More ceasefire units rejoin armed resistance

Politics

More ceasefire units rejoin armed resistance

Thousands of troops from the former Shan State National Army have recently arrived in the south to resume the armed struggle, reported a Shan State Army “South” commander yesterday:

Fighters from the SSNA’s 9th and 16th Brigades, commanded respectively by Lt-Col Aung Mya and Lt-Col Khaymin, who came down from northern Shan State’s Hsipaw township were welcomed by Maj Kham Leng of the SSA’s 759th Brigade on Monday, 13 June at an unnamed locality north-west of Mong Kerng, 108 miles northeast of Taunggyi.

Hundreds from the Namtu based 6th Brigade of Khaymar reached the Thai Burma border opposite Maehongson a week earlier. According to the SSA-run Freedom News 14 June, the 200 new arrivals in Loi Taileng were led by Khaymin, Aung Mya and Khaymar themselves.

The reports were confirmed by Col Sai Yee, the SSNA’s commander-in-chief, who has been tipped to be elected either as the commander-in-chief of the combined SSA-SSNA forces or the leader of their political arm, Restoration Council of Shan State, at a meeting due to be held later in the year.

However, according to Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, who spoke at Sunday’s press conference in Rangoon, the said three brigades are still “stationed at their original bases according to the agreements they have reached with the government when they came back to the legal fold. Only a handful of SSNA members of the headquarters followed U Sai Yee who turned his back on the legal fold.”

The former SSNA troops nevertheless have yet to take part in any armed clashes with Rangoon forces.

The SSA “South” and the SSNA formally announced a merger on 21 May and four days later issued a joint statement calling for a federal union, which Kyaw Hsan dubbed “a nominal union” that will enable the Shan State to secede from the union “at an appropriate time”.

The Shan State and other non-Burman regions, ruled separately by the British, joined up with Burma in 1947 to form a union on the basis of Full Autonomy, Democracy and Human Rights.

Aung San signing the Panglong Agreement, 12 February 1947