Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Individual Documents
Sub-title:
The United Wa State Party (UWSP) will cooperate with the Union Election Commission (UEC) to ensure the success of the November elections in the four townships in the Wa self-administered division, a party spokesperson said.
Description:
"A UEC delegation led by its chair, U Hla Thein, came to Panghsang, the capital of the Wa region in Shan State, to meet with Wa leaders on the elections last week, said U Nyi Rang, UWSP spokesperson.
“In the poll, we will help the UEC, though we cannot say yet whether voting would be held in the four townships. We need to hold more talks,” he added.
Of the six townships in the Wa region, four are controlled by the UWSP and two by the government. In the 2010 and 2015 general elections, the UEC did not hold voting in the Wa-controlled townships of Pangwaing, Mine Maw, Panghsang and Narhpan.
U Hla Thein urged the leaders of the Wa state government to work together with the poll body in the 2020 elections. He talked about the right to vote and to elect poll representatives.
The UWSP submitted eight demands to the UEC, but U Nyi Rang refused to provide details.
Xiao Mingliang, vice chair of the UWSP, said the Wa government hopes Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would visit the Wa region, which has often invited the State Counsellor to visit..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-03-04
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
more
Description:
"The United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmar’s largest ethnic armed organization, on Wednesday confirmed it had acquired a helicopter, making the northeast-based rebel group the nation’s first to possess such an aircraft.
A UWSA spokesman denied speculation that the group’s latest acquisition—which was reportedly ordered and delivered from China—would be used for military purposes, insisting it is only for “personal and leisure use.”
U Nyi Rang, the UWSA’s liaison officer, confirmed that the UWSA had acquired a four-seater helicopter, adding that it was purchased late last year and is already in use.
It is the first time the UWSA has bought a private helicopter, he added.
“It is just for personal use and for leisure, and is not for any other purpose,” he told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, saying rumors about the UWSA owning military helicopters were false.
The UWSA, which has an estimated 30,000 soldiers and 20,000 auxiliary troops, showcased its sophisticated arsenal of military hardware during a parade in April last year. U Nyi Rang declined to divulge the price of the helicopter, where it was bought, or whether the group paid tax on the purchase to the government.
However, local news sources have reported the aircraft is Chinese made and was purchased in September 2019.
Depending on the model, the price tag for a four-seater private helicopter is in the range of US$250,000–$1,700,000 (about 360 million-2.5 billion kyats), according to two finance and aviation websites..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2020-02-26
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-27
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Wa (cultural, political, economic), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
more
Description:
"The United Wa State Party (UWSP) says that they expect the solution for resolving fighting between government troops and northern Myanmar based ethnic armed forces will be found during Chinese President Xi’s visit to Myanmar.
The statement issued by UWSP/UWSA (United Wa State Army) welcomes President Xi’s visit to Myanmar and added that peace in northern Myanmar was concerned with Sino-Myanmar relations and development among people (with China).
The statement suggests that China plays a crucial role in restoring peace in Myanmar especially a ceasefire with ethnic armed groups in the Northern Alliance..."
Source/publisher:
"Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-01-16
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-16
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
China-Burma relations, Wa (cultural, political, economic), Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
Language:
more
Description:
"Two ethnic armed groups with strong militaries—the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA)—have both said they welcome the Myanmar government’s move to defend itself against charges of alleged genocide against the Rohingya in 2017 at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
“We welcome [the government’s] courage, embracing responsibility and accountability by going to defend itself instead of issuing denials,” said UWSA liaison officer U Nyi Rang. “The truth cannot be hidden. The court will decide whether there are genocidal crimes or not. We do not support any circumstances which could cause more confusion.”
State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is preparing to travel to the UN’s court in The Hague to lead Myanmar’s legal defense team against a lawsuit filed by The Gambia accusing Myanmar of genocide. The Gambia filed the suit on behalf of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Nov. 11 and the ICJ will hold the first public hearings in the case on Dec. 10-12.
The Office of the State Counselor formed the Special Unit on International Criminal Justice on Nov. 26. The unit includes two military officers, one of whom is reportedly an expert on international law..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2019-12-02
Date of entry/update:
2019-12-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
more
Description:
"n the northern part of Myanmar next to the Chinese border, there lies a Wa state where the way of life resembles that across the border in China. The yuan has become the main currency, Chinese language is widely spoken, and mobile telephones are connected to Chinese networks. It is also where the United Wa State Party (UWSA), the largest non-state armed group in the country, is located. This April marked the 30th anniversary of an internal coup within the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) by the Wa, with a three-day military parade. During the parade, Bao Youxiang, the President of Wa, even vowed, “We will not hesitate to sacrifice our lives and achieve the goal of being an autonomous state.”
This article will discuss the reasons behind such a phenomenon in Wa state, the way and the extent of China’s intervention, and also the challenges faced by the Myanmar government..."
Source/publisher:
"Eurasia Review"
Date of publication:
2019-11-23
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
more
Description:
"Nestled in the hills of eastern Shan State near the China-Myanmar border, Panghsang is the capital of the Wa Region, a self-administered area approved by Myanmar’s Constitution. It is home to Myanmar’s largest and best-equipped ethnic armed group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), with an estimated 30,000 troops and 10,000 auxiliary members, according to Myanmar Peace Monitor.
In April, the army celebrated the 30th anniversary of its foundation in Panghsang in grand scale, with columns of troops paraded in the city square. Founded in 1989, the UWSA signed a ceasefire with Myanmar’s then-military government—the State Law and Order Restoration Council—in the same year after splitting from the Communist Party of Burma. It also founded the United Wa State Party and the Wa State People’s Government while pressing the Union government to recognize their region as a state of Myanmar.
Despite its location on the Myanmar side of the border, on a stroll around the town you could believe you’re in China. On the streets of Panghsang, most people communicate in Mandarin. Chinese characters, along with Myanmar and Wa translations are emblazoned on shopfronts. Yuan is the currency of choice here. For a good cell phone signal, you’d better connect with a Chinese network. Street signs are written in Myanmar and Chinese. Stores are stocked with goods imported from China..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2019-05-20
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-06
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Shan State, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Wa (cultural, political, economic), China-Burma relations
Language:
more
Topic:
Drug trafficking, United Wa State Army
Topic:
Drug trafficking, United Wa State Army
Description:
"Two armed men from an illegal drug trafficking gang were killed and eight others were arrested by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) on Tuesday after fighting briefly broke out between the two groups in eastern Shan State near the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the UWSA.
UWSA spokesperson Nyi Rang told The Irrawaddy that one of the eight detainees was wounded and that some people escaped during the clash and crossed the border into Thailand.
The clash broke out at a village in Hwe Aw Township after the UWSA seized 1.8 million methamphetamine tablets and one gun.
The UWSA received a tip last month that a group of illegal drug traffickers was using its territory to transport methamphetamine tablets into Thailand. The UWSA tightened security along the border with Thailand starting on Sept. 10.
On Tuesday, the UWSA learned that a group had entered into its territory. When UWSA forces attempted to stop and search the group, the traffickers allegedly attacked the UWSA members..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2019-10-02
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
more
Sub-title:
The far east of Myanmar is run by the country's largest rebel army which unilaterally declared it Wa State.
Description:
"In Myanmar, it has been almost four years since a so-called Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement was signed between ethnic rebel armies and the government.
But there is still no sign of lasting peace.
Some groups are refusing to sign the document, including what is regarded as East Asia’s largest non-state army, which runs an isolated state on the borders with China and Thailand.
Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay takes a rare look at the secretive Wa State..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication:
2019-09-29
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-29
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Shan State, Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
more
Topic:
CHINA, MYANMAR, UNITED WA STATE ARMY, NATIONAL CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT, FPNCC
Sub-title:
China-backed ethnic army is under pressure to disarm but tells Asia Times ‘if we don’t have weapons, we have nothing’
Topic:
CHINA, MYANMAR, UNITED WA STATE ARMY, NATIONAL CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT, FPNCC
Description:
"Shops, hotels and restaurants in Panghsang, the unofficial capital of Myanmar’s northeastern area controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), display signs in three languages: Wa, Chinese and Bamar.
But while Wa, Chinese and other ethnic dialects are widely spoken in the city, very few residents can speak or read, Bamar. Other social and political influences from the country’s largest ethnic group are also largely non-existent.
The UWSA and its political wing, the United Wa State Party (UWSP), have what the country’s many ethnic armed organizations crave: an autonomous region with no interference from central authorities, armed forces equipped with sophisticated weapons and, most significantly, bilateral ceasefire agreements with the Myanmar military, one of which has held firm for three decades.
Now, however, the UWSA is under pressure to also sign the government’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), an initiative launched by the previous military regime that the current elected administration has made a pre-condition for political talks on the fractious nation’s future as a unitary state or federal union.
“The government wants us to give up our weapons, but we can do that only when a political agreement has been reached, and when there is peace in the whole country. Only then, not now,” said Zhao Guoan, a member of the UWSP’s politburo’s standing committee tasked with handling foreign affairs, in an Asia Times interview..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication:
2019-09-18
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-19
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict in Shan State - ceasefires and ceasefire talks, Wa (cultural, political, economic), Shan State
Language:
more
Description:
"It has a standing army of 25,000, manufactures its own guns and conscripts at least one member of each household -- meet the United Wa State Army: Communist, reclusive, China-backed rebels determined to protect their supremacy over Myanmar's badland border zone.
Thousands of soldiers, including a company of women and a sniper platoon in combat webbing, marched early Wednesday alongside armoured vehicles in Panghsang, the capital of the ethnic Wa, which borders China's Yunnan province.It was a show of force marking 30 years since Communist Wa rebels prodded Myanmar into a ceasefire leading to the establishment of special, semi-autonomous zone, marshalled by Bao Youxiang, chief of one of the world's largest non-state armies.
This week the normally inscrutable Wa extended a rare invite to foreign media to their isolated territory to show off their military muscle and deliver a defiant message of self-sufficiency within Myanmar's borders..."
Source/publisher:
"Bangkok Post" via AFP
Date of publication:
2019-04-17
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-15
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Shan State, Wa (cultural, political, economic), Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies)
Language:
more
Topic:
MYANMAR, UNITED WA STATE ARMY, NATIONAL CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT, BAO YOUXIANG
Sub-title:
UWSA leader Bao Youxiang tells Asia Times in an exclusive interview why the world’s arguably largest and best-equipped non-state army is reluctant to lay down its guns
Topic:
MYANMAR, UNITED WA STATE ARMY, NATIONAL CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT, BAO YOUXIANG
Description:
"Columns of soldiers goose-stepped in perfect formation on a parade ground. Trucks towed heavy weaponry while armored fighting vehicles drove past a grandstand of observers.
The ceremonial show of force along the Myanmar-Chinese border in mid-April was similar to military muscle-flexing in many places in the world. But this was no normal fighting force; it was the United Wa State Army (UWSA), arguably the largest and best-equipped non-state army worldwide.
The ethnic Wa were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the founding of their own military force in what effectively amounts to a self-governing buffer state between Myanmar and China. Myanmar security authorities prevented foreign journalists from attending the celebrations at the UWSA’s Pangkham headquarters, which was attended by thousands of tribesman from both sides of the China-Myanmar border.
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times"
Date of publication:
2019-04-17
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict in Shan State - ceasefires and ceasefire talks, Shan State, Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Myanmar’s United Wa State Army, a militia long known for drug trafficking, has emerged as the core of resistance to the government’s peace plan
Description:
"After nearly six years of fruitless peace talks in Myanmar, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the country’s largest and most heavily armed ethnic force, has asserted its until now dormant power over the process. Behind the UWSA looms China’s security services, a key but often unspoken actor in Myanmar’s northern ethnic wars.
Together they have outmaneuvered and marginalized the Western governments, peace promotion outfits and think tanks that have been intimately involved in Myanmar’s peace process since it was first launched by then President Thein Sein in 2011 and since sustained by Aung San Suu Kyi’s nearly one-year-old elected National League for Democracy party-led government.
Western government-sponsored seminars, workshops and “capacity-building” peace projects have been overshadowed in the past year by the UWSA’s more concrete and impactful initiatives. Those have included meetings held at its Panghsang headquarters in the autonomous area it controls near the Chinese border, where ethnic armed groups have agreed on common strategies to deal with Myanmar’s central, civil and military authorities. The UWSA has also impacted the battlefield by providing its ethnic allies with munitions to fight against the Myanmar army..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times"
Date of publication:
2017-02-28
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict in Shan State - ceasefires and ceasefire talks, Shan State, Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
more
Description:
"Two Wa political parties have asked the government to allow their people to move freely in northern Shan State after authorities blocked members of the ethnic group from traveling to Kyaingtong and Tachilek.
Ethnic Wa in the two major towns have also been stopped from returning to their homes near Pangsang Township. Meanwhile, ethnic Wa students who have just finished exams at government schools have also been prevented from going back to their homelands, according to a joint statement released by the Wa Democracy Party and the Wa National Unity Party.
?Blocking them from traveling benefits no one. We are asking the government to let our civilians travel,” said Nyi Palote, chairman of the Wa National Unity Party..."
Source/publisher:
Reuters via "The Irrawaddy"
Date of publication:
2018-02-23
Date of entry/update:
2018-02-24
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Wa (cultural, political, economic), Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies)
Language:
more
Description:
In den Grenzregionen des Shan State im Nordosten Burmas, die seit 1989 unter der Kontrolle der United Wa State Army (UWSA) ist, werden 65 Prozent des gesamten Opiums des Landes angebaut. Trotz der Bereitschaft der Landwirte konnten wegen minderwertiger Bodenbeschaffenheit und klimatischer Bedingungen bisher noch keine Erfolg versprechenden Alternativen zum Opiumanbau realisiert werden. Seit dem kompletten Bann im Jahre 2005 werden tiefgreifende humanitäre Konsequenzen für die Region in Form von Menschenhandel, Armut und mangelnder Sicherheit befürchtet.
keywords: ethnic minorities, Wa, Shan State, opium production, opium trafficking, resettlement
Michael Tröster
Source/publisher:
Asienhaus Focus Asien Nr. 26; S. 45-55
Date of publication:
2005-12-29
Date of entry/update:
2006-03-20
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burma: drug production and trafficking, Burma: Internal displacement/forced migration of several ethnic groups., Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
Deutsch, German
more
Description:
THE PROPOSAL:
"We, the leadership of the United WA State Party (UWSP) and the United WA State Army (UWSA) propose to anyone who might be interested, that we eradicate opium growing and stop the production of heroin in all the territory controlled by the WA. This we are willing to do. It can be done very quickly. I have full authority to speak for the United WA State Party and the United WA State Army which has ample power to carry out this proposal...
THE PLEA"
The plea is a necessary part of the proposal. We need food for our people while we develop substitute crops. Our people are already so poor that to take away opium production without giving them food would mean starvation. Beyond that, we need help of every appropriate kind to make the transition from an opium-based economy to a new agricultural economy..."
Ta Saw Lu
Source/publisher:
United Wa State Party (UWSP) Foreign Affairs Department
Date of publication:
1993-00-00
Date of entry/update:
2003-07-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burma: drug production and trafficking, Wa (cultural, political, economic), Burma: opium and heroin
Language:
English
Format :
htm
Size:
41.91 KB
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Beginning 1999 up to March this year (2002), hundreds of thousands of Wa people, who had
impressed British travelers as ?exceedingly well-behaved, industrious, and estimable race?, were
forcibly moved to border areas adjacent Thailand. The report is about them, why and how they were
uprooted, what happened to the native people where the Wa were forced to resettle and what the
reader can do to help both categories of victims..."
Important, timely and well-produced
document, complete with maps and photos.
Source/publisher:
Lahu National Development Organization
Date of publication:
2002-04-00
Date of entry/update:
2003-06-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Wa (cultural, political, economic), Internal displacement/forced migration of Shan. Palaung and Wa villagers, Forced relocation of Palaung, Shan and Wa, Thailand-Burma relations
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
2.55 MB
Local URL:
more