Thaksin asked to choose between Wa and Shan

Thaksin asked to choose between Wa and Shan

In reply to Prime Minister Thaksin's assurance that peace would return when the border areas came under Burma Army's full control, a prominent Shan adviser to Col Yawdserk's Shan State Army, countered it would amount to opting for the Wa dominance along the Thai frontier. 

"With the Burmese army comes the Wa," said Sao Yawdtai to S.H.A.N. this morning. "With the Wa come drugs and all the other problems that our Thai cousins have been fighting against. I therefore hope His Excellency (Thaksin) makes a sensible choice between us and the Wa." 

The combined Burmese-Wa forces have been launching an offensive to recapture Pang Maisoong, former resistance stronghold that had been seized by the Shan rebels since 20 May. 

Sao Yawdtai however rejected charges that Shans were serving as Thai buffer to Rangoon. "That's an insult to the Shans. Thais and Shans are kinfolks. We've been living side by side together since time immemorial," he explained. "We are not fighting against Rangoon at Bangkok's dictates. It's because our people have been violated and all our recourses to peaceful resolutions have been turned down." 

The Shans withdrew from Base 2, located east of Pang Maisoong, on Sunday (16 June). Fighting however has not stopped and the SSA still manages to hold the former headquarters of the late General Kawnzoeng (1926-1991). 

The Shans also appear to have inflicted heavy casualties. A trader from Tachilek told S.H.A.N. yesterday (17 June), a Wa friend who recently returned from the front said out of the original 150 men from his battalion, only 26 remained unscathed. 

Another source from Nakawngmu, Mongton Township, opposite Chiangmai's Chiangdao District, also said at least 50 Wa fighters had deserted." "That's quite significant," he commented. "Because Wa were never known to have backed down from any fight." 

Wa, reputed as a warrior-race, had in the past fought for the Kuomintang forces against Communist China and still later, for the Communist Party of Burma against Rangoon.