The Oct. 31 deadline for the ethnic cease-fire groups in Burma to disarm has passed quietly in the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) capital of Laiza.
Observers are focused now on the ongoing KIO-junta negotiations.
After the junta rejected all nine negotiation proposals submitted by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the KIO has changed its negotiation tactics.
The car came to an abrupt stop. "Get out," the driver said. My friend and partner in journalism Tim Patterson and I stumbled in the moonless night through an uneven, bulldozed field toward the sound of a river. When we reached the river, we crossed a creaky bamboo footbridge and scrambled up a loose-dirt hill to an older SUV with its lights off.
"Welcome to Free Kachin," our contact said, smiling broadly.
The car came to an abrupt stop. "Get out," the driver said.
My friend and partner in journalism Tim Patterson and I stumbled in the moonless night through an uneven, bulldozed field toward the sound of a river. When we reached the river, we crossed a creaky bamboo footbridge and scrambled up a loose-dirt hill to an older SUV with its lights off.
"Welcome to Free Kachin," our contact said, smiling broadly.
Tim Patterson, for the Pulitzer Center (Photo by Ryan Libre)
In the north of Myanmar the Kachin people have been struggling for autonomy for generations.
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In the north of Myanmar the Kachin people have been struggling for autonomy for generations.
The path of the pen or the path of the sword? Young Kachin in northern Burma are preparing and learning on both fronts.
The question dates back to antiquity, but recently it has come to life here in Kachin State where the Kachin have struggled for autonomy for generations.
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) fought an armed insurgency for more than 30 years. Despite being out-numbered and out-armed, the KIA was never fully defeated, but they were not able to win full autonomy for the Kachin people.
"My generation thinks there will be a war," says a 22-year-old cadet in the Kachin Independence Army, one of several armed groups that struggle for political autonomy on the frontiers of Myanmar.
His AK-47 slung loosely over his shoulder, the cadet qualifies his prediction, perhaps in deference to the officers who listen as he speaks.
"We don´t know what the leadership will decide," he says. "We will follow their orders."
A band of rebels has spent five decades struggling against the oppressive military regime.
In a rare outing from the Rangoon home in which she is imprisoned, democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with U.N. special envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari on Monday to discuss the possibility of political reform in her country.
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