Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing met with officials from the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) on Sunday in an apparent bid to staunch the flow of arms to resistance groups through their eastern Shan State territory.
The NDAA is one of the few ethnic armed organizations that are not fighting the junta and has maintained a ceasefire with Myanmar’s various military regimes for more than three decades.
Its territory of Mong La borders both China and Laos.
The NDAA delegation paid a call on Min Aung Hlaing while he was visiting Kengtung, where the regime’s Triangle Region Command is based.
Junta media merely said that Min Aung Hlaing explained his preparations for elections scheduled in December, and promised “assistance” to improve transportation infrastructure and healthcare services in Mong La.
But political observers say the junta boss is likely to have asked the NDAA in return to ensure that no weapons and ammunition from Laos pass through Mong La to rebel ethnic armed organizations and other resistance groups.
“There are channels through which weapons and ammunition from ordnance factories in Laos are supplied to armed groups like the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the NDAA,” an ethnic affairs expert said. “The junta boss will have expressed concerns that they reach resistance groups.”
Min Aung Hlaing called NDAA leaders “old friends” and stressed the need to promote the official language of Burmese and its literature in Mong La.
“All the national brethren of the country must serve the national interest in harmony and unison,” he added.
The NDAA’s deputy leader, San Pae, duly told Min Aung Hlaing that the group has “never” hosted any other armed or political group in Mong La, which is known as “Special Region 4” since the 1989 ceasefire.
San Pae stressed the NDAA’s three-decade-long commitment to the “Three Main National Causes” that form the backbone of the Myanmar military’s ideology. He vowed to collaborate with the junta to ensure regional and national stability.
The Three Main Causes are non-disintegration of the union; non-disintegration of national solidarity; and perpetuation of sovereignty.
But observers say the NDAA was probably just trying to appease the junta boss to avoid a possible military confrontation and make sure the promised assistance is forthcoming.
In fact, the NDAA played host to the entire rebel Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) after the Myanmar military captured its territory of Kokang in northern Shan State in 2009, the expert pointed out.
“There the MNDAA built up funds and weaponry and also underwent military training, and finally recaptured Kokang,” he said. “Had the NDAA cooperated with the Myanmar military, the MNDAA would no longer exist today.”
Then-NDAA leader Sai Leun was the son-in-law of Peng Jiasheng, the leader of the MNDAA.
Both Sai Leun and Peng have since died, but the respective leadership has gone to their sons.
NDAA founder Sai Leun was born on the Chinese island of Hainan. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, he fled to what is now Myanmar and joined the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) but later broke away. Mong La residents mainly speak Chinese.
Their enclave is sandwiched between northern and southern Wa State, which are under the control of the UWSA, the most powerful and well-equipped of the EAOs. Mong La’s economy is in a poor state, leaving its leadership open to persuasion from all sides.
