GUNJADE

GUNJADE-

MAN OF THE PEOPLE AND TROOPS 

Gunjade was born of a Chinese father and a Shan mother in 1937, in Sanien, a mountain village that has stood for hundreds of years among cheroot-leaf plantations near the historic town of Panglong. He joined the Pa-O uprising against Shan State's feudal lords in 1952, and soon distinguished himself in the battlefield. He left the Pa-Os as a company commander after they chose in 1958 to surrender themselves to the Burmese authorities in Taunggyi. Coincidentally, 1958 was also the year the Shan rose in rebellion against the Burmese, who had failed to honour their promises of Panglong. Inevitably, he soon joined the first resistance band he found, one led by Bo Wa, a follower of Bo Mawng of Tangyan fame. And from 1961, the year Kornzurng succeeded in unifying the local bands into a united front, he remained with Kornzurng until his death of cancer in 1991. 

Religious, kind and generous, he is admired by the troops and the populace not only for his bravery in battle but also for his "invulnerabitity" to bullets and the "power to call the rains" when there is need. Thus in 1993, when representatives of the people gathered together in Muangmai to elect the Chairman of the National Congress, Gunjade was their obvious choice. 

Again it was his return to the western war-zone that succeeded in preventing the mutiny led by his ex-lieutenant Karnyord from spreading like wildfire and in causing it to eventually lose its momentum. Thus, on August 12, two months after the mutiny, he was chosen in absence to head the Central Executive Committee of the Shan State Restoration Council.