More than 100 villagers fled their homes in Myanmar’s northern Shan state into China as fighting broke out between ethnic the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army-South (RCSS/SSA-S) and government forces, reliable sources said.
A military spokesman said the clash, which wounded one civilian, began Tuesday when government troops seized three truckloads of illegally logged timber, though a spokesman for the RCSS/SSA-S said the army attacked them without provocation.
Tuesday’s fighting broke out in the Nantsan Gohtung village in northern Shan State’s Muse township, and was likely sparked when government troops attempted to arrest timber traffickers, a district administrator told this writer.
Fighting has intensified in Arakan’s and also in Kachin state in the rundown to the Myanmar parliament polls due on November 18 this year.
The military may be trying to block any revival of the Panglong 2 process started by Aung Saan Suu Kyi modelled after her father Marshal Aung Saan’s first Panglong dialogue with ethnic groups to create a proper Burmese federation.