Burma: SSA-DKBA Met In Strategic Summit
By Khin Min Zaw
Commanders from the Shan State Army (SSA) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) met earlier in August to discuss co-operation in fighting the Burmese.
Major Saw San Aung, the DKBA’s Klohtoobaw region military operation commander said officials from the two groups met in an undisclosed location to discuss plans to fight together.
“The DKBA’s tactical commander major Kyaw Thet met with SSA commanders and they discussed on plans to bring down and crush the dictatorship system in a very near future,” Major Saw San Aung told DVB.
Major Sai Lao Hseng, spokesperson for the SSA confirmed that the meeting had taken place and said that they exchanged ideas and analysis of the current situation.
“If the military dictators continue to use their brutal, wipe-out tactics against us the ethnic people, then we, together with the SSA will use various methods such as waging mountain and urban warfare to defend ourselves,” Saw San Aung said.
“Also they discussed on plans to not only take a fixed, defensive stance but also to take offensive against the Burmese Army,” he added.
He said the groups held the meeting as the fighting is still on-going in ethnic regions despite President Thein Sein’s recent proposal for peace talks with ethnic armies.
This renewed impetus was perhaps evident in a recent ambush carried out by the DKBA. The group attacked the convoy of the minister for Karen state, Major General Zaw Min near the key broder town of Myawaddy, whilst he was on his way back from an event celebrating the Border Guard Force (BGF) agreement.
The BGF deal was the government’s key pre-election effort to assimilate the restive ethnic armed groups into the Burmese army. Many failed to sign up seeing it as taking away their cherished autonomy, those groups have since come under sustained attack from the Burmese.
