(Part-II)
Satyaraj Hazarika, IPS
Deputy Inspector General of Police, Assam
New Conflict Situation in Kachin State:
The Tatmadaw broke the ceasefire with KIA in a truce that saw peace from 1994 for seventeen long years. And the current flare up of conflict is part of the recent political developments in Myanmar in February 2021. The centre of the unfolding clash is the Hpakant jade mines, between Tatmadaw and KIA, with other EAOs sprinkling in between. If the Kachin timber and jade is out of bounds of Tatmadaw and its intermediaries like UWSA and AA from Myitkyina, northern Kachin areas and Hpakant, it will sap at the very base of the Myanmar army finance interest.
After February 1, 2021, Myanmar military junta coup from March, the KIA stepped up attack on military positions that are aimed at stopping the jade mining in the Kachin state. This area denial attacks by KIA will seriously affect the jade trade that profits both the state and KIA.
Just like KIA trained ULFA in 1980 it trained the Bisheswar Singh led PLA (People's Liberation Army) of Manipur in 1985, as the group surfaced in 1978, as a sessionist organization. The PLA is in the spotlight with the ghastly ambush on an Assam Riles convoy on November 13, 2021 at that took the life of the CO 46 AR Col Viplav Tripathi, his wife, son and five other jawans. The incident happened in the Indian state of Manipur's Churachandpur district at Sekhan village, cheek by jowl to Chin Hills of Myanmar.
Indian border with Myanmar is 1643 kms that begins at Walong, in Arunachal Pradesh in the north in tri-junction of India, China and Myanmar's Kachin state. The border ends at Parva, Lawngtlai district in Mizoram state, at the tri-junction of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Through this lightly manned border insurgents groups like the Assamese, Manipuri and Naga groups trained by KIA ingress through Kachin, Sagaing, Chin and Rakhine state of Myanmar to India. From the 1960s to late 1980s these groups fought low-intensity warfare with Indian security forces. Ceasefire with NSCN (IM) from 1997 with Government of India, brought peace to Nagaland state sharing international borders with Myanmar.
The two decade old Mizoram insurgency of MNF (Mizo National Front) ended in 1986, leaving Manipur state, sharing borders with Sagaing and Chin state of Myanmar, with groups like PLA out of the ceasefire with the Indian government. The beginning of 2014 also saw Arakan Army operating from Chin state from their northern bases close to Chinese border, complicating the drug and insurgent activities in Manipur. The Arakan Army then started to target the Kaladan Multi Modal Project an Indian strategic interests in Rakhine province. Rakhine is incidentally the home turf of Arakan Army. Recently Arakan Army extended their support to the junta like UWSA, SSPP (Shan State Progressive Party) political party of SSA-N (Shan State Army-North).
With the KIA and the Kachin insurgency beginning to bare its fangs once again, with the junta government in power, the KIO voiced their opposition to the junta takeover from the civilian democratically elected government that resonated with the Bamar public opinion in the Irrawaddy delta. But that does not change the dynamics of the Kachin conflict. And like the other EAOs of the Northern Alliance it is not any richer with weapon as the UWSA or AA secures from their patrons, that includes Manpads (surface to air missiles) to name a few.
Conclusion:
Between the jade mines of Kachin state and the drug economy of the neighbouring Shan state’s Golden Triangle in Myanmar, fuels the protracted insurgency. Both the state and EAOs (Ethnic Armed Organizations) are locked in a vortex of conflict, with the state responding by forming militias to control the EAOs. One such militia is KDA or Kaungkha militia, based in Shan state that is involved in drug trade with supply lines to Manipur state in North East India. The Kaungkha militia is supplying meth or yaba pills to Arakan Army that is swarming the North East India and Bangladesh with tablet methamphetamine. Just like the 1970s and 1980s, Kachin handiwork to shape the future guerrilla armies of North East India, the militias that form the backbone of Tatmadaw and its war with EAOs, the new found official identity gave the militias much needed impunity to indulge in drug trafficking. The cost of Myanmar's low-intensity war against the Kachins and Shan insurgents, both of which have interest in jade and drugs respectively, presents North East India with a security conundrum, as the latest Churachandpur ambush by PLA shows.
The EAOs like UWSA, AA, MNDAA, and NDAA use the ceasefire with the state and forge alliance with government militias like Kaungkha, to keep the informal drug economy running into billions of dollars. And ethnic insurgents fund their standing armies out of the booming meth trade of which Myanmar, is largest producer in the world. And as the yaba pills and heroin are pouring into North East India, the militant groups both across the spectrum, in ceasefire or in conflict mode benefit by the drug trade, like the Shan State groups.
The Kachin and Shan State imbroglio in northern Myanmar presents not just a security threat to India but it is a global threat. The EAOs are hand in glove with mafia organizations like Sam Gor or Chinese triads who are trafficking meth and precursor chemicals to Amsterdam and New Mexico. Militias like Kaungkha, are producing methyl fentanyl, which is many times lethal than heroin, that is eventually finding its way to the US.
The no-holds-barred approach by the state as far as these EAOs, BGF and militias are concerned is creating a global threat to democracy.
(Unpublished work @ Satyaraj Hazarika 2021)
