believe was behind the insurrection. They and Lasang Awng Wa were also expelled from the party. Three years earlier there had been a much more successful coup. The First Coup On February 20, 2001, young, apparently reform-minded Kachin Army officers—led by N’ban La and intelligence chief Col Lasang Awng Wa—staged a bloodless takeover of the KIO headquarters in Pajau Bum. They ousted KIO chief General Zau Mai, who remains under house arrest, and chose deputy general-secretary Lamung Dr Tu Jai, aged 73, to front as president. But business might have been a greater motivating factor behind the coup than politics. N’ban La’s insurrection was backed by Bawmwang La Raw, a Kachin businessman who holds a British passport and keeps houses in Chiang Mai and London. He founded the Kachin National Organization, which he established from his home in Chiang Mai with overseas Kachin and a group of senior leaders from the Kachin “homeland”. The group’s brief is to work for an independent democratic Kachin nation-state. Bawmwang La Raw, who made his fortune trading Kachin jade during the 1980s, claims to have bankrolled the KIO to the tune of US $3.6 million. But from the early 1990s the organization lost much of its prime jade-mining territory to the Burma Army. It gave up the remainder in 1994, under the terms of the ceasefire treaty with Rangoon. Bawmwang La Raw feels that Zau Mai was responsible. The jade trader admitted to backing the 2001 coup effort, but pointed out that N’ban La and Lasang Awng Wa instituted no policy changes from their predecessor. They also failed to purge the ranks of Zau Mai’s flunkies, some of whom retained their positions in the party hierarchy. Bawmwang La Raw is miffed by the ceasefire arrangement and feels the overthrow was a good idea. “What has the KIO done for its own people in ten years of ceasefire?” he asked rhetorically. He claims that Kachin foot soldiers have little to eat while the leaders, particularly Zau Mai, grow richer by the day, from logging and mining ventures. By concealing the details of such dealings and by failing to adequately explain the organization’s policies and agreements with the junta, the KIO has drawn the contempt of many in the ranks and of the population at large, according to Bawmwang La Raw. “The KIO has wasted a decade by not talking about the politics and that’s anathema to the Kachin people,” says Maran Zau Aung, an opposition MP from Wai Maw Township in Kachin State who now lives in the Thai border town of Mae Sot. “The way KIO leaders treat their people is similar to the junta.” But that may not be entirely N’ban La’s fault. Since taking over he has been unable to effectively control KIO, in part because he lacks political clout with Rangoon. Vice president Gauri Zau Seng and “vice chairman 2” Dr Tu Ja, however, do have close relations with the junta. The two expressed full support for the government’s roadmap for political reform, the first step being the reopening of the National Convention, tasked with drawing up a new constitution. Five delegates have already been appointed as the KIO’s National Convention delegation. But the decision to attend the assembly, scheduled to start May 17, has polarized the Kachin leadership. Testing Times Army chief N’ban La blames Bawmwang La Raw for January’s failed putsch, claiming he wanted to replace KIO leaders with his own men and withdraw the organization from the National Convention. The constitution-drafting assembly, which first opened in 1993, was adjourned in 1996 after the National League for Democracy, Burma’s main opposition party, walked out in protest at provisions that guaranteed the military a major role in any future government. Because opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters have not yet been formally invited to the National Convention, Bawmwang La Raw doubts that the junta is any more sincere this time around. If Rangoon doesn’t give ground this time, he says, the KIO delegates must be prepared to walk out. Maran Zau Awng says the KIO has neglected the rights and disregarded the will of the Kachin people by supporting the convention. “When the people no longer support them, KIO leaders will be as useless as a stone on the side of the road,” he said. The elected MP from Burma’s 1990 general election is among those calling for the aging leadership to make way for younger blood. After the January coup, two comparatively younger officers with sway over the Kachin youth in the army took a step closer to that end. Former deputy secretary Col Gunhtang Gam Shawng became general-secretary and former vice commander of the KIA’s 3rd Brigade Col Sumlut Gun Maw was appointed his deputy. Both men are around 50 years old. Some Kachin observers have tipped them as future leaders of the KIO, but the incumbents are not willing to hand over the reins just yet. At the January summit of elders, youth leaders and party officials (ongoing as the mutineers stormed the HQ at Pajau Bum) a proposal was floated that leaders should work more closely with the public. It was flatly rejected on grounds that “outsiders” must first pay their dues in the organization before they can expect to have a say in the decision-making process. “Everyone has to become a member first to prove their dedication to serving the KIO,” said vice chairman Dr Tu Ja. Assassination Nation On February 26, two days after the tenth anniversary of the ceasefire with Rangoon, the KIO got a sharp reality check when vice chief of staff, Col Lazing Bawk, was killed by a bomb that ripped him and his bathroom apart. No culprit was identified. There are two schools of thought regarding his assassination—the first holds that a group of disgruntled Chinese businessmen may have been responsible. The KIO granted numerous logging, mining and gambling concessions to local and Chinese investors. Lazing Bawk played a key role in awarding the contracts and he was widely rumored to have profited handsomely. According to Kachin sources, KIO officers were in the habit of arbitrarily changing the conditions of signed deals and in some cases canceling concessions and commandeering the assets. The second school holds that Lazing Bawk’s own soldiers fragged him. He had earned a brutal reputation for purging all potential rivals by discharge or death and was universally feared by his subordinates. Regardless, the mutiny has sewn the seeds for further splits. Maran Zau Seng, a Kachin youth leader who attended the KIO leaders meeting and who was accused of helping to plan the revolt, thinks the assassination and attempted coup resulted from the widening divide between KIO leaders and the majority of the Kachin people, particularly over the ceasefire issue. “I don’t think we’ll see problems on this scale again, but what we have seen vividly is the generation gap in the KIO, and that is bad for the organization.” Depending on whom you believe, between 30 and 200 members of the Kachin Independence Army’s intelligence unit, known as the National Security Council, deserted after the failed coup and remain at-large. The KIO tendered amnesties to all soldiers and civilians involved—except Hpauyam Tsam Yan, Lasang Awng Wa, Padip Gam Awng and Bawmwang La Raw—but few have taken the offer up. If the Kachin Independence Organization can not reconcile its internal conflicts soon, incumbent leaders are likely to face more trouble, both from within and from the junta, which will exploit any perceived weakness, says Bawmwang La Raw. “The future will not be pretty for the Kachin if we are not unified.”