Stalemate on the border may lead to bloody endgame

Recent developments in the Myanmar sector of the Golden Triangle are not encouraging and need to become a point of concern for policy-makers and security planners in this country and our neighbour to the west. Although neither side has actually fired a shot in anger, Myanmar government troops and militiamen from the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a rebel group that entered into a ceasefire agreement with the then Rangoon government in 1989, have been reinforcing their positions.

The Chiang Mai-based Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) has reported that the government of Myanmar had given the UWSA a June 7 deadline to withdraw from areas adjacent to the Thai border and retreat back to Special Region No 2 near the Chinese border. 

The UWSA has set up three regiments and many more outposts in pockets along the Thai-Myanmar border. These are in areas that the ethnic army had taken from former drug lord Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army (MTA), an outfit that the Wa had helped the Burmese forces defeat in 1996. The MTA eventually surrendered after seven long years of fighting against a Wa-Burma combined force.

The UWSA took over much of the territory that was abandoned by the MTA. But not long after that, the Burmese security tsar, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, gave the Wa an ultimatum – that the UWSA was to pull its troops back to the Sino-Burma border, where the group’s headquarters, Panghsang, is situated. 

But when it became clear that the Wa would not budge, Khin Nyunt decided to “assist” the Wa with a massive repatriation of Wa villagers from the Chinese border to the areas along the northern Thai provinces. 

Thai military chiefs and policy-makers were left speechless at the move, which more or less felt like a slap in the face from our neighbour. From the look of it, since the Burmese couldn’t get the Wa to do as they wanted, they decided to join them. Burma knew full well that the decision to move well over 100,000 Wa villagers from the Chinese border to the Thai border would antagonise Thailand. 

From a bird’s eye view, it was a border game of chess the two countries had been playing all along. 

Basically, the overriding rule of this game is that whoever Myanmar supports becomes a threat to Thailand, and whatever ethnic army is currently fighting the Myanmar government forces becomes an ally of the Thais. 

Unlike other guerrilla groups, the UWSA was, and is, not about hit-and-run tactics. They are in the business of controlling districts, towns and people. With that comes the lucrative drug business, which includes opium cultivation, heroin production and methamphetamine production and trafficking. 

But the fact that the UWSA is involved in the narcotics business should not be a surprise to anyone because drugs and insurgency have always been two sides of the same coin in Myanmar’s internal conflicts involving numerous armed ethnic groups.

According to SHAN, the Myanmar Army has mobilised 14 armoured vehicles and 10 military trucks fully loaded with soldiers from Tachileik, opposite Mae Sai, which are heading towards UWSA southern command areas situated near the Thai border. If a battle breaks out, one can be certain that tens of thousands of refugees will flood into Thai northern territory. 

Is Thailand supposed to thank Myanmar for its latest ultimatum given to the UWSA to return to the Chinese border? Perhaps the best way out of this is a political solution. 

It’s understandable why no one wants the UWSA near its border. But a military approach is not a solution. Dialogue needs to be given a chance. 

Armed ethnic armies fighting for independence and self-rule in Myanmar have long been part of the chess game played by Thailand, Myanmar and China. These three countries need to let go of the old mindset and seriously think about a solution in political terms.