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Text Box: practise upland rice cultivation and rotational agricultural farming systems. Before and during British colonization, these ethnic minorities were largely ruled by their local leaders, and maintained a relative independence from the successive traditional kingdoms in the plains. Negotiations for independence from British rule started after World War II. The Burman nationalists, led by Aung San, wanted independence from the British as soon as possible. Ethnic minority leaders on the other hand, were concerned about the right of self-determination, and wanted to establish a system that would give them equal rights and protect them against domination by the Burman majority. Some ethnic groups wanted independent states for themselves. In 1947, the Panglong agreement was signed between Aung San and Shan, Kachin and Chin representatives, which formed the basis for a future Union of Burma. However, this agreement was inconsistent about the rights of different ethnic minority groups, and many ethnic groups were not represented. All these factors ultimately led to civil war soon after the declaration of independence in January 1948, with a communist insurrection and army mutinies. The Karen National Union (KNU), created in 1947 out of Karen nationalist organisations dating back to colonial time, took up arms in January 1949. Other ethnic groups came up in revolt at the same time. These included Karenni and Mon nationalists, who later formed the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), and the New Mon State Party (NMSP) respectively. A Pao group in Shan State and Rakhine and Muslim nationalists in Arakan (Rakhine) State also took up arms. In 1962, General Ne Win took power from the U Nu government in a military coup, and created a one-party state led by the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). The constitution was abrogated, all opposition put behind bars, and people’s attempts to organise themselves were severely repressed. All large industries and business enterprises were nationalised under the ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’, the BSPP’s official doctrine. Burma was to become self-sufficient, and the generals isolated the country from the outside world. By this time, the civil war had already spread to Kachin and Shan State, where the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Shan State Army (SSA) had started armed uprisings. Both of them were able to expand quickly, fuelled by the growing dissatisfaction among the Kachin and Shan population over the unequal position of ethnic minorities in the Union of Burma. By the mid-1970s, the Burmese army had succeeded in pushing back the armed opposition groups from the plains and the Irrawaddy Delta and the Pegu Yomas into the hills and mountains of the border regions, using the infamous ‘Four-Cuts’ campaign. This campaign is aimed at cutting the four links between the insurgents and the civilian population: food, finance, intelligence and recruits. The ‘Four Cuts’ strategy is directly targeted at the civilian population, which has been subject to harsh treatment and forced relocations to special sites near Burma Army camps. After Ne Win came to power, relations with China deteriorated. These came to an absolute low after anti-Chinese riots in 1967, which China suspected were instigated or at least stimulated by the BSPP. As a result, China changed its initial careful policy towards the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), which had just lost its main base areas in central Burma, into an all-out support. The CPB launched a successful invasion from Chinese territory into northern Shan State and quickly became the strongest insurgent army in Burma (Lintner, 1990). It forged a number of alliances with ethnic minority armed groups, including