End of February Deadline for BGF

The Burmese military junta called on ethnic cease-fire groups to join the Border Guard Force (BGF) by the end of February as its top negotiator Lt-Gen Ye Myint traveled to the Northern Shan State city of Lashio to meet Shan and Wa leaders at the weekend.

Sources closed to cease-fire groups in Shan State said delegations from the Shan State Army –North (SSA- North) met with Ye Myint, who is also chief of the Military Affairs Security (MAS) formerly known as the Military Intelligence Service, on Saturday. But his efforts still seem unsuccessful.

“During the meeting, Lt-Gen Ye Myint told Shan leaders they must join the border guard force by the end of February,” a source said. “Unlike at previous meetings with the SSA, he used harsher tones in urging them to accept the BGF proposal.”

However, the SSA-North did not give an immediate response regarding the BGF February deadline to Ye Myint’s delegation at the meeting, he said.

Ye Myint’s was also scheduled to hold a meeting in Lashio with leaders of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the strongest ethnic armed group in Burma with an estimated 20,000 troops.

But the UWSA told Burmese officials that they were not available to come to Lashio, which is the headquarters of the Burma army’s northeast military regional command that overran the Wa’s allies in the Kokang area in August 2009.

Wa sources said they canceled the meeting with Ye Myint as their leader, Bao Youxiang, had health problems.

On Jan. 31, a week before his Lashio trip, Ye Myint met representatives of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) at Myitkyina, the Kachin State capital. He reportedly used tougher language there when urging the KIA to join Naypyidaw’s BGF plan.

Like other ceasefire groups on the Sino-Burmese border, the KIA did not officially answer Ye Myint during the meeting, but they seem prepared for the worst.

According to local sources in Kachin State, KIA officials have sped up recruitment of villagers for KIA militias in Kachin-controlled areas. They attract recruits by saying low rank and file troops would get at least 10,000 kyat [US $10] monthly.

Similar methods of recruitment have been reported in the Wa area in Shan State’s Special Region-2 ever since the junta started talks about the BGF with ethnic groups in April 2009. Recruitment for additional UWSA troops is active among Wa people as well as other ethnic peoples living in the Wa territory.

Speaking to the The New York Times last year, Col. Peeranate Katetem, a Thai expert on the Wa, estimated that using newly-recruited militias and reserve troops, the UWSA could field as many as 50,000 troops.

The National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), a Wa ally known as the Mongla Army which also resists the BGF plan, recently faced stronger challenges when its secretary-general, Min Ein, was assassinated by unknown gunmen on Jan.27.

No one has claimed responsibility and the killers are still at large. However, a rumor in Shan State suggests that a vehicle used by gunmen was found at a hotel in Mongla owned by a Wa leader. The Shan Herald Agency for News, which specializes in Shan State affairs, stated on Feb.3 that this could be a ruse by the junta to sow division between the NDAA and its allies, the UWSA.

Attending Min Ein’s funeral at Mongla on Jan. 31, junta army Col. Than Tun Thein reportedly told NDAA leaders that the junta is ready to cooperate and fine those responsible for the killing, citing a rumor that Wa troops were behind the incident.

In contrast to Thein's assertions, the UWSA sent high ranking officials to the funeral and Wa TV repeatedly broadcast reports about about Min Ein’s death and his funeral and showed solidarity with the Mongla people, Wa sources said.

Instability on China’s southwest border that threatens Chinese’s businesses in Yunnan Province and along the Sino-Burmese border is a concern for Beijing.

In Macao in January, Chinese scholars from Beijing held a meeting about Burma with experts and dissidents as part of Beijing’s survey on its neighbor’s affairs, particularly in regard to ethnic issues. Tensions on the border and Aung San Suu Kyi’s role in ethnic issues were reportedly discussed during the meeting.