KIO Members Returned from Thai Border March 10, 2005
The Kachin Post
The Kachin Independence Organization, KIO, welcomed the return of seven youth members from a two year journey on March 1st at its headquarters in Kachin State. Ten members initially set out to participate in military training exercises conducted by the Shan State Army-South, SSA-S, but their trip was prolonged by political turmoil within the ranks of the Kachin leadership.
In March 2003, the Kachin Independence Army, KIA, dispatched ten members to participate in military training exercises with five other ethnic resistance groups in an area under the control of the SSA-S near Thailand, according to KIO sources. Three of the ten KIO members remained in KNPP as members of the Thailand based Kachin National Organization, KNO, members.
Some 200 troops from six ethnic insurgent groups took part in the first ever joint training among these groups, which concluded with a parade on November 25, 2003. The six ethnic groups participating in the exercises are from the Shan State Army-South, the Karenni National Progressive Party, the Karen National Union, the Arakan Liberation Party, the Restoration Council of the Shan State and the Kachin Independence Organization. The troops participated in a six months of military training, aimed at strengthening the military alliance among the ethnic groups.
After a report of the KIO’s involvement in the exercises appeared in The Nation, an English language newspaper in Bangkok, James Lum Dau, a KIO representative in Thailand, sent a letter that was published in The Nation, in which he denied the KIO’s participation in the training.
After the military training, the KIO members did not return to their headquarters as Bawmwang La Raw, leader of the Thailand-based Kachin National Organization, KNO, told them that the KIO would execute them due to a recent power struggle within the KIO. The Kachin youth moved from SSA-S controlled area to Karenni National Progressive Party controlled area, they became members of the Thailand based KNO.
According to KIO sources, the ten participants are KIO members, serving as soldiers in the Kachin Independence Army’s 3rd brigade. Bawmwang La Raw took advantage of them by branding them as members of Kachin National Army, the armed wing of the KNO, said a KIO officer in condition of anonymity.
KIO officer Dau Zawng, who is in charge of the returning seven KIO members, said that the three remaining soldiers were left with the KNPP inside Burma by Bawmwang La Raw and that they cannot come back.
After an alleged coup attempt at the KIO headquarters in January 2004, the KIO labeled Bawmwang La Raw as the “number one enemy” of the KIO, and accused him of masterminding an attempt to overthrow the KIO leadership.
