Lately, the Burmese military junta, also known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), comes up with headlines in its own newspapers as if there has been a mass surrender of one rebellious Shan resistance faction – the Shan State National Army (SSNA).
The real count is, in fact just a mere of small faction numbering 38 and not 170 as reported by the SPDC’s media. It has always added up more people to make it looks like a mass surrender in the past and this time it is likely the same. This kind of manipulated SPDC propaganda is not new for the well-informed observers.
On top of this, Col Sai Yi, who succeeded Col Gunyawd last year as SSNA Commander in Chief, after the latter passed away under suspicious circumstances, had made his departure right after his representatives in Lashio were reportedly informed on 9 April by Maj Gen Myint Hlaing, Commander of Lashio-based Northeastern Region Command, that his whole group that had concluded a ceasefire pact with Rangoon in 1995 would have to follow in the footsteps of Lt-Col Ganna, Commander of the SSNA's Hsenwi-based 11th Brigade, who surrendered three days earlier. "You don't have any choice," he was reported as saying. "Don't say we are heartless, if you refuse to follow my advice.
After this forced surrender, Col Sai Yi, leader of the SSNA was no longer seen at his Khaihsim base in Hsipaw Township, northern Shan State, reports Hawkeye from the border:
His staff and security unit, the 16th Brigade commanded by Lt-Col Khaymin, had also gone with him. Two days after his disappearance, elements from the nearby Namlan-based Infantry Battalion 243 arrived and ransacked the whole camp. "His farm tractors were taken away," said a witness.
Two other brigades of SSNA: the Sixth commanded by Khaymar in Mongyen, Namtu township, and the 19th commanded by Koongkhurh in Nampawng, Lashio township, had also decamped on the same day. All these development indicate that the SPDC's short-term gain of pressuring small group to surrender, in fact this divide-and-rule tactical move, is leading to a major armed conflict with the rest of the SSNA troopers.
According to the Democratic Voice of Burma, one top SSNA leader who was interviewed recently said,“ We made ceasefire just to stop fighting and that political settlement would be made only with the future government that really has the people's mandate. There was no other agreement, other than this."
All Shan resistance, both ceasefire and non-ceasefire armies, maintained that they need to keep their armed forces to protect themselves and their population until an elected government come around to iron out differences on the choice of political system and division of power in a democratic manner. One SSNA top leader said recently in a radio interview that the violation of gross human rights abuses for decades under the Burmese military junta and the lost of rights to self-determination for the Shan people are root causes of their armed resistance. He continued that all the other non-Burman ethnic nationality groups also shared the same bases of these injustices.
Gross human rights violations include extrajudicial-killings – leading to the argument that this could be termed ethnic genocide -, forced relocation, destroying food-provisions, using rape as a weapon of war, forced portering, forced labour, recruiting child soldiers and so on, just to name a few.
The scenario now is that the bulk of the Shan State Army North (SSA -N), whose leader General Hso Ten is being detained by the SPDC, and SSNA would soon have an open conflict across the whole Shan State. Who knows, the Kachin Independence Army, United Wa State Army and other ceasefire groups would also opt for open armed resistance, in the face of SPDC's pressure to surrender.
It should be noted that in Shan State alone, there are nine ceasefire groups numbering some 35,000. The Shan State Peace Council (SSPC) with 10,000 and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) with 15,000 men are the two strongest within the ceasefire groups.
The ceasefire groups have made it clear common stand at the SPDC's held national convention that they are willing to make long-lasting political settlement, within the framework of a genuine federalism. Sadly, the SPDC leadership is only too determined to cling on to power at all cost, rejecting federal structure and pushing unitary system, topping it with the military's right to lead or call the shots, as it deems necessary.