Nationalism, opium fuel Burma guerr

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Subject: Nationalism, opium fuel Burma guerrilla clash 

Nationalism, opium fuel Burma guerrilla clash

      By Robert Birsel 

    MONG YON, Burma (Reuter) - Fuelled by age-old nationalism and the spoils
of the opium trade, fighting is intensifying in Burma's remote Golden
Triangle between the country's two most powerful guerrilla armies. 

    Commanders of the ethnic minority Wa army, allied with Burma's military
government since a 1989 cease-fire, vowed  Monday to push guerrillas loyal to
the Shan opium warlord Khun Sa out of the hills in this region of
northeastern Burma. 

    ``We must fight Khun Sa and defeat him or else he will completely swallow
the Wa people like he has done to so many other groups,'' said Lin Wen, a
senior United Wa State Army commander. 

    Several thousand Wa reinforcements have been brought down from their
headquarters area in northern Shan state on the border with China to this
region in the south of the state, near the Thai frontier to battle Khnn Sa's
army since the current round of fighting began in June. 

    Another 2,000 reinforcements are on their way and more will be brought in
until Khun Sa's fighters are driven out of the area, Lin Wen said. 

    The Burmese government has given permission for Wa troops to move from
the north through government territory and mule caravans are travelling with
them from the government town of Mong Hsat, loaded with mortar bombs, rocket
grenades and other ammunition, supplied to the Wa by the Burmese army. 

    While helping their Wa allies in the Mong Yon area, the Burmese army is
moving into position to launch an offensive against Khun Sa's main
headquarters area some 140 miles to the west. 

    Wa frontline commander Ja Lor Phu said his forces were preparing to fight
Khun Sa to the finish. 

    ``The fighting must continue, if we don't fight them they will come to
fight us,'' Ja Lor Phu told Reuters. 

    Below his command post perched on top of a ridgeline, his troops and Khun
Sa's fighters fired mortar bombs and machine guns at each other from their
fortified hilltop posts several hundred yards apart. 

    The Wa say Khun Sa's forces tried to cut their main supply route north to
the government town of Mong Hsat, a vital lifeline since Thailand sealed the
border last year following Burmese government complaints that Khun Sa was
benefiting from cross-border smuggling. 

    The Wa built a road about halfway through the rugged hills between their
headquarters near the Thai border and Mong Hsat and say it will cross a main
Khun Sa east-west supply route. 

    ``At first they thought they could cut our main supply route but they
failed. We have to make sure our supply route is safe,'' said Ja Lor Phu. 

    The Wa, former headhunters who made up the rank and file of the Communist
Party of Burma's military wing, mutinied against their communist leaders in
1989 and agreed to a cease-fire with the Burmese government. 

    Thai and western anti-narcotics agencies say the Wa now rival Khun Sa as
the main producers of opium and its refined form heroin but the Wa say they
recently reached an agreement with the Burmese government to begin
eradicating the harvest. 

    They deny their fight with Khun Sa is merely a fight over opium and say
he and his Shan nationalist forces fighting for the independence of Shan
state will completely dominate the Wa and other ethnic minority groups unless
he is resisted. 

    ``We need our own place to live. If we don't fight Khun Sa he will fight
us and he will swallow the Wa people,'' said Lin Wen. 

Reut11:47 10-23-95