ANALYSIS: Post-election offensive feared against Myanmar rebel groups

Bangkok - Few people have high hopes for real change after Myanmar's November 7 general election, its first in 20 years, but for the country's ethnic minority rebel groups, the polls threaten to bring change for the worse.

'The election is not for the Kachin people,' said Laphai Naw Din, editor of the Kachin News Group, which operates on the Thai-Myanmar border. 'After the election, the war will start.'

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is one of six guerilla groups in northern and north-eastern Myanmar that have refused to submit to the ruling military junta. In 1994, the Kachin signed a ceasefire with the regime, allowing them semi-autonomy to govern in their territories in Kachin state and even keep their own army.

Last year, however, the junta insisted the 'ceasefire groups' were to cease to exist. As part of the regime's election preparations, the ceasefire areas were to set up political parties and turn their armies into 'border guard forces' under the military's control.


Among the rebels who refused to comply were the KIA with an estimated force of 7,000, the United Wa State Army with 30,000 fighters, the Shan State Army/North (SSA) with 5,000, the Karen National Liberation Army with fewer than 8,000, the New Mon State Party with 1,000 and a breakaway faction of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army with 1,400.

In retaliation, the regime has barred rebel-controlled portions of the Kachin, Karen, Wa and Shan states from voting.

The election commission also rejected applications from a Kachin party and Kachin independents to contest the polls.

More worrisome, the junta has cut off all communications with the KIA since September 1 and in public speeches has referred to the movement as an 'insurgency' for the first time since signing the ceasefire.

Whether the military in Myanmar, which was once named Burma, would launch an offensive against the Kachin and other ethnic groups in the post-election period remained open.

'I would say the ethnic minorities shouldn't be worried about being attacked by the Burmese army for the next six months,' said Khunsai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency, another news agency based along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Khunsai argued it would take the regime three months to set up a new government and it might take another three months for them to get used to their civilian clothes.

The pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party, packed with former military men, was expected to win the polls.

The Shan people can vote for the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, a Yangon-based party that has fielded 157 candidates.

In the 1990 election, the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy won 23 seats in a statewide victory. There are hopes that the new party would do similarly well this time round.

Khunsai said he was confident that if the military attacks the SSA, the United Wa State Army, one of the best-armed insurgencies in South-East Asia thanks to its lucrative methamphetamines trade, would come to its aid.

In August last year, the military launched a 48-hour attack on Laogai, the capital of the Kokang region in Shan state, crushing the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, as the Kokang rebel army was called.

The attack sent 30,000 Kokang refugees across the border into China, irking Myanmar's big neighbour and one of its few allies.

Since the Kokang attack, the six rebel armies have formed an alliance, promising to come to each other's aid should the junta launch another attack.

Thai military sources suspected the most likely first target would be the Karen National Liberation Army, which has been weakened by years of fighting and internal dissension.

'If the Karens were defeated in a swift military offensive, the Myanmar army could claim they had ended the oldest insurgency and that would send a chilling sign to the other groups,' said Maung Zarni, a research fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The Karen have been fighting for the autonomy of their state since 1949 with the military having failed for the past six decades to defeat them.

Whatever their outcome, the November 7 polls were not expected to miraculously improve the Myanmar army's fighting skills.

'They cannot win, unless they are prepared to commit genocide,' Maung Zarni said.

Source:http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1594644.php/ANALYSIS-Post-election-offensive-feared-against-Myanmar-rebel-groups

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