Wa deny aiding and abetting junta crackdown

No.03 - 10/2007
4 October 2007
Politics
 
Wa deny aiding and abetting junta crackdown
 
A senior Wa official has rejected reports of the United Wa State Army (UWSA)'s involvement in the recent crackdown by Burma's ruling generals on unarmed protestors in Mandalay as "maliciously groundless."
 
"We ourselves are having trouble with the Burmese military," said the official who asked not to be named. "It is maliciously groundless to throw that kind of accusation against us."
 
The UWSA has been under pressure by the ruling military council to withdraw their troops from the Thai-Burma border in the south to the Sino-Burma border in the north since July. The pressure however eased in the wake of public anger against the "out of the blue" fuel price hike and countrywide demonstrations, followed by the bloody crackdown in Burma's main cities.
 
On the other hand, the UWSA as well as other ceasefire groups are facing a new pressure: that they publicly lend their support for the recently concluded junta-organized National Convention and its outcome.
 
Two other ceasefire groups, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K), have already expressed their support for the constitutional Convention at the mass rally organized by the Burma Army's Northern Command in Myitkyina, the Kachin State capital, on 29 September.
 
It is still unclear as to how the Wa and its other allies are going to respond to the pressure. "All I can say at present is that we are not going to surrender our arms, until there is a democratically elected government in Burma," one ceasefire leader is reportedly as saying.
 
Anti-junta umbrella organizations, notably the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) and Women's League of Burma (WLB), issued a joint statement on 2 October calling on the ceasefire groups "to totally terminate their cooperation" with the junta and "stand up in the interests of the people."