Is China running guns to rebels in Myanmar (Burma)?

Ethnic Chinese Kokang soldiers stand outside a deserted market in Shan state

Backed by Communist China?

• You can't run down to the local Walmart to pick extra rocket-propelled grenades when you need them.  So the question of the day:  is China running guns into Burma?

(Radio Free Asia)  -  Two Myanmar government soldiers died in a rocket-propelled grenade attack during clashes with armed ethnic Ta’ang rebels in eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, the rebel group said Tuesday, as the authorities beefed up security around the conflict area.

Two government troops were also injured in the brief clash, according to a statement by the Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF) and its army wing, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).

They are the first casualties reported in recent months in the battle between the two sides since the beginning of October, adding to concerns over ongoing fighting between government troops and the Shan State Army-North in Shan state, and other rebels groups in Kayin and Mon states in the southeastern part of the country.

The clashes come in the midst of efforts to forge an elusive nationwide cease-fire accord.

Captain Tar Pan La, the TNLA’s deputy information officer, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that fighting between government troops from a rapid infantry battalion and rebel soldiers took place on Monday at about 5 a.m. in the vicinity of Namkhe village in Loilen district’s Namsang township.

“The villagers heard gunshots from around the area near the village, so they all stayed indoors because they were afraid,” he said. “They did not venture out at all.” 

Myanmar declares state of emergency

(Radio Free Asia)  -  China did not support armed ethnic Kokang soldiers with weapons during clashes that left 47 government forces dead in northeastern Myanmar’s Shan state, rebel military officers said Friday, rejecting assertions by the government.

The fighting erupted on Monday in Laukkai, capital of the Kokang region in the northern part of Shan state near Myanmar’s border with China, between army troops and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) rebel forces who were trying to retake the Kokang self-administered zone, which the MNDAA had controlled until 2009.

“It's just an accusation by the Myanmar government that the Chinese are backing the armed groups with this and that,” Lieutenant Colonel Ta Po Kyaw, secretary of the Ta-Aung Liberation Army, told RFA’s Burmese Service.

“As far as I know the Kokang has had no such direct help or support from China,” he said.

The rebels fought 13 battles with the army between February 9 and 12 in which five military officers and 42 soldiers lost their lives, and more than 70 others were wounded.

Pho Than Juang, spokesperson of the China-backed guerrilla force the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), also said that it was impossible that China had provided weapons to the Kokang rebels.

LASHIO, Myanmar (AFP News) - Myanmar on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in a conflict-torn border region, where ferocious fighting between the army and ethnic rebels has sent thousands fleeing airstrikes and fierce gun battles. 

Sai Shwe Win, an official with the Lashio fire department, said dozens of civilians crammed into a truck came under attack as they tried to escape fighting in the area Tuesday morning, with one killed and another injured.

A monastery in the Shan town of Lashio, some 140km south of the conflict zone, has become a temporary shelter for thousands who have fled the violence, most with little more than a few plastic bags of belongings.

On the Chinese side Beijing says it has stepped up border controls after some 30,000 fled into its Yunnan province.

Streams of civilians continued to arrive late into Tuesday night, bringing reports of continued heavy clashes in the remote hills along the frontier.

One 40-year-old woman, looking haggard and exhausted after fleeing the violence with her three-year-old son on Tuesday, said she had heard gunfire as the family made their escape.

"Every night we were afraid. I trembled with fear," she told AFP, asking not to be named, as she picked through a pile of clothes donated by local people on the monastery compound.

Clashes between the ethnically Chinese Kokang and soldiers have centred on the Kokang settlement of Laukkai, a now near-deserted border town.

The military has launched a counter-offensive against rebels who tried to capture Laukkai in a series of brazen assaults that left nearly 50 soldiers dead.

Dozens have now been killed on both sides in raging street battles as the military moved to retake the town and flush out rebel holdouts, although ascertaining exact casualty figures is difficult.