By LAWI WENG – The New Mon State Party (NMSP), an ethnic armed group in the southern part of Burma, has claimed that they are contemplating the way in which they will help the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) since the military junta launched major offensives against SSA-N last week.
An executive member of NMSP, who wishes to remain anonymous, said, “We suffer the same as the SSA-N even though we have not been attacked yet.
Explaining the similarities between both the Shan and the Mon, in their fight for autonomy, he said, “We are thinking about how to help them as we have the same life and the same goal and the same fate,” he said.
SSA-N is a former ceasefire group, similar to the NMSP, though the SSA-N joined in a ceasefire agreement with the junta in September of 1989. SSA-N is also a member of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) together with the Kachin Independence Organization, the Karen National Union (KNU), the Karenni National Progressive Party, and the NMSP.
This NMSP executive member refused to provide details on how the NMSP will support SSA-N by saying, “it is not good to say what to do in the military.”
“If one organization was destroyed, it would affect to us. We need to have cooperation in order to go the same goal,” he said.
The junta launched their first military offensive at the SSA-N last week.
The junta has made a point to target the different armed ethnic groups who refused to join, attacking Kokang, an armed ethnic group in northern Burma in June 2009.
The NMSP leaders believed that the junta troops will not target them in the mean time as the junta does not want to face two battlefronts on opposite ends, while the junta currently attacks the KNU. NMSP leaders do believe that the junta will attack them in the future, though.
In the past, armed ethnic groups did not aid each other during attacks by the military junta. Before the national elections however, the UNFC joined together as allies, promising to assist whichever group is attacked by the Burmese army.
