Word: burma
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China's border with Burma is a porous demarcation, with everything from tropical timber and rubies to heroin slipping across with little oversight. But August brought a more unusual Burmese import: thousands of Kokang hill-tribe members fleeing violence in their small enclave in Burma's northeastern Shan state. By late August, the U.N. estimated that some 30,000 refugees had poured across the border into China's Yunnan province, as the Burmese military routed a small rebel force that had laid down its arms for two decades before a cease-fire crumbled in early August...
...with the upcoming election, ethnic groups with standing armies - such as the Kokang, the Kachin, the Karen and the Wa - have been given until October by the junta to refashion themselves as a centrally controlled border force, or forgo the chance to participate in the election. (Read about Burma's ethnic minorities...
...Many of these armed groups have already indicated that they are not interested in giving up their already limited sovereignty in return for participating in an election that few believe will be free or fair. Burma's last electoral exercise, in 1990, ended with the non-ethnic National League for Democracy winning the most seats in parliament, with ethnic-based political parties coming in second and third and the junta-backed party finishing fourth. However, the junta ignored the results and kept its grip on power. "Some analyses say that even a rigged election is O.K., if it leads...
...largely kept out of since the 1989 cease-fire was signed. The initial reason given by the junta for its forays into Kokang territory was that a weapons factory there was being used to churn out illegal narcotics. Several of the ethnic militias in that part of northeastern Burma have financed themselves through the drug trade...
...Kokang originally came from China, first arriving in Burma in the 17th century. Supporters of the Ming emperors, they fled for exile as that Chinese dynasty disintegrated in 1644. After Burma gained independence from the colonial British, Kokang territory was under the control of Burmese communists, who for decades waged an insurgency against the central government and were among the military regime's most persistent foes. "The [Burmese army] hates many ethnic minorities very much," says Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former anti-junta rebel who now lives in exile in Yunnan province. "But they especially hate the Kokang because they...