AFP

YANGON

ETHNIC rebels in the far north of Myanmar have urged the United Nations to send observers to monitor fighting with government troops, a Kachin Independence Organisation official said on Thursday. In a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon, emailed, the KIO ‘implored’ observers to visit the conflict zone where fighting has raged since a ceasefire collapsed last year.

The Kachin accuse Myanmar’s military of targeting civilians as well as their fighters. Speaking from Thailand, the KIO’s deputy head of foreign affairs, Colonel James Lum Dau, confirmed the request for UN monitors. “It’s been 11 months and we want UN observers to go to see the reality of what’s happening there,” he said.

Fighting between the KIO’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army and the government military has raged since June, 2011, after 17 years of peace. It has forced at least 50,000 people to flee their homes and heaped international pressure on the reformist government of President Thein Sein to end the conflict.

In recent weeks Kachin forces have said the army has massed around their stronghold of Laiza in preparation for a major assault, a claim denied by a government official on Thursday.

“It was not true that the Myanmar side is targeting Laiza and has increased fighting there. We will not seize Laiza... we are negotiating to solve this politically,” the official, who requested anonymity, said.

The letter to Ban, signed by KIO central committee chairman Zawng Hra, warned that it is now “crucial for the UN to intervene before the conflict becomes even wider and more complex” and called for observers to be sent to Kachin villages and refugee camps.