Wa: The Regime’s Next Target?

After capturing the Kokang capital of Laogai with relative ease, the question on everybody’s lips is: will the Burmese military regime now go after the Wa army?

Much as it would appear to be the next logical step in the military government’s plan to subdue resistance to its authoritarian rule ahead of next year’s election, a conflict with the Wa, known officially as the United Wa State Army (UWSA), could be a prolonged campaign with serious consequences, analysts have warned.

The United Wa State Army is among the strong ethnic armies in northern Burma that Chinese officials are courting.

The UWSA is the biggest and strongest ethnic force in Burma with some 20,000 to 25,000 soldiers. And despite signing a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese junta in 1989, it has actively and consistently been buying more weapons from China since then.

According to a report in the March 2008 issue of Jane’s Intelligence Review: “As the possibility of a war with the junta has loomed larger, the UWSA has acquired more sophisticated weapons including anti-aircraft systems. In or around 2000, the Wa added to their small arsenal of Soviet Streal-2 (SA-7) man-portable air defense systems [MANPADS] when they acquired HN-5N systems, an improved Chinese version of the first-generation Soviet system.”

Additionally, the Wa have added heavier combat weapons to their arsenal, including 12.7 and 14.5 mm anti-aircraft guns, as well as 60 mm, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars, all from China.

In 2007, advisers from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army provided artillery training in the Lu Fang mountain range west of Panghsang, the capital of Wa State.

This would suggest that Beijing doesn’t want to see the Wa weakened; it is natural that China wants to maintain its buffer zone.

Now also equipped with 130 mm field guns and 122 mm howitzers, the UWSA soldiers have reportedly dug a complex of underground command centers near Panghsang, clearly intended for protection against aerial attacks by the Burmese air force.

But could the Wa resist a government forces’ onslaught by land?

Some Burma observers estimate that the Wa wouldn’t be able to defend its territory for a long period of time if the regime decided to launch a major offensive against the ethnic group.

Maj Aung Lynn Htut, a former intelligence officer who is currently seeking asylum in the USA, said he believed the regime is prepared to attack the UWSA, but is cautiously testing the water with China which has long supported the Wa and other armed ethnic groups along the Sino-Burmese border.

The former intelligence officer, who in the past traveled to Shan State to meet and negotiate with ethnic ceasefire groups, said that if China doesn’t back the Wa, all the ethnic armies in the region will be “wiped out.”

With regard to the recent clashes between the government forces and the Kokang army, which led to between 10,000 and 30,000 civilians fleeing to the Chinese side of the border, Beijing has publically called for the Burmese generals to restore stability and peace on the border. However, China failed to stop the regime’s attack on the Kokang—a Han Chinese ethnic group.

Htay Aung, a researcher at the Thailand-based Network for Democracy and Development, said he thinks Wa leaders with invested business interests in Burma and China are not ready to fight.

He said the Wa leaders have in the past said that they will not initiate hostilities with the junta. He added that the Chinese could even act as a peace broker between the Wa leaders and the Burmese regime.

For their part, many Wa leaders are involved in the hotel and entertainment businesses in Rangoon and Mandalay. In Panghsang, they have built a paper mill, a cigarette factory and a bottled water factory.

Meanwhile, Naypyidaw has reinforces its troop strength in northeastern Burma. Most analysts agree that the military government forces have greater fire power than the Wa, not to mention an air force.

However, an attack on the UWSA would upset the Chinese who would have to deal with an even larger influx of refugees.

It would also motivate the other ethnic ceasefire groups—most notably the Kachin Independence Army—to join the resistance, knowing that they would be next targets.

“The Kokang was just the weakest link in the chain of former Communist Party of Burma ceasefire groups. The United Wa State Army is the main one, and the biggest obstacle for Naypyidaw's attempts to establish its writ over the entire country.”

Lintner also said that the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) and the UWSA have now formed a military alliance. The regime in the past employed Wa troops to attack the SSA-S.

The SSA-S is one of the few ethnic armies that has not reached a ceasefire agreement with the central government, and, despite past hostilities, the Shans and the Wa have in recent years established some kind of unofficial alliance.

“An attack on the UWSA would open a Pandora's box of problems for the regime, including a new refugee crisis in China and the possibility of war on many fronts inside the country,” Lintner added.

Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who has written several books on Burma, said that the pressure is clearly on the Wa.

“The Wa will be the main target of the present offensive,” he said.

Irrawaddy