Fighting Intensifies in Myanmar’s Kokang Region Amid Allegations of Rights Violations

Fighting intensified between government troops and ethnic Kokang rebels in northern Myanmar’s Shan state Monday amid allegations by the rebels that the military is committing human rights violations in the region, including using local civilians as human shields.

Tun Myat Lin, spokesman for the rebel Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), which is fighting to reclaim the special region of Kokang in Shan state near Myanmar’s border with China, said clashes had occurred throughout the day near the regional capital Laukkai.

“We have been fighting [for 11 hours] today since 6:00 a.m. near Kyepa,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

“About 20 soldiers from the MNDAA have been injured and 10 killed since the beginning [of the conflict on Feb. 9],” he added, without providing details about any casualties from Monday’s clashes.

Myanmar’s military made no announcements regarding the fighting, although an article in the official Global New Light of Myanmar said government troops had reopened a transportation route between Laukkai and Kongyan district Sunday after occupying six hills previously controlled by “Kokang insurgents.”

The report said that while conducting sweeps southwest of Laukkai on Saturday, military columns had killed three rebels, arrested 15, and seized a variety weapons, equipment and what they believed to be packages of heroin.

Four military officers and soldiers of other ranks were killed in the operations on Saturday, while seven were injured, it said.

Tun Myat Lin on Monday slammed the government for rejecting an MNDAA request for talks in a letter the group sent to President Thein Sein on Feb. 16, saying ongoing clashes had led to increased civilian casualties.

“The MNDAA offered to hold discussions with the government and also sent a letter to the president, but the government said it doesn’t need to talk with us,” he told RFA.

“Because of the fighting, innocent people have been killed and their homes destroyed. The military bears some responsibility for that.”

He called on the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC)—which last month urged people in Kokang to report any rights abuses they witnessed in the area—to investigate what he claimed were violations by the military.

“I want the MNHRC to investigate violations of human rights in this area—it will see how [the government troops] are perpetrating rights abuses,” he said.

“The military attacked us throughout the day yesterday and placed local civilians in front of their soldiers. They did it because they know we won’t do anything to harm the local people.”

Tun Myat Lin’s allegations could not be independently confirmed.

‘This is war’

Meanwhile, residents of Laukkai staying in Shan state’s Lashio town told RFA the Kokang capital had been largely vacated due to the clashes and that vagrants had been breaking into homes and shops to steal goods, despite efforts from both the military and the MNDAA to prevent them from doing so.

While state-owned media have claimed the situation in Laukkai was nearly “stable,” residents said they have been unable to return to the town because the roads remain closed.

Others, such as Laukkai resident Ei Ei, said the number of civilian casualties continues to mount in the regional capital amid the clashes.

“Although I didn’t see it, we have heard that about 100 innocent local residents were killed during the fighting,” she told RFA.

“We also heard that two people died as a result of torture at the hands of the Myanmar military. We left Laukkai early on, as we were afraid of staying there.”

Hor Shut Chan, a member of parliament representing Kulong district, said “seven or eight” of his relatives had been killed during the fighting.

“There is nothing we could do—this is war,” he said.

Tens of thousands of refugees have been displaced from the remote and rugged conflict zone since the clashes began last month and have fled across the border into China.

Cease-fire agreements

The MNDAA made up part of the China-backed Communist Party of Burma, before it collapsed in 1989 and splintered into various ethnic armies that signed cease-fire agreements with Myanmar’s former junta, which granted them a degree of autonomy.

The MNDAA cease-fire agreement faltered in 2009 when armed groups came under pressure to transform into a paramilitary Border Guard Force under the control of Myanmar’s military—a move the MNDAA resisted.

Thein Sein’s efforts at signing a nationwide cease-fire agreement between the government and an alliance of 16 ethnic groups faltered in September over key political issues, such creating a federal system, and fighting in northern Myanmar has escalated since then.

The government’s Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC) and the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), which represents more than a dozen rebel groups, will meet for a seventh round of official talks on the peace pact in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon from March 16, the Irrawaddy online journal reported Monday.

Reported by Zarni Htun and Tin Aung Khine for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.