Shan fighters still dream of independence from Myanmar

By Denis D. Gray

LOI TAI LIANG, Thai-Myanmar Border (AP): High up on a cold mountain, amid the swirling mists, die-hard rebel leaders still dream of winning their half-century-old and little known struggle for independence.

But chances for victory on the battlefield seem as remote as the location: the bloodied, impoverished and Shangri-La-looking swath of eastern Myanmar known as Shan State. And the price for continuing the fight has proved staggering -- generations of young men killed and maimed, brutal reprisals against civilians, massive refugee flows.

So the Shan State Army (South), one of the last rebel groups fighting Myanmar's military regime, has opted to lay down its arms and pursue its aims through political negotiations.

"We have thought it better to end this war and solve our problems by peaceful means," the army's commander, Col. Yawd Serk, said in a statement issued last Tuesday.

The ethnic Shans, who are related to the Thais across the border, have been fighting for autonomy since Myanmar, also known as Burma, achieved independence from Britain in 1948. They have never been close to victory, but neither have their ragtag armies ever been snuffed out.

Not many weeks ago, the Shan State Army stood defiant, putting its hopes in yet another alliance among Myanmar's rebellious minorities -- there have been dozens over the years -- and in the recent foreign interventions to protect oppressed peoples in places like Kosovo and East Timor, a new trend in world affairs.

"It will be difficult, but who would have imagined 25 years ago that East Timor would be independent today?" said Sao Ood Kase, a spokesman at Loi Tai Liang, a ragged bamboo-and-thatch encampment whose name translates as "The Mountain of Shan Hope."

The Shan State Army, which claims to field 12,000 fighters but probably has fewer, carries a wish list including a United Nations seat, international condemnation of the military regime's human rights abuses, and foreign aid to help refugees and eradicate opium by planting alternative crops.

However, things are fast unraveling for the rebels. Factions of the Shan State Army have turned against Yawd Serk's group, while elsewhere along the embattled frontier, Myanmar's army has mounted operations against insurgents of the Karen minority. Other rebels groups had earlier laid down their arms.

Thailand, which once offered support, appears to be washing its hands of the rebellions. Thai troops reportedly shelled a Karen faction known as God's Army, and last Tuesday killed 10 of its fighters who seized a hospital in Thailand and demanded medical treatment.

Forces arrayed against the ethnic insurgents have always been formidable: a powerful Myanmar army that employs scorched-earth tactics, a lack of global strategic importance and, in some cases, tarnished reputations for suspected narcotics trafficking.

Although the jury is still out on whether the Shan State Army is tied to the narcotics trade, the deeply ingrained spirit of Shan nationalism has often become entangled with drugs.

Some Shan leaders in the past, like the notorious Khun Sa, were basically drug warlords, while others used the only available source of funds -- opium and heroin -- to fuel a genuine struggle against oppression.

"The world still believes we are drug traffickers but nobody has come here to see the reality," Yawd Serk said recently. "We learned that if you become involved in drugs, it will corrupt you in the end."

The tough, 41-year-old fighter, who says he took to the hills as a teen-ager after ethnic Burman youths gang-raped his girlfriend, fought alongside Khun Sa until the latter cut a deal with Myanmar's rulers in 1996 and absconded to the capital, Yangon.

Yawd Serk contends his cause is financed only by taxes and donations from rich Shans. But sources within his command said that while the rebel army shuns drug trafficking, it does tax narcotics passing through its area.

"We have reached our hands out for help from the international community but so far there is no response," Yawd Serk told reporters invited recently to celebrate the Shan new year at Loi Tai Liang.

Hundreds of guerrillas, refugees and villagers also gathered at the mountain base, some 6 miles from the nearest Myanmar military outpost.

For two nights, from dusk to dawn, drums and gongs resounded over surrounding forests. Huddled by fires, the celebrants watched folk plays and dancers costumed as mythical creatures drawn from a history stretching back 2,500 years.

They also recalled their suffering, abuses from Myanmar's government they say are on a par with those inflicted in Kosovo, East Timor and other places where the world intervened.

Amnesty International estimates more than 300,000 people in Shan State have been forced from their villages into towns or holding centers in a military drive since 1996 to deprive the rebels of support in the countryside. The campaign is similar to those conducted farther south in Myanmar, where ethnic Karen and Karenni insurgents operate.

Shan refugees spoke of villages set aflame, residents shot, women raped and relocated people forced to work for the Myanmar army without food or pay.

The government in Yangon denies mistreating the Shans. It says the Shan State Army is trying to secure international support and sympathy by leveling charges of ethnic cleansing and repression.

With her 3-year-old daughter clinging to her legs, Nang Seng Tong told of soldiers shooting her 82-year-old grandmother and uncle when they were too slow to leave their village. She said the troops also burned houses with children trapped inside.

"There is nothing to hope for," she said quietly as the morning mists swept ranks of hills rolling deep into Shan State.