Mon to Move Weapons to New Base

By LAWI WENG
Thursday, March 18, 2010

SANGKHLABURI, Thailand—After meeting with a Burmese regime delegation, the Mon cease-fire group, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), will move some departments and its stockpile of weapons to a new undisclosed base, according to NMSP sources.

The source said that the preparations are in case war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime.

Five executive party members met with Maj-Gen Thet Naing Win, the commander of the junta's Southeast Regional Command, on Tuesday in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, to discuss the border guard force order.

During the meeting, the NMSP leaders were told by the Burmese delegation to give a concrete “yes or no” answer soon on the border guard force issue, sources said.

A NMSP member who requested anonymity told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the party has ordered various departments to move to a new base including the department that stockpiles weapons.

The party’s leaders have said that they will not use their current base headquarter if they fight Burmese junta troops again, because junta officials visited the base in 2006.

The NMSP is one of the ethnic cease-fire groups that the Burmese regime is pressuring to become a border guard force. Recently, the Kachin cease-fire group, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), also move some “important documents and files” from its headquarter in Laiza to a safer location.

The NMSP is also now holding urgent meetings at its headquarters to discuss how it will respond to the Burmese junta demand. The meeting involves all local army officials, according to sources.

Tension has increased in recent months between the NMSP and the Burmese military since the Mon rejected the regime's order to transform its army into a border guard force.

Party leaders said that they will wage a guerrilla war if war breaks out between the NMSP and the Burmese regime. The NMSP signed a cease-fire agreement with the regime in 1995, and it now has about 700 soldiers.

After 14 years of cease-fire, the junta regime has about 30 battalions in Mon State. Before the cease-fire, there were about 10 battalions.

Recently, two Burmese battalions were ordered into areas under the control of the NMSP, despite a long-standing agreement between both sides that Burmese troops would not enter 12 areas under NMSP control while the cease-fire agreement was enforce.

It was the first time in 15 years that the Burmese military has entered its area, Mon sources said.

The junta reportedly intends to declare that ethnic armed cease-fire groups are illegal organizations, if the groups continue to resist the regime's border guard force plan, which would place ethnic armies under the control of junta commanders.