Burma army planes attack KIO positions near rebel capital
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Four fighter jets and two helicopters took part in an air assault on rebel positions near Laiza, the Kachin Independence Organization's de facto capital, on Friday morning. Throughout the morning military planes struck KIO positions in Lajayang, a key town located less than 10 miles south of Laiza.>>>LAIZA MAP!
It is unknown at this time how many people have been killed or injured by the bombardment. Government shelling near Lajayang on Thursday killed one civilian and injured three others at Mankwi, according to KIO officials in the area.
The renewed attacks on KIO positions near Laiza comes just days after Burma's military sent the group a letter demanding that all KIO troops abandon their positions in and around Lajayang. The letter was signed by Brig-Gen Tun Tun Naung, a senior official with the army's northern command. The KIO rebuffed the letter and appears unwilling at this point to withdraw from Lajayang or any other areas of strategic value in and around the Laiza.
The KIO capital is currently home to at an estimated 40,000 refugees who are increasingly forced to get by on inadequate amounts of food. The food crisis has been greatly exacerbated by a government imposed blockade preventing the UN and its related agencies from delivering food to refugee camps located in KIO controlled territory.
Ref:kachinnews blogs
| Ethnic Kachin rebels in northern Myanmar say the government is keeping up air and ground attacks against them despite international calls for restraint. An exclusive video obtained by Al Jazeera on Tuesday reportedly shows government air raids on an area controlled by Kachin fighters. Pointing to the latest skirmish near the northern city of Laiza, Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay says that "there is no sign that this fighting is slowing down anytime soon. "There is some feeling that perhaps the Myanmar military is launching an attempt to take that town, which of course would be a severe blow to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA)". Laiza, which is near the border with China, and a government base are close to each other, and access to both is by the same road. In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, the Myanmar government confirmed that the air force "conducted some ground support operations" around the government base. "These operations are to clear the surrounding hills where KIA troops using to shell and attack Army Lajayan Camps for past months," the statement reads. "Army never intend to attack or occupy Laiza. All operations are self defense for troops stationed at Army Lajayan Camp." On Monday, a spokesman for the rebel fighters claims that government troops used fighter jets and helicopters in the aerial attacks. "Launching attacks against important KIA hill posts and occupying these outposts amounts to launching attacks against Laiza,'' La Nan said Monday. Greater autonomy The government has said several times it has no intention of trying to seize Laiza. The Kachin, like Myanmar's other ethnic minorities, have long sought greater autonomy from the central government. They are the only major ethnic rebel group that has not reached a truce with President Thein Sein's elected government, which came to power in 2011 after almost five decades of military rule. Intermittent fighting escalated last month when the rebels rejected a government demand that they allow supply convoys to reach an army base. The Kachin stage attacks on government convoys trying to get through to the base, saying the supplies include ammunition that could be used to try to take their headquarters. The army claims its actions are in self-defense, a response to the Kachin blocking the road. The US and China are among those parties urging an end to the fighting. "Our view is that all sides need to cease and desist and get into dialogue with each other,'' Victoria Nuland, the state department spokesperson, said last week. Ref:aljazeera Kachin War a Battle for Resources 
A Kachin Independence Army soldier looks through binoculars at Burmese army positions from an outpost near Laiza, May 12, 2012.
Kachin War a Battle for Resources2012-08-31
Fighting escalates in northern Burma's resource-rich Kachin state.
In a high-stakes battle reflecting political and economic interests, Burmese government troops have stepped up their offensive this week against ethnic Kachin rebels in an area at the heart of Burma’s jade industry.
The fighting in pursuit of territory in the jade-rich Hpakant township underscores a scramble between the Burmese government and the rebel groups as well as neighboring China for the expensive mineral and prime timber in northern Burma's resource-rich Kachin state.
Since Monday, Burmese troops have been pounding rebel positions of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Hpakant, amid clashes that have raged since a 17-year peace agreement between the two sides was shattered in June last year.
A key stumbling block to renegotiating a peace agreement is the illicit trade in timber and other resources between local Kachin leaders and businesses in China’s bordering Yunnan province, much to the chagrin of the Burmese central government, some officials have said.
Rights groups say civilians are being caught in the middle as their interests are overtaken by the pursuit of wealth driven by the lucrative trade.
“The economic impact of the war has been tremendous,” Human Rights Watch researcher Matthew Smith said. “Both parties to the war stand to gain economically, depending on the outcome.”
Aside from lucrative jade and mineral deposits, the contested areas in are home to vast hydropower potential on Kachin rivers, and lucrative trade routes to Yunnan, Smith said.
“Multibillion dollar projects are being put on hold or are at risk of becoming military targets, to say nothing of the lost livelihoods of miners and traders,” he said.
Escalation
The fighting intensified Wednesday when Burmese troops ordered the immediate evacuation of miners and ethnic Kachin from 11 villages in Hpakant, the Kachin News Group reported.
In the past two weeks, over 6,000 miners and residents in the area have been forced to flee conflict in the area, it said.
About 100 jade mining companies operate in Hpakant township in western Kachin state, producing some of the highest quality jade in the world.
This week’s clashes prompted a joint statement Wednesday by 11 Kachin organizations calling on the Burmese government to end its offensive against the KIA, the military arm of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) demanding greater autonomy.
The groups said that 90,000 people have been displaced in the fighting since the ceasefire ended last year, resuming a war that has waged since Burma's independence in 1948.
Burma has recently signed peace agreements with 10 other armed ethnic groups in its borderlands, but the three rounds of peace talks held with the KIA since November have yielded little outcome.
Cross-border trade
Timber, in particular, has played a pivotal role in incentivizing and funding the conflict, according to international watchdog Global Witness.
By taking control of the mostly illegal border trade in timber, ethnic rebel groups in Burma's border areas such as the Kachin organizations have been able to finance their side of the conflict over the past decades, the group says.
The KIO turned to timber after it lost control over the Hpakant jade mines in the peace agreement of 1994, according to the Burma Environmental Working Group.
China and Burma took steps to ban the cross-border trade after Global Witness and other non-governmental groups exposed how illegal logging was funding the conflict six years ago.
But recent reports by NGOs indicate that the illegal logging is continuing, with trucks transporting sought-after Burmese teak into Yunnan.
Between October 2010 and April 2011, more than 40,000 tons of timber, especially hardwood and teak, crossed into China, according to the Kachin News Group.
In August, the news group reported illegal logging occurring near Myitkyina in eastern Kachin state.
The roaring timber trade continues despite Beijing’s efforts to halt it, according to Chinese state media.
Along the border, piles of teak and high quality logs attest to the booming timber trade, China’s state broadcasting network CCTV said in a report in June.
In Yunnan’s Ruili city, just over the border from Kachin, timber mills are flourishing.
“In a single day, dozens of trees come to the mill as logs. They're to become luxurious tables, chairs and furniture, often exported overseas,” the report said.
The recent lifting of EU sanctions on Burmese teak and other forest products could further fuel demand within this already lucrative industry, the Burma Environmental Working Group said.
Refugees
Fourteen months of fighting have led to an exodus of Kachin refugees across the border to Yunnan.
Human Rights Watch said China recently forced at least 1,000 Kachin to return to the combat zone in Burma and plans to deport 4,000 more.
China refuses to recognize the Kachin fleeing the violence as refugees but has denied that it forcibly returned them.
A senior official in the health department of the KIO confirmed to RFA Tuesday that the refugees had been sent back over the border, expelled from around 12 makeshift camps in Yunnan where they had been living since June 2011.
In Wednesday’s statement, the 11 Kachin groups called on China to support humanitarian aid to those fleeing the violence instead of deporting them and to ensure their safety.
On Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell urged China to abide by its international obligations on treatment of refugees.
“The U.S. believes that refugees should only return home by their own choice and in conditions of safety and dignity,” he said.
Reported by Rachel Vandenbrink.
Ref:rfaburmese
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