If the Burmese junta continues to demand that the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) transforms its troops to serve as a border guard force, armed conflict is likely, the KIO general-secretary said following a meeting with the junta’s northern regional commander.
The KIO general-secretary, La Ja, told The Irrawaddy on Monday, “We want long-term peace, and we don’t want to wage war, but if the junta forces us to transform our troops, the regional peace will be destroyed.”
La Ja and members of the KIO delegation met with the junta’s northern regional commander, Maj-Gen Soe Win, in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
La Ja said Soe Win asked many questions about various KIO departments and the management of the army, in regard to transforming it into a border guard force.
KIO leaders have met with Burmese military officers eight times to discuss the border guard issue. The KIO has made an alternate proposal to transform its troops into a Kachin regional border guard force.
“We totally agree to change our troops sometime in the future,” La Ja said. “But now is not the time. To change, we need more facts and time.” La Ja has said that KIO troops would only become a border guard force under the central government if there is a political change that brings true democracy to Burma.
The KIO said reports were not true that the government asked the Kachin Independence Army to withdraw Brigade 4 from an area in northeast Shan State near the Chinese border.
The majority of the 17 armed ethnic cease-fire groups have said no to the junta’s proposal to transform into a border guard force under the command of junta officers.
The deadline to respond to the offer is October. Under the new 2008 Constitution, all ethnic armed cease-fire groups are required to serve under the command of junta officers.
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