Zahkung Ting Ying Summoned to Rangoon

The Kachin Post

December 27, 2004 — Leader of a Kachin ceasefire group New Democratic Army-Kachin, NDA-K, has been summoned to Burma’s capital Rangoon for security reason, said a Kachin Independence Organization officer.

Maj Sumlut Gun Maw, deputy secretary of KIO, said NDA-K leader Zahkung Ting Ying was summoned by the Gen Thura Shwe Mahn of Burma Army in last week. Ting Ying was escaped from bomb explosion in early of December. NDA-K accused that KIO is responsible for plotting the bomb at 12 miles east of Kachin State capital Myitkyina.

NDA-K has refused to launch joint investigation for bomb incident with KIO, saying it has evidence of explosion. “We will give evidences only when KIO couldn’t find out,” said NDA-K liaison officer Col Mukyin Dau Hawng as quoted by Gun Maw, who met with Dau Hawng in Myitkyina in last week.

However, Burma Army’s northern command told KIO that they also known that KIO is not responsible for the bomb explosion, said Gun Maw. He met with Burma Army’s northern command and NDA-K during his negotiation trip to Myitkyina to launch joint investigation for bomb explosion.

According to the NDA-K statement released on the December 10, the same day the bomb explosion had took placed, Zahkung Ting Ying denounced the Kachin revolution led by KIO and the revolution led by Naw Seng who launched upper Burma campaign against the Rangoon government and set up the Pawngyawng National Defense Force (the first Kachin rebel army in Burma) in November 1949.

NDA-K statement also criticized current KIO central committee members as terrorists, and urged Kachin people to crush KIO leaders for Kachin national interest. As well as the statement praised the Kachin elders who served prime minister U Nu and Ne Win’s Burmese government.

KIO leaders believe that Zahkung Ting Ying is trying to shape KIO to become a group like NDA-K—a client arms organization of Burma Army—by ousting some KIO key leaders. “NDA-K has special agenda,” said Gun Maw.