Former Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) lawmaker Myint Swe has been replaced as acting chief of Kokang Self-Administered Zone (SAZ) by Brigadier-General Tun Tun Myint of Northeastern Command as the junta braces for a resistance attack on Laukkai in northern Shan State.
The junta made the switch on Wednesday after the Kokang-based Myanmar National Democratic Army (MNDAA) announced its plan to attack Laukkai, the latest target in a resistance offensive that has swept through northern Shan.
Ethnic Kokang man Myint Swe, also known as Li Zhanfu, attended an emergency meeting of the National Defense and Security Council on Nov. 8 as a special guest. A member of the military-backed USDP, he represents Konkyan Township in the Lower House of Myanmar’s bicameral parliament.
Myint Swe replaced Zhao Dechen as the chair of the administrative body of Kokang after the 2021 coup.
Min Aung Hlaing, who has been under pressure from Beijing over thriving transnational scam operations on the border, complained at Nov. 8’s meeting of a surge in telecom fraudsters in Laukkai last year. He claimed numerous hotels had been built without junta permission in the town and were operating illegal businesses including online scams. The regime had been too busy combating the COVID-19 pandemic and the armed revolt to focus on Laukkai, said the junta boss, indirectly pointing the finger of blame at Myint Swe.
The MNDAA is a member of the tripartite Brotherhood Alliance that has besieged Laukkai.
Brig-General Tun Tun Myint’s appointment as the acting chair of the Kokang SAZ administrative body came on day 20 of the Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027, launched on October 27.
Tun Tun Myint was promoted to brigadier general after serving as deputy commander of the regional operations command based in Laukkai in 2020. He was then a colonel. He was born in Kunlong, a strategic town seized by the Brotherhood Alliance on November 12 after two weeks of fighting.
Following his appointment, the Kokang SAZ administrative body issued warrants for the arrest of Ming Xuechang, a USDP lawmaker for Konkyan Township, and his four family members, in a move apparently intended to distance itself from the Ming family. Beijing had earlier issued warrants for the family’s arrest, accusing them of running online scam syndicates.
China also detained 11 ethnic Kokang businessmen including leading regional tycoon Maung Maung, who was also a USDP lawmaker in Kokang.
The Brotherhood Alliance has so far seized 147 junta positions in Kokang, including hill-top junta outposts around Laukkai. It has also seized the strategic towns of Kunlong and Chin Shwe Haw.
Min Aung Hlaing has vowed retaliation and declared martial law in eight townships, including Laukkai and Konkyan towns in northern Shan State. He also alleged that the MNDAA is attempting to seize Laukkai to revive the drug industry there.
Government troops fought fierce battles in 2009 and 2015 against the MNDAA, then under the leadership of Peng Jiasheng. The MNDAA is currently led by Peng Jiasheng’s son, Peng Daxun.
