Credit: SAW YAN NAING, The Irrawaddy News Magazine, February 1, 2010.A meeting between Burmese Military Affairs Security Chief Lt-Gen Ye Myint and leaders of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in Myitkyina, the Kachin capital, on Friday failed to achieve a breakthrough in border guard force negotiations, said a Kachin source on the Sino-Burma border.
In the meeting, KIO leaders discussed the importance of the spirit of the Panlong Agreement and avoided direct negotiations involving the regime's order to form a border guard force (BGF) under the command of the government, according to sources.
In response, Lt-Gen Ye Myint, one of the regime's chief negotiators with ethnic cease-fire armies, told KIO leaders that they should transform their troops in a border guard force and that alternative proposals were not needed.
A source in Myitkyina who is close to KIO leaders told The Irrawaddy on Monday that more meetings on the issue will take place.
Maj-Gen Soe Win of the Northern Regional Command and other regime officials also participated in the negotiations, along with KIO leaders including Lanyaw Zawng Hra, the KIO chairperson; Lt-Gen Gauri Zau Seng, KIO vice-president 1; and Brig-Gen Sumlut Gun Maw.
Burmese authorities and KIO leaders have held 10 meetings since April 2009 to discuss the border guard force issue, according to the Thailand-based Kachin News Group.
In related matters, local Burmese authorities in KIO-controlled areas have started to restrict some trade involving rice, oil and other products by KIO businessmen on the Sino-Burmese border, according to Awng Wa, a Kachin source on the border.
With a military wing of about 4,000 soldiers, the KIO is one of the strongest ethnic cease-fire groups that has resisted the regime's BGF order. The United Wa State Army with 25,000 soldiers has also rejected the order and is still in talks with the regime.
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