More photos from Kokang.

Judging from those photos, the fight between the Kokang army and the Burma military (Tatmadaw) was done mostly by small arms.









Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) today. Last week, it was reported that after reaching the safety of Yannan, they handed their weapons to the Chinese authority and purchased civilian clothing.






Nice Norinco Type 81.

The Limit of China’s Influence?

As the conflict between the Kokang army and the Burmese Military subsides, two unexpected developments have unfolded -- The speed of the Burmese military advance and the limit of China’s influence over the course of the event.

Before the current clash began, the Burmese military seized all reinforcement routes between the Kokang army and its allies making speedy reinforcement difficult. A force of 2,000 Wa soldiers had initially come to the assistance of the Kokang, but they retreated Friday. The Karen army is now under Burmese attack and it was also unable to send reinforcements. In addition, Bai Souqian, The Kokang Army’s second in command, defected to the Burmese military with 200 troops and opened the town of Laogai to allow for Burmese occupation. After a week of fighting with hit-and-run tactics and mortar strikes from nearby hills, the 700-strong army fled when two additional Burmese divisions (7000 troops) arrived in Laogai. After reaching the safety of Yannan, they handed their weapons to the Chinese authority and purchased civilian clothing. The Kakang Army suffered minor causalities and is currently safe inside China. However, their future viability is in question.

The Chinese government issued a rare statement to the Burmese Government to "properly handle domestic problems and maintain stability in the China-Burma border region." China has taken care of the refugees but it seems they have done little beyond that: there was no active support to the Kokang Army as others have suggested. The failure of the Chinese Government in preventing this conflict and the mass exodus of ethnic Chinese puts into question China's capability of maintaining peace in this region. While China supports the Burmese Government in preventing ethnic groups from seeking independence, she failed to live up to the “quid pro quo” role of protecting Burma's minorities (here)

All in all, it was a well-planned and well-timed operation by the Burmese Military in a classic divide-and-conquer move and so far they have succeeded in their objective of routing the Kakang Army with minimal casualties and without strong China interference. They've now moved their attention to the next target, the Karen.

The real loser of this battle might be the Kokang civilians as their lively-hood has been looted by the advancing troops and their autonomy replaced by a “Kokang Region Provisional Leading Committee” under the control of the Rangoon government. Since the cease fire of 1989, the Kokang has become one of the few economic “bright spots” and a busy regional trading center (the planned route for Burma’s largest natural-gas pipeline from western Burma to China runs near the Kokang region). Returning civilians can only hope that their new Provisional Leading Committee does not kill the goose the laid their golden egg.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/world/asia/31iht-myanmar.html?ref=asia

August 31, 2009
Myanmar Army Routs Ethnic Chinese Rebels in the North
By THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — The Myanmar military has overwhelmed rebels from an ethnic Chinese minority in the northern reaches of the country, the junta’s second victory over armed opponents in three months.

The routing over the weekend of the forces of the small, Chinese-speaking Kokang ethnic group gives Myanmar’s governing generals momentum in their campaign to quell armed opposition before elections and the adoption of a new Constitution next year.

Several well-armed groups, notably the Wa and Kachin, still stand in the way of the junta’s goal of complete control over the country. But a recently announced agreement of solidarity among the rebel groups, which had the potential to slow the central government’s advance against the Kokang, may be fraying.

The Myanmar government’s strategy, analysts say, appears to be to challenge the groups one by one and to try to capitalize on the many factions within each group.

In June, the military defeated ethnic Karen insurgents along the border with Thailand, aided by a local militia of Karen Buddhists who led an attack on forces that were largely made up of Karen Christians.

To defeat the Kokang, the small ethnic group in the north, the junta allied itself with a defector and chased out troops loyal to the Kokang’s chairman, Peng Jiasheng.

A force of 2,000 Wa soldiers had initially come to the assistance of the Kokang, but they retreated Friday, according to Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former rebel based on the Chinese side of the border. This appeared to undercut a mutual-assistance agreement that the rebel groups reached several weeks ago.

Late on Sunday, Myanmar’s official media broke their silence on the fighting with a television broadcast announcing that clashes had ended and providing what appeared to be a preliminary death toll of 26 members of government security forces and 8 Kokang militiamen, The Associated Press reported. “The region has now regained peace,” the official announcement said.

Chinese state media said that two Chinese citizens had also been killed in the fighting.

News services reported from southern China that Kokang forces were continuing to flee across the border into China on Sunday on the heels of what United Nations and Chinese officials estimated were as many as 30,000 civilian refugees. Nearly half the estimated 1,500 members of the Kokang militia have crossed the border and handed their weapons to the Chinese authorities, according to Mr. Aung Kyaw Zaw.

The central government’s assaults on the Kokang, which began last week, have put other ethnic groups on alert, according to Brang Lai, a local official in the Kachin headquarters in Laiza, along the Chinese border.

“People are very concerned,” Mr. Brang Lai said in a telephone interview. On the Chinese side of Laiza, residents have put Chinese flags on their roofs in the hope that they will be able to avoid any additional fighting. Officers from the Myanmar military’s Northern Division were in Laiza over the weekend to call for calm, Mr. Brang Lai said.

Followers of Mr. Peng, the Kokang’s chairman, were spotted by reporters on the Chinese side of the border buying civilian clothes to replace their militia uniforms.

“There was no way we would win,” Ri Chenchuan, a Kokang rebel, said as he shopped for new clothes, The A.P. reported.

The Myanmar government has signed more than a dozen cease-fire agreements with ethnic groups over the past two decades, but the fighting with the Kokang raised questions about the military’s intentions.

Aung Din, executive director of the United States Campaign for Burma, an advocacy group that opposes the junta, said the generals apparently had adopted a more aggressive posture, partly influenced by the Sri Lankan government’s military victory over Tamil rebels in May.

Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, met with Myanmar’s generals in June in what was his first overseas trip after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. The visit might have inspired Myanmar’s senior general, Than Shwe, who has spent much of his military career battling ethnic groups, Mr. Aung Din said.

“It was an encouragement to the regime to do away with the insurgency once and for all,” Mr. Aung Din said. “Their thinking has changed.”

The motives and strategies of Myanmar’s leaders have long been difficult to divine. General Than Shwe is a very secretive man and the state-run media are highly selective in their reporting. The report on Sunday evening was the first time they had mentioned the campaign against the Kokang.

The fighting appears to have strained Myanmar’s relations with China, especially since the Kokang are ethnically Chinese. The Chinese Foreign Ministry warned Myanmar on Friday to “properly handle domestic problems and maintain stability in the China-Myanmar border region.”

Analysts said that the Chinese government had asked Myanmar’s generals to refrain from initiating military campaigns before the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on Oct. 1.

In that light, China could view Myanmar’s campaign as provocative, especially since China is a large investor in Myanmar and plays the role of the junta’s protective big brother in the United Nations and other international forums.

Mr. Aung Kyaw Zaw said he suspected that the Myanmar generals wanted to demonstrate their independence to Chinese leaders. Their message, he said, is that “if we want to fight along the border, we can fight.”

“This is a political game,” he added.

First photos of the Kokang Army since the fighting started

Kokang Army also known as Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA)

Fighting in Burma.

The recent fighting in the Kokang, the only Burmese Chinese feudal state in Burma, has become front and center in China’s foreign policy skill. It is widely known that China has a great interest in Burma’s natural resources and only last week, a South Korean-led consortium signed a 5.6 Billion contract to develop a gas field off Burma's coast (here) to feed China's growing energy appetite. Burma’s location is also important to China’s strategic interest as most of China's shipping travels through the Strait of Malacca and for some, Burma serves as a buffer zone between China and India.

The fact that Kokang was founded by the last Ming Dynasty military house draws a great deal of media attention in China; this is not just a historical footnote, as today more than 10,000 Chinese businessmen and workers earn their living in Kokang where up to 90 percent of shops are Chinese owned (here) . During the 1980s and 90s, Kokang was also the source of most of China's illegal narcotics. As a way to conduct a "War-on-Drugs" the Chinese government offered to purchase Kokang's crops as a way to disincentivize farmers from growing opium. Kokang leaders claimed its territory was "drug free" from 2003 on. Given these special relationships between China and Kokang, the events unfolding in Burma have become headline news with acute coverage by most media sources (here) with an expected nationalistic outburst from the young.

Like previous hostility between the Kokang and the Burmese army (last conflict in Oct 2008) the PLA responded by sending troops. On August 25th, 700 PLA troops were dispatched to the Sino-Burma border to prevent further escalation. The Kokang Army or the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), as it is formally known, is part of an alliance of many minority groups including Kachin Independence Army (KIA), United Wa State Army (UWSA), National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State (NDAA) and the Shan State Army (SSA) “North” which fields about 45,000 to 50,000 fighters. So for China a full blown civil war would be "bad for businesses" as Khuensai Jaiyen, director of the exiled Shan Herald Agency for News, puts it. (here) So far China's effort seems to fall short as fighting began today. It will be interesting to see China's next move.


Chinese reports had said close to 10,000 people crossed into Yunnan to escape the fighting.

Ethnic group in Myanmar said to break cease-fire

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvIK_Xia_W_l9vmnNpNDx3-LWM8gD9ABDQM80

(AP) – BANGKOK — Fighting reportedly broke out Thursday between an ethnic militia and government security forces in northeastern Myanmar, breaching a two-decade cease-fire.

Several minorities living in military-ruled Myanmar's border areas have continued their long struggles for autonomy despite cease-fires with the military regime that seized power in 1988.

Fighters for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army — representing the Kokang minority — on Thursday attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed and the rebels temporarily occupied the post.

The Kachin News Group, an online news agency that covers the Kachin minority in northern Myanmar, also reported the attack as well as several other clashes.

Reports of the fighting could not be independently confirmed.

Tensions between the Kokang and the government have risen recently after the ethnic group defied an order to allow its guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under army command.

The junta plans an election next year, the first since 1990's abortive polls, the result of which were ignored by the military when the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The military has been anxious to assure stability ahead of the vote.

On Wednesday, Myanmar ethnic groups and Chinese media reported that thousands of people fled into China this month after tensions flared between the Kokang and government.

Some 10,000 left the Kokang area in Myanmar's northeastern Shan state between Aug. 7 and Aug. 12 after a military confrontation, The Chongqing Evening Post reported.

The trigger for the confrontation was an Aug. 8 raid on the home of Kokang leader Peng Jiashen — also known as Phon Kyar Shin — ostensibly to look for illegal drugs.

Peng's troops in the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army began mobilizing, but were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction.

According to the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Peng issued a statement Thursday calling for talks with the government and for newly deployed troops to withdraw from the area.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.