Following a new operation launched by the Burma Army to remove Shan State Army (SSA) bases in northern Shan State on Tuesday, 18 February, the SSA has charged the Burma Army as “doublecrossing”.

“The Burmese military is doublecrossing the peace process,” said Shan State Progress Party / Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) spokesman Maj Sai La. “Calm has just returned to the Kachin State. It is starting all over again with us. This doesn’t augur well for peace.”

Both the Union Peacemaking Work and Committee (UPWC) led by U Aung Min and the Restoration Council of Shan State / Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA) led by Sao Yawd Serk had agreed yesterday that the key to the sustainability of ceasefire between the two sides is the people’s active participation, said the RCSS/SSA leader.

Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), the 1990 elections’ largest winning party in Shan State, denied this morning that it had been campaigning for opposition to the planned negotiation between the 11 armed movement alliance and the Union Peacemaking Work Committee formed by Naypyitaw tomorrow.

As the Burma Army, fresh out of the conflict with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), continues its “regional clearance” and “regional control” operations, tensions have renewed between its forces and the Shan State Progress Party / Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA), according to local sources.

Well known military analyst Aung Kyaw Zaw said yesterday the recent out of season decorations by Naypyitaw indicate a rock bottom morale among the Burmese military.

“Normally, decorations are given on 4 January (Independence Day) and 27 March (Armed Forces Day),” the Sino-Burmese border based analyst said. “But during the offensive against Laiza (the Kachin rebel capital on the border), government forces had suffered extremely heavy casualties and it has seriously affected the army’s morale.”

Convicted ‘godfather’ of Mekong Naw Kham still has a chance, though slim, of escaping a death sentence, according to sources on the border.

He had withdrawn his guilty plea in court on 20 December after being sentenced for the murder of 13 sailors on the Mekong on 5 October 2011.

Speaking at a recent meeting at his Loi Taileng base, opposite Maehongson’s Pang Mapha district, Lt-Gen Yawdserk, President of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), the political arm of the Shan State Army (SSA) ‘South’, said he was not interested in the planned “Panglong II”, but only in the terms of the (1947) “Panglong I”.

23 January 2013 — Meeting in Chiangmai. Visiting Kachin leader Gun Maw says personally he agrees with the idea of having Karen and Shan top leaders as observers and possible mediators. But the matter will be submitted to higher authorities for consideration.