Immediately after the war, the Kachin Levies became the Kachin Rifles, a properly organised military unit in the new Burmese Army. Naw Seng was appointed commander of its first battalion and fought for the Rangoon government against the Burmese communists, who had taken up arms soon after Independence in 1948. But the following year, when he was also ordered to conduct operations against the insurgent Karens, he defected with most of his battalion. They joined the Karens and launched a major campaign against the government in northern Burma.
In late 1949, Naw Seng and his followers marched even further north, towards Kachin State, to organise their own people. But they were cornered in the Kachin-inhabited hills of northeastern Shan State. Eventually, he had no choice but to retreat into China, which he did in April 1950 from a border village called Mong Ko. Instead of becoming the rulers of another Nepal, Naw Seng and a few hundred ex-Kachin Riflemen ended up as labourers on collective farms and tractor factories in China’s Guizhou province. There they remained, almost forgotten, until 1968, when the CPB, supported by China, launched an invasion of northeastern Shan State. Naw Seng emerged from obscurity as the military commander of the CPB unit that first entered Burma, ironically at Mong Ko, his point of departure.
While Naw Seng languished in Chinese exile, the KIA had been founded and was already well-established in the very same areas the CPB moved into. Fierce fighting broke out between the communists and the KIA, and Naw Seng himself died in 1972 under circumstances which have never been satisfactorily explained. According to the official CPB version of events, he was killed in a fall from a cliff while hunting in the Wa Hills. Many Kachins preferred to believe he was murdered by the CPB because he refused to fight his own kin in the KIA.
Whatever the truth of the matter, hostilities between the two rebel armies came to an end in 1976 when Brang Seng became the chairman of the KIO, the KIA’s political wing. For the Kachins, the cease-fire with the CPB brought peace on at least one front; it also provided infusions of Chinese arms via the Burmese communists. The KIA was thus able to increase its strength considerably and, in the late 1970s, it launched several determined campaigns against the government. It was then that the KIA took over parts of the Myitkyina-Bhamo road. The Kachins also moved their headquarters from the remote Triangle area down to Pa Jau and relations with China became smoother.
To many outsiders, myself included, it appeared that the military pact of 1976 with the CPB involved the Kachins coming under communist ideological influence. After a few months in the areas controlled by the KIA, I was obliged to revise this assumption. Save for some superficial elements such as dance styles employed by propaganda troupes, communist influence appeared to be non-existent. I asked Brang Seng about relations with China, the KIA’s closest neighbour:
“I went to China for the first time in 1967. We just walked across the border at Panwa Pass and camped outside the nearest Chinese army outpost. We said we needed their help and they asked if we were communists. We replied we were Christians but that we wanted good relations with our neighbours. After some confusion and discussion, an army truck took us to the nearest airport, at Baoshan, and we were flown via Kunming to Beijing. There, we met Zhou Enlai. I never tried to hide the fact that I was a Christian and not a communist. Zhou was sympathetic and seemed to understand.”
The long journey from Panwa Pass on the border to the Gate of the Heavenly Peace in Beijing had been made possible by an unusual turn of events. The Kachins, who had long feared the Red Chinese, had already on several occasions helped batches of similarly Christian Nagas to reach China. If the Nagas could get help from the communists across the border, why not Kachins?
In the case of the Nagas, China’s long-standing hostility towards India, and the unsettled border issue between the two giants, prompted Beijing to eschew ideology in the interests of realpolitik. By supporting the Nagas, the Chinese hoped to destabilise India’s sensitive northeastern region and force it to pull troops away from the cease-fire line in the Himalayas.
With the Kachins, there were similar, non-ideological considerations. To divert public anger over a rice shortage, the military authorities in Rangoon had instigated anti-Chinese riots in the capital in 1967. Radio Beijing demanded revenge, castigating Ne Win’s regime as “fascist” and insisting that “blood should be paid with blood.” Almost daily rallies were held outside the Burmese Embassy in Beijing and Red Guards mounted loudspeakers around its compound walls. As it happened, the Burmese ambassador to China at the time was a pro-government Kachin national, Sinwa Nawng.
There were probably other reasons for the Chinese support as well. This was the time of the Cultural Revolution and Beijing had decided to extend all-out support to the CPB. The plans for the thrust into Mong Ko were already at an advanced stage. The CPB needed local auxiliary forces and the CPB as well as their Chinese comrades presumably thought the KIA could prove useful in that respect. At a meeting in Beijing between the KIA and the CPB, the latter demanded that the Kachins accept the political tutelage of the communists.
“We refused, of course,” Brang Seng said. “We said we’d fight together with the CPB against the common enemy. But we would not accept their political leadership. And, shortly afterwards, fighting between us and the CPB broke out in the Mong Ko area. It lasted, as you know, for eight years, until 1976. Then, at last, the CPB accepted a military pact on equal terms.”
The alliance with the CPB and a “normalisation” of relations with China were only two of several policy changes engineered by Brang Seng in the late 1970s. He also steered the Kachin rebellion away from the separatism it had espoused towards a programme of regional autonomy within a restructured Union of Burma. To some extent a new generation of leaders paved the way for the new thinking. Of the KIA’s three founders, Zau Dan had fallen in a battle with the CPB in 1974, while Zau Seng and Zau Tu had been assassinated at a Kachin liaison camp near the Thai border in 1975. The culprit was a young lieutenant who, in a climate of mounting opposition to the Old Guard, presumably saw a place for himself in a reshaped KIA. In the event, he was rewarded with execution rather than promotion. But the assassination may not have been entirely unwelcome.
Today, the three brothers are recognised as the founders of the Kachin rebel movement and a monument in their honour has been raised at Pa Jau. But in private, many cadres did not appear to mourn the loss of leaders, who, in effect, had pushed the KIA into a military and political cul-de-sac.
Military cooperation with the CPB and a rejection of separatism were policies for which Brang Seng had also managed to rally support at the recent NDF meeting at Pa Jau. The next item on his agenda was to strengthen almost non-existent co-operation between the various constituent members of the NDF. At the congress, the Front had been divided into three regional commands to co-ordinate activities. The northern command comprised the KIA, the SSA and a smaller rebel army of Palaung hill tribesmen from northern Shan State. The central command embraced the Wa, Pa-O and Karenni forces; and the southern command, the Karens, Mons and Arakanese.
On the central and southern fronts no cooperation to speak of had yet been achieved. In the north, however, it had been decided to set up a joint battalion comprising one company from each of the three component forces. Brang Seng, Maj.-Gen. Zau Mai from Na Hpaw and some other Kachin leaders were leaving for northeastern Shan State, where the Kachin-Shan-Palaung NDF battalion was to be officially inaugurated at the KIA’s 4th Brigade headquarters. Hseng Noung was invited to go along and photograph the ceremony. As they all were going to travel through China, I would have to stay behind at Pa Jau.
Zau Mai and his men from Na Hpaw arrived by horse at Pa Jau towards the end of May. We were glad to see that Khun Nawng, now the major-general’s personal assistant, was among them. We had some Chinese brandy, by far the best liquor available in Pa Jau market, and invited him over that night for a drink. He entered, beaming broadly, and put his Beretta submachine gun on the chair. I had a present for him.
“
Khun Nawng. These are my binoculars. We bought them in Hong Kong before we set out on this trip. When we met Yaw Htung at Naga headquarters, we decided to give them to him as a memento. After his death, you took over as his guide, so we’ve decided to give the binoculars to you. We will never forget Yaw Htung and the fact that he died defending us.”
For us, it was a moving moment. Khun Nawng also appeared touched. He took the binoculars and fastened them to his army belt.
“Isn’t this how you used to carry them on the way through our Kachin State?” He did his best to smile but could not quite bring it off; Yaw Htung had been one of his closest friends.
The entire party, including Hseng Noung, Hseng Tai and Ma Shwe, left the following day. I waved goodbye as they rode off on horseback over the grassy hills south of Pa Jau, towards the Chinese border. I was left alone in the house, with only Atom to cook for me.
I spent nearly every day typing and reading. N’Chyaw Tang, the old major, had a comprehensive collection of notes on the history of the Kachin movement which he lent me. At night, I settled down in my study, copying his material into my own notebooks. I derived much satisfaction from sitting alone working by the light of the hurricane lamp, with the immensity of the night-sky beyond the window. It was still cool and dark, but it was gradually getting warmer as the rainy season approached.
In the daytime, I usually strolled over to a house which belonged to the KIO’s general secretary, Zawng Hra. His compound was neatly laid out amid flower beds and vegetable plots. On the wall inside his house hung a framed sampler with the motto “Happiness is the Spirit of Christmas.”
Zawng Hra’s compound also served as the meeting place for Pa Jau’s badminton enthusiasts—almost the entire community. I did not take part myself, but sat and watched the others. I had come to like Pa Jau and begun to feel at home there.
What I missed in physical exercise, I attempted to make up for mentally in the pursuit of my Burmese studies, begun under the bed in Kohima. At Pa Jau, I also managed to find a teacher, Zawng Hra’s personal assistant, Kum Hpa Ka. He was a former schoolteacher who had spent the last twenty or so years with the guerrillas. His wife had left him some years before, so he now proudly announced to all and sundry—but in particular to the unmarried girls—that he was “an old but newly born bachelor.” Kum Hpa Ka’s sense of humour tended to the eccentric, but his heart was in the right place and I enjoyed his company and our Burmese sessions.
Hseng Noung and the others returned after a ten day sojourn at 4th Brigade headquarters. It had been an entertaining affair with speeches and musical performances, and the Kachin-Shan-Palaung joint battalion had been officially inaugurated. Morale was said to be high. Moulding an effective fighting force from three such disparate peoples promised to be hard work. If the experiment succeeded, however, other NDF members would be encouraged to follow suit. Or so, at least, Brang Seng and other rebel leaders hoped.
The commander of the SSA, Col. Sai Lek, returned with the party to pay a brief visit to Pa Jau. I had met him once before in 1981, at a camp near the Thai border, and was glad at the opportunity to renew the acquaintance. He had taken over the leadership of the Shan rebel army only a few years before and had managed to rebuild the entire organisation. A half-Shan, half-Indian Muslim turned Buddhist, Sai Lek was about 45, and, like the other rebels, he too was enthusiastic over the joint battalion and the new NDF unity it reflected.
Some Shan soldiers in their early twenties accompanied Sai Lek and one of them in particular struck me. His name was Than Aung and his reason for going underground was somewhat different from Pui Hpa’s romanticised dream of guerrilla life. A Burmese Army unit had come to Than Aung’s home village in the Hsipaw area, a rebel stronghold in northern Shan State. His father, for some reason, was apprehended and accused of helping the insurgents. No evidence was presented, but the government soldiers hung him by his feet and beat him to death in front of his family.
“I will never forget that,” Than Aung said simply. “I ran away from home to join the SSA. I wanted to kill as many Burmans as I could to take revenge.” That had been more than ten years before, when the boy had been nine years old.
His experience reflected with bitter clarity the problem in many of Burma’s minority areas: the only Burmans most villagers ever met were government troops whose brutality was notorious. Little wonder that racial hatred had festered and grown and that separatist tendencies were often powerful. Perhaps the only redeeming element in this cauldron of animosities was that the more enlightened insurgent leaders were working to channel popular sentiment into a demand for federalism and autonomy and away from the unrealistic urge to break away from Burma altogether.
Of all the stories of Burmese excesses I had heard over the years there was one especially which stuck in my mind. It had taken place in 1984 in Bung Lien, a prosperous Shan village also near Hsipaw. A government patrol rounded up all the women they could find and assembled them in the yard outside the local Buddhist monastery, the pride of every Shan village. At gunpoint, the women, regardless of age, were forced to strip naked and perform obscene acrobatics while the soldiers looked on. Laughing, joking and prodding them with their rifle barrels, the troops found this hugely amusing, and the sport continued for several hours until the army unit eventually left. The infuriated women went straight to the SSA guerrillas who set off in pursuit. An ambush was laid and several government soldiers killed—much to the satisfaction of the women of Bung Lien.
But the chronic inability of the Rangoon government to appreciate minority sensitivities was only one of the roots of conflict. Even more serious was its stubborn conviction, disproved time and again in other conflicts, that disaffected peoples can be cowed into submission by military might and by selective atrocities. And so, after nearly four decades, the civil war in Burma dragged on with no end in sight.
Rising resentment against the government was particularly noticeable in northern Shan State, where Sai Lek’s SSA was active. Shan boys and girls were joining the ranks of the insurgents nearly every day. Some arrived alone, others together with friends. Word had it that the high schools in Namkham and Muse were all but empty.
In discussion with the Shan soldiers, a remarkable difference was revealed between them and KIA troops. Nearly all the Shans had joined the SSA voluntarily, full of passion for their cause and a wish to fight a government which literally everyone seemed to loathe and despise. But leaving a comfortable, fertile Shan valley to face the hardships of jungle life is not easy. Before long, the young Shans would miss their home villages, the pagoda, the festivals and the good food they once had enjoyed. But at the same time, more fiercely nationalistic Shan youths would be thinking of leaving the very same villages to join the uprising. Consequently, the ranks of the SSA had probably the highest turnover rate of any rebel army in Burma.
By contrast, the vast majority of KIA troops were conscripts. And by Western standards, drafting methods were rough, with recruitment often tantamount to press-ganging. Yet in the context of Kachin tribal society, this seemed to have no detrimental effect either on military discipline or the loyalty of the troops. Perhaps surprisingly, given the conscription system, the KIA had one of the lowest defection and desertion rates among Burma’s many rebel armies. Even though they had been drafted, many Kachin soldiers were proud to recount how many years they had served with the KIA.
As against the highly individualistic Shans, the Kachins belonged to a tight-knit society. A new recruit could easily establish a relationship with his comrades-in-arms, NCOs and officers on the basis of the complex Kachin clan and kinship system. Most were also immensely proud of their martial tradition: to serve with the KIA was seen as following in the footsteps of grandfathers, fathers and uncles who once enlisted in the British and American forces. Perhaps not least—and again in contrast to the Shans—life in a Kachin hill village was Spartan. For many youths the insurgent KIA offered both wider horizons and real material benefits.
At anothe
r level, however, the situation was reversed. The fertile valleys in Shan State were able to supply the SSA with rice and everything they could spare. But unlike Kachin State, the Shan areas did not have any jade or much gold or precious stones to finance the purchase of arms and ammunition, medicine and uniforms. There was, of course, opium, but contrary to popular belief, the Shan guerrillas earned next to nothing from the trade. The Shan State opium business was, and always had been, in the hands of ethnic Chinese syndicates who had their own contacts both inside Burma and across Southeast Asia.
These drug trading organisations had their origin in the old Kuomintang which fled to northern and northeastern Burma following the Chinese communist victory of 1949. Some of these bands maintained a Shan front to disguise their activities. That served to confuse many foreigners. But inside Burma, even the simplest hill tribe farmer was aware of the distinction between the Chinese-dominated drug syndicates and the ethnic Shan guerrillas. The Kachin rebels did not have to confront these opium traders and their private armies to any significant extent, which in turn had also made life easier for the KIA.
Discipline in the KIA was quite impressive by any standards—another product of the marriage of tribal and martial traditions. There was, however, one field in which Kachin commanders faced serious problems. Traditionally, the Kachins had espoused an entirely relaxed attitude towards premarital sex. In the old days, unmarried boys and girls would meet around their daps, or fireplaces, and play courting games. After much talking, singing and teasing, young couples discreetly slipped away into the bush to make love, a state of affairs considered perfectly natural. Parents tactfully made themselves scarce at the appropriate hour so as not to disturb or embarrass the youngsters.
Land of Jade Page 28
